Using your (US) cell phone in Europe

Want a quick answer?

• Is your phone unlocked (no SIM lock?)
• Does your phone supports an eSIM?

If you answered yes to both of those, just buy a holiday eSIM from Orange here. Then follow the before leaving the US and setting up my eSIM instructions.

If not, you’ll need a different device, or a physical SIM. See the sections below to make the best decision for you.

Sections

The rest of this page covers a bunch of stuff, if you want to skip to something specific, just click it here:

• Will my phone even work in Europe?
• Should I just use my US carrier?
• Should I get a physical SIM or eSIM?
• I want a physical SIM or eSIM, but how do I buy/use it?
• Do I need to do the passport registration?
• How do I know how much of my plan I have used?
• What if I’m staying longer than 14 days?
• I have an iPhone, what happens with my iMessages?
• What should I do before I leave the US?
• What can I do with my European SIM?
• What do I do when I get back to the US?
• I still have questions…

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Will my phone even work in Europe?

Most likely, yes. There certainly are exceptions, but it is unlikely that yours won’t work. If your phone is very old (like 2013 iPhone 5 era old), then maybe it won’t work, but even old phones like that probably will still work in Europe. But…

Is your phone SIM-locked?

If your phone is SIM-locked, and your carrier is unwilling to unlock it, you cannot use that phone with a European SIM. You have to pay your carrier to use that phone in Europe.

This is a BIG consideration when deciding whether or not to buy a European SIM. If you’re not sure if your phone is SIM-locked or not, you can call your carrier to find out for sure.

Typically though, your phone is unlocked if you bought your phone without carrier discount or payment plan.

Or, even if you did buy it with a carrier incentive, if you’ve finished paying for the phone, or have had it longer than 2 years, your carrier will probably be willing to unlock it for you. Contact them to find out if they will.

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Should I just use my US carrier?

That is definitely the easiest option, but typically also the most expensive.

I think this is auto-enabled on most accounts, but if you’ve ever called your carrier and had them disable any “extras” so you didn’t end up with surprise charges (or if you just like to be thorough), you may want to call your carrier to confirm you are ready to go. If you have a family plan, and you do call – I think the setting can often be applied to each individual line in the family, so you can enable one line, but keep it disabled for another if you’d like.

Typically, these plans just let you use your phone as if you were still in the US:

• data usage limits don’t change (even though you’re roaming)
• send and receive text or picture messages go through like normal
• calls to the US are still free (even though it is across an ocean)
• calls to Europe are still expensive (even though you might be calling a shop right in front of you)

The cost, however, is usually $10/day for each day you use it. Your phone will likely try to do something every day, so unless you are confident you’ll be able to keep it offline on “off” days, plan to pay for each day you’re out of the US.

Some carriers have a max-per-month amount. For example, I think at one time for AT&T, it maxed out at $100/month per line. So if you used your phone for 10 days in Europe, you can use it for the other 20 days of the month without any additional charge. You’d have to check with your carrier to be sure though.

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Should I get a physical SIM or eSIM?

Many phones from the last few years (since 2020) support eSIMs as well as physical SIMs. Googling “does insert phone brand and model here support eSIM?” will probably let you know. Or, contact me to help you figure it out.

If your phone doesn’t support eSIM, then a physical SIM is a must. You can wait until you are in Europe to buy it, but with language barrier and tourist traps, I recommend just buying it before your trip.

If your phone does support an eSIM, I recommend just going that route. Then you don’t have to worry about accidentally losing your SIM.

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I want a physical SIM or eSIM, but how do I buy/use it?

Purchase

Whatever SIM you decide on, you can start the process here at Orange’s website. During checkout, you can choose the SIM format that suits you:

The “Orange” references here are the name of the carrier in France that will provide your service in Europe. You can use a different carrier, but this has been the best price-service balance in my opinion.

Activating the SIM in Europe

Activating the SIM will kick-off the 14 days that your SIM will work, so don’t do this unless you’re ready for the clock to start ticking.

Many European SIMs have a PIN to unlock the SIM. This will be different than the PIN that unlocks your phone. Pay attention when your phone is asking for a PIN to see if it is asking for your phone PIN or your SIM PIN. If you enter the wrong SIM PIN too many times, it might block your SIM.

Activating the physical SIM is just inserting the SIM, making sure “airplane mode” is off, and “mobile data” is on.

Activating the eSIM will require you to go in to your phone’s data settings, and activating the eSIM. You can (and should, in my opinion) set the European SIM as the “primary” or “default” SIM for data, phone calls, and texts for the duration of your trip to make sure you don’t accidentally use your US phone number for anything.

You should turn ON “roaming” for your European SIM (physical or eSIM). This will make sure your SIM works when you are in another country besides France.

Other eSIM notes

This should happen automatically when you activate the eSIM, and set it to be the default for data, but for extra certainty, go in to the settings for your US SIM, and confirm “mobile data” and “roaming” are set to off.

As far as I know, every carrier allows you to receive text messages internationally at no charge. This means you may still receive text messages from people back in the US. This is fine, it won’t cost you money, but if you reply – then it probably will.

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Do I need to do the passport registration?

On activation of your SIM (and possibly in the materials that come with the SIM when you buy it), there will be references to “registering” your SIM, and talk about providing your passport information.

This is totally legit, and is a requirement in France (and other European countries) for cell phone service. However, if you aren’t staying longer than 30 days, don’t worry about it.

If you are staying longer than 30 days, then you need to do this. Otherwise, after 30 days, your SIM will stop working until you complete the registration process (which will be harder to do without your data connection).

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How do I know how much of my plan I have used?

If you have an Orange SIM, then anytime you want you can dial #123# , and press “call” to receive info about how long your line is valid, and how much of your minutes, text, and data allowances you have used.

Use this any time you want, and as often as you want.

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What if I’m staying longer than 14 days?

Even if you’re staying longer than the 14 days your SIM purchase works for, you’ll likely still save money by “topping up” your SIM (at topup.orange.com) for another round rather than pay for service from you US carrier.

If your phone is truly your only source of data, you will probably want to make sure you top-up just before your current plan expires to make sure you don’t have an “outage”, but you don’t have to top-up before expiration. If you can find WiFi, you can top-up anytime you want after your phone expires, up to the end of your number validity period (without passport registration, just 30 days from activation – otherwise, probably six months from your last payment).

Using #123# (mentioned above) will help you know when you need to top up, as well as your number validity period.

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I have an iPhone, what happens with my iMessages?

Modern iPhones will likely detect if you remove a SIM card that has a phone number that you linked to iMessages. So if you remove that SIM card, the iPhone will intentionally disconnect iMessages on that device, even if you still have WiFi or data through a new SIM.

If iMessages are important to you, hopefully your iPhone supports eSIM, just go that route and then you’ll be just fine, everything should work great. Just skip the rest of this answer, it doesn’t apply to you.

If you don’t want to pay your US carrier for service in Europe, and you get a physical SIM, your iMessages may stop working. To help try to keep it working, I would at least make sure that in addition to your phone number, your iMessages are also linked to the same email you use for your iCloud account (possible help on that here).

I can’t guarantee it will work though, we were not successful on a trip last year figuring out any way other than to leave the US SIM in place inside the device.

If you can use an eSIM for your data, and just leave the US SIM in place but with “mobile data” turned off for it, then you should be fine.

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What should I do before I leave the US?

Install a “data-style” messaging and voice application

If you already have something that doesn’t depend on cellular service, and can work over WiFi only, that will probably work (but if you’re relying on iMessage for this, see caveats with iMessage).

If you don’t already have something like that, install WhatsApp or Signal, and get it setup before you leave home. These apps both use your US phone number to initially identify you, but after that they use data only, and can do voice and video calls, and text and picture messaging.

If you’re planning to use a European SIM, make sure the phone is SIM-unlocked

If your phone is SIM-locked to your US carrier, you won’t be able to use a European SIM, and any money you spent on the European SIM may end up having been wasted.

More about SIM-locking here.

Think you might need to make calls to US numbers?

If you might want to call US numbers during your trip, and WhatsApp or Signal won’t work as a substitution, then I recommend signing up for Google Voice.

Install and test it out on your phone. It will give you an additional US phone number, but you’ll be able to call US numbers from that app and it will ring peoples regular phones. Their caller ID will show your new Google Voice number though, and not your regular cell phone number.

You’ll also need to make sure to configure Google Voice to make calls over data, and not via the carrier. If you need help with this, let me know.

Tell friends and family how to contact you

If you’re using a European SIM, your US number won’t work for people. Let them know how to reach you, whether this is through email, WhatsApp, Signal, or your Google Voice number.

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What can I do with my European SIM?

This will give you a French phone number. You’re mostly buying data, but you can make phone calls or send text message to anyone anywhere in the world. Depending on where you call or text though, the minutes and messages can be very limited, so don’t count on these for keeping in touch during the trip – probably just useful in emergencies.

You can hotspot or do anything you want with this data. Use it to connect your laptop or other family members to the internet, but remember they have to be in range of your hotspot.

Using an app like WhatsApp or Signal should help you do most of the communicating you want over data instead of using minutes or messages. See the previous question for more about these apps that can help you call over data.

If you run out before the 14-day period is up, you can “top-up” with a fresh plan, and be back in business.

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What do I do when I get back to the US?

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I still have questions…

No problem! Just send me your questions and I’ll be happy to try to help. If you’re reading this, you probably know me and know how to get ahold of me. 🍕

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