SIM cards for visitors

Get online when you land: where to buy a SIM at the airport, what to bring, and which tourist plans give you the most data for your money.

Step 1
Buy at the airport
After customs in the arrivals hall at Bandaranaike International Airport, Dialog has two airport stores and Airtel has a counter. You can also buy one later at any operator's service centre.
Step 2
Bring your passport
Every SIM is registered to your passport, so bring the original. Airtel also asks you to fill in a short application form.
Step 3
Or get an eSIM
Dialog sells tourist eSIMs, so a phone that supports eSIM can skip the plastic SIM. You still show your passport to activate it.
Step 4
Top up as you go
Reload at shops, online or in the operator's app. On Dialog, dial #456# to see what you have left.

Tourist plans

Dialog's prices include tax. Plans marked Unverified come from travel guides, so confirm them at the counter.

Dialog publishes coverage figures; the others don't, so their ratings come from independent reports.

Dialog

4G + 5G

Widest coverage

4G coverage 98% (company figure, June 2026)

5G coverage 32% (company figure, June 2026)

SLT-Mobitel

Wide coverage

5G licence awarded December 2025; no coverage figure published yet

Airtel

Patchy outside cities

Hutch

No published coverage figure

We couldn't find a coverage figure we could check for this carrier.

Signal is weakest in the hill country around Ella and Nuwara Eliya, and inside national parks such as Yala, where you may have none at all.
Every regular prepaid pack on this site also works on a tourist SIM. Compare them if you need more data or a shorter pack.
Sri Lanka's median mobile download speed is about 57 Mbps, enough for video calls and streaming in most towns.