The best eSIM for China in 2026. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for China, priced on the same day: two weeks unlimited for $18.99, a month for $28.99, which to buy.
Prices read on 28 September 2026. Six travel eSIMs sell a China plan and get most of the traffic for this search. We priced all six on the same day, for a few days in Beijing, two weeks from Beijing to Xi'an and Shanghai by high-speed train, and a month, and read the fine print on unlimited. Here is where each one wins, and what to expect from Google and WhatsApp once you land.
Ringo Light: Cheapest unlimited for two weeks or a month. Unlimited data at full speed for 2 weeks at $18.99 or 30 days at $28.99, one payment each, nothing renews. Airalo asks $49 for 15 days and $69 for the month.
Nomad: Cheapest data buckets. 10 GB for 30 days at $17 and 20 GB at $25, on China Unicom and China Telecom. Ubigi matches the 10 GB at $17.
Airalo: Cheapest 3 days. 3 days of unlimited at $11.50 on China Unicom, 3 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps.
Holafly: China Mobile, and says the blocked apps open. Days, not gigabytes, on China Mobile, the largest network. Its page states WhatsApp, Google and Instagram work without a VPN. $27.50 for a week.
Model: Airalo Buckets or unlimited days; Holafly Unlimited days only; Saily Buckets or unlimited days; Nomad Buckets or unlimited days; Ubigi Buckets, then 2 Mbps; Ringo Light Unlimited trips: 2 weeks or 30 days.
Unlimited, 3 days: Airalo $11.50; Holafly $11.90; Saily No 3-day plan; 5 days $18.99; Nomad $12; Ubigi No 3-day plan; Ringo Light No 3-day plan.
Unlimited, 7 days: Airalo $27; Holafly $27.50; Saily No 7-day plan; 10 days $34.99; Nomad $25; Ubigi 8 days, 5 GB a day, $24; Ringo Light No 7-day plan; 2 weeks $18.99.
Unlimited, 2 weeks: Airalo 15 days $49; Holafly 15 days $50.50; Saily 15 days $48.99; Nomad No 15-day plan; 10 days $33; Ubigi 15 days, 30 GB, then 2 Mbps, $45; Ringo Light $18.99.
Unlimited, 30 days: Airalo $69; Holafly $73.90; Saily $71.99; Nomad No 30-day unlimited; Ubigi 60 GB, then 2 Mbps, $66; Ringo Light $28.99.
10 GB, 30 days: Airalo $26.50; Holafly No buckets; Saily $26.99; Nomad $17; Ubigi $17; Ringo Light No buckets; 2 weeks starts with 10 GB, $18.99.
20 GB, 30 days: Airalo $40; Holafly No buckets; Saily $45.99; Nomad $25; Ubigi 25 GB $33; Ringo Light No buckets; 30 days starts with 20 GB, $28.99.
Full speed on unlimited: Airalo 3 GB a day, then 1 Mbps; Holafly No daily cap stated; sharing 1 GB a day; Saily 5 GB a day, then slowed; Nomad 2 GB a day, then slower; Ubigi A fixed amount, then 2 Mbps; Ringo Light No speed cap; starts with 10 or 20 GB, adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
Networks: Airalo China Unicom; Holafly China Mobile; Saily Not named by Saily; Nomad China Unicom, China Telecom; Ubigi China Telecom; Ringo Light Local partner network.
Renews?: Airalo No; Holafly No; Saily No; Nomad No; Ubigi Monthly plans do; Ringo Light No, one payment; the trip ends when it ends.
App needed: Airalo Yes; Holafly No, QR code; Saily Yes; Nomad Yes; Ubigi Optional; Ringo Light No, the eSIM arrives by email.
A first trip to China is usually two weeks: Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, often with Guilin or Chengdu, all joined by high-speed train. For about two weeks of unlimited, Airalo asks $49, Saily $48.99, Holafly $50.50, and Ubigi $45 for a fixed amount at full speed. For a month, $66 to $73.90. Ringo Light charges $18.99 for 2 weeks and $28.99 for 30 days, one payment each, nothing renews.
Read what unlimited means before you pick. Airalo gives 3 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps. Saily gives 5 GB a day, Nomad 2 GB. Ubigi gives 30 GB for 15 days or 60 GB for the month, then 2 Mbps. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone and limits sharing to 1 GB a day. Ringo Light has no speed cap: the 2 weeks starts with 10 GB and the 30 days with 20 GB, and when you have used 80% we add 10 GB once and charge the $18.99 top-up. A heavy two weeks with us costs $37.98 and a heavy month $47.98, both still under every rival for the same length of trip.
For a short trip, Ringo Light sells no 3-day or 7-day plan. Airalo sells 3 days of unlimited at $11.50, Nomad a week at $25 and Ubigi 8 days with 5 GB a day at $24. Our 2 weeks at $18.99 still costs less than any rival's week.
A Chinese SIM bought at the airport sits behind the Great Firewall: Google, Gmail, Google Maps, WhatsApp, Instagram and most Western news sites do not open on it. A travel eSIM is different in one way that matters. Its data usually leaves the country through the provider's own gateway abroad, so these apps usually open without a VPN. That is the usual case for roaming eSIMs, not a promise from any brand here except Holafly, whose China page states it outright.
Ringo Light's China plan is a travel eSIM on a local partner network, like the others in this table. We have not tested it from inside mainland China ourselves, so we will not promise more than the usual case. If one app matters for your work, keep a VPN installed as a fallback before you fly; the app stores in China will not offer one.
The Chinese apps work on every plan: WeChat, Alipay, Didi, Amap and the 12306 rail app. Link a foreign card to Alipay or WeChat Pay before you land. Most shops, taxis and stalls expect a QR code, not cash.
China has three networks: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. China Mobile is the largest and reaches furthest into the countryside and the west. All three cover the cities, the high-speed rail lines and the places in the guide below. Holafly rides China Mobile, Airalo China Unicom, Ubigi China Telecom, and Nomad lets you switch between Unicom and Telecom. For Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, any of them works.
Nomad, $17 for 10 GB. The cheapest 10 GB, tied with Ubigi, and the cheapest 20 GB at $25, on China Unicom and China Telecom.
Ubigi, $17 for 10 GB. On China Telecom, installed by QR code, no app needed. 25 GB for $33.
Airalo, $26.50 for 10 GB. Its Chinacom plan, 20 GB for $40.
Saily, $26.99 for 10 GB. 20 GB at $45.99. Its listing is from July; saily.com would not load for us.
Ringo Light, no buckets. Our 2 weeks starts with 10 GB for $18.99 and our 30 days with 20 GB for $28.99. For exactly 10 GB, Nomad and Ubigi are $1.99 cheaper and last 30 days; for 20 GB, Nomad is $3.99 cheaper. Buy Ringo Light for unlimited, not for a bucket. We would rather you read that here than at checkout.
Ringo Light is our own data eSIM, sold to fund the full Ringo, one plan that works everywhere with your own number ported onto it. For China it sells two trips, both unlimited data at full speed with no speed cap: 2 weeks at $18.99, starting with 10 GB, and 30 days at $28.99, starting with 20 GB. Each adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged at $18.99. One payment, nothing renews. The eSIM arrives by email in seconds and installs in one scan, no app. Install it before you fly: Gmail may not open on hotel Wi-Fi in China.
The card to buy it is just below this article.
A few days in Beijing. Airalo unlimited, 3 days, $11.50. Ringo Light sells no 3 days.
Two weeks, Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. Ringo Light unlimited, 2 weeks, $18.99, less than any rival charges for a week, let alone two.
Two weeks, light use, budget first. Nomad or Ubigi, 10 GB for 30 days at $17.
A month, working remotely. Ringo Light unlimited, 30 days, $28.99, starting with 20 GB and adding 10 GB once for $18.99. Holafly at $73.90 if you want China Mobile and a written promise on WhatsApp and Google.
You need your own number to keep ringing. None of these travel plans does that. The full Ringo, which Ringo Light funds, ports the number you have.
What to do in China, and what your phone needs for it. Eight places most first trips include, from Beijing to Xi'an, Shanghai, Guilin and Chengdu, with the one thing your data does for you at each. The high-speed trains join most of them, and all have good 4G and 5G.
The Great Wall at Mutianyu, Near Beijing. A restored stretch of wall with watchtowers every few hundred metres, a cable car up and a toboggan down. Quieter than Badaling, best on a clear spring or autumn morning. Google Maps is thin in China. Use Apple Maps or Amap, and book the Didi back to Beijing before the car park empties.
The Forbidden City, Beijing. The imperial palace, courtyard after courtyard of red walls and yellow roofs. See it from inside, then climb Jingshan Park behind it for the view over the roofs. Tickets are sold online only, in advance, against your passport number, and the palace closes on Mondays.
The Terracotta Army, Xi'an. Thousands of clay soldiers, each with a different face, standing in the pits where farmers found them in 1974. Pit 1 is the one on every poster. It is about an hour outside Xi'an. Book the ticket online with your passport, and the high-speed train to Xi'an in the 12306 or Trip.com app.
The Bund and the Pudong skyline, Shanghai. A riverside walk past old banks and trading houses, facing the towers of Pudong across the Huangpu. Go at dusk, when the lights come on. Shanghai runs on QR codes. Link a foreign card to Alipay or WeChat Pay before you arrive, for the metro, taxis and food.
West Lake, Hangzhou. A lake ringed by gardens, causeways and pagodas, with Leifeng Pagoda on the south shore. Under an hour from Shanghai by high-speed train. Walk or cycle the Su causeway. The shared bikes unlock with a scan in Alipay.
The Li River, Guilin and Yangshuo. Karst peaks along a slow river, the view printed on the 20 yuan note. Take the boat from Guilin down to Yangshuo, or a bamboo raft near Xingping. Translation by camera reads the menus in the small places in Yangshuo.
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Hunan. Sandstone pillars rising out of the forest, the landscape that inspired the floating mountains in Avatar. Plan two days: the park is large and the walks are steep. Signal fades on the deep trails. Download the park map offline before you set out.
The giant pandas, Chengdu. The panda breeding base on the north side of the city, with pandas in large wooded enclosures. Go early in the morning, when they are fed and awake; by midday most are asleep. Book the entry online the day before, and call a Didi from your hotel to be there at opening.
We priced Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for China on 28 September 2026, all on the same day, in US dollars. Each rival's price comes from its own website where it showed dollars, otherwise from an esimdb.com listing, and every source and its date is listed below. Ringo Light's prices come from the catalogue our checkout charges.
We compare the trips people actually book: a week, two weeks and a month of unlimited data, and a 10 GB bucket. We read each brand's fair use and speed rules and quote them as the brands state them. We did not run speed tests, so this page makes no speed claims for any brand.
Ringo Light is our own product. We put it in the table on the same terms as everyone else, and where a rival is the better buy the page says so.
Left out: Maya Mobile, we could not read its own prices for this country on the day, so it stays out rather than being guessed.
Source for Airalo: https://www.airalo.com/china-esim?currency=USD (unlimited in dollars and network on the site; buckets from esimdb.com/china/airalo, 23 September 2026).
Source for Holafly: https://esim.holafly.com/esim-china/ (prices, network and the statement on WhatsApp, Google and Instagram from its own page).
Source for Saily: https://esimdb.com/china/saily (listing dated 14 July 2026; saily.com refused the fetch).
Source for Nomad: https://esimdb.com/china/nomad (listing dated 20 September 2026; networks from nomadesim.com/china-esim).
Source for Ubigi: https://esimdb.com/china/ubigi (listing dated 16 September 2026; network from cellulardata.ubigi.com).
For two weeks or a month of unlimited data, Ringo Light: $18.99 for 2 weeks and $28.99 for 30 days on 28 September 2026, against $49 for 15 days and $69 for 30 days at Airalo. For 3 days, Airalo at $11.50. For a 10 GB bucket, Nomad or Ubigi at $17.
Holafly rides China Mobile, Airalo China Unicom, Ubigi China Telecom, and Nomad China Unicom and China Telecom. Saily does not name its network on its listing. All three networks cover the cities and the high-speed rail lines.
Every brand has a limit somewhere. Airalo slows you after 3 GB a day, Saily after 5 GB, Nomad after 2 GB, Ubigi after its fixed full-speed amount. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone. Ringo Light has no speed cap: it starts with 10 or 20 GB and adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
On a Chinese SIM, no. On a travel eSIM, usually yes: roaming data normally leaves the country through the provider's gateway abroad, so these apps open without a VPN. Holafly states this on its China page. We have not tested Ringo Light from inside mainland China, so we say only that this is the usual case for roaming eSIMs. Keep a VPN installed before you fly as a fallback.
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