The best eSIM for Kenya in 2026. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for Kenya, priced the same day: two weeks unlimited for $60.99, and who wins the month.
Prices read on 28 September 2026. Six travel eSIMs sell a Kenya plan and get most of the traffic for this search. We priced all six on the same day, for a few days in Nairobi, two weeks on safari and the coast, and a month, and read the fine print on unlimited. Kenya is not a cheap country for data, and only three of the six sell anything unlimited there. Here is where each one wins.
Ringo Light: Cheapest unlimited for two weeks. Unlimited data at full speed for 2 weeks at $60.99, one payment, nothing renews. Holafly asks $64.90 for 15 days and Ubigi $88 for 30 GB. For a month, Ubigi is cheaper than us: $99 for 60 GB against our $119.99.
Ubigi: Cheapest month, and the most data for it. 60 GB at full speed for 30 days at $99, then 2 Mbps, on Safaricom, Kenya's largest network. $20.99 less than our 30 days.
Nomad: Cheapest data buckets. 10 GB for 30 days at $37 and 20 GB for 45 days at $59, on Airtel.
Holafly: Cheapest short unlimited. Days, not gigabytes, on Airtel: 3 days at $19.90, a week at $36.50. No daily cap stated for your own phone; sharing limited to 1 GB a day.
Model: Airalo Buckets only for Kenya on its site; Holafly Unlimited days only; Saily Buckets only; Nomad Buckets only; Ubigi Buckets, or a fixed amount then 2 Mbps; Ringo Light Unlimited trips: 2 weeks or 30 days.
Unlimited, 3 days: Airalo No unlimited; 3 GB for 3 days $19; Holafly $19.90; Saily No unlimited; Nomad No unlimited; Ubigi No 3-day plan; Ringo Light No 3-day plan.
Unlimited, 7 days: Airalo No unlimited; 10 GB for 7 days $46; Holafly $36.50; Saily No unlimited; Nomad No unlimited; Ubigi 20 GB, then 2 Mbps, $59; Ringo Light No 7-day plan; 2 weeks $60.99.
Unlimited, 2 weeks: Airalo No unlimited; 10 GB for 15 days $47; Holafly 15 days $64.90; Saily No unlimited; Nomad No unlimited; Ubigi 15 days, 30 GB, then 2 Mbps, $88; Ringo Light $60.99.
Unlimited, 30 days: Airalo No unlimited; Holafly $125.90; Saily No unlimited; Nomad No unlimited; Ubigi 60 GB, then 2 Mbps, $99; Ringo Light $119.99.
10 GB, 30 days: Airalo $48; Holafly No buckets; Saily $47.99; Nomad $37; Ubigi $42; Ringo Light No buckets; 2 weeks starts with 10 GB, $60.99.
20 GB, 30 days: Airalo Not listed on the day; Holafly No buckets; Saily Not listed on the day; Nomad 20 GB for 45 days $59; Ubigi Not listed on the day; Ringo Light No buckets; 30 days starts with 20 GB, $119.99.
Full speed on unlimited: Airalo No unlimited sold; Holafly No daily cap stated; sharing 1 GB a day; Saily No unlimited sold; Nomad No unlimited sold; 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 Safaricom; Holafly Airtel; Saily Not named by Saily; Nomad Airtel; Ubigi Safaricom; 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 Optional, QR code; Saily Yes; Nomad Optional; Ubigi Optional; Ringo Light No, the eSIM arrives by email.
Most Kenya trips run ten days to two weeks: a few nights in the Maasai Mara or Amboseli, then the coast at Diani or Lamu. Only three of the brands we priced sell unlimited data for Kenya on the day we looked. For 15 days, Holafly asks $64.90 and Ubigi $88 for 30 GB at full speed. Ringo Light charges $60.99 for 2 weeks, one payment, nothing renews. Airalo, Saily and Nomad sell buckets only.
For a month the order changes. Ubigi sells 60 GB at full speed for 30 days at $99, then 2 Mbps. Our 30 days costs $119.99, and Holafly's $125.90. Ubigi is $20.99 cheaper than us for the month and gives more data at full speed. If you are staying a month, buy Ubigi.
Read what unlimited means before you pick. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone and limits sharing to 1 GB a day. Ubigi gives 30 GB for 15 days or 60 GB for the month, then 2 Mbps. 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 $60.99 top-up.
That top-up is expensive in Kenya, and the arithmetic should be plain. A heavy two weeks with us costs $121.98, far more than Holafly's 15 days at $64.90 or Ubigi's 30 GB at $88. A heavy month costs $179.98, against $99 at Ubigi and $125.90 at Holafly. If you will stream every night, Holafly for two weeks and Ubigi for a month are the better buys. If you will use under 10 GB in two weeks, which most safari trips do, Ringo Light costs least for unlimited.
For a short trip, Ringo Light sells no 3-day or 7-day plan. Holafly sells 3 days of unlimited at $19.90 and a week at $36.50, both less than our 2 weeks.
Kenya has three mobile networks: Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya. Safaricom is by far the largest and reaches furthest, into the small towns and many of the parks. Airtel covers the cities and main roads well and thins out sooner in the country. Airalo and Ubigi ride Safaricom, Holafly and Nomad Airtel, and Saily does not name its network. For Nairobi, Mombasa and the coast, either works. On safari, signal on every network comes and goes: some camps in the Mara have a good bar, some drives have none, so download maps before you leave town.
Every Kenyan SIM has to be registered to its owner before it works. A visitor shows a passport at a Safaricom or Airtel counter, at the airport in Nairobi or in a shop in town, and waits for the line to be set up. A travel eSIM installs at home before you fly, needs no counter, and connects when you land at Jomo Kenyatta or Moi International.
A local Safaricom line also carries M-Pesa, the mobile money much of Kenya pays with, from matatus to market stalls. A travel data eSIM does not include M-Pesa. Cards work in hotels, lodges, malls and larger restaurants; carry some Kenyan shillings for the rest.
Nomad, $37 for 10 GB. The cheapest 10 GB, for 30 days, and 20 GB for 45 days at $59, on Airtel.
Ubigi, $42 for 10 GB. For 30 days on Safaricom. It also sells 10 GB for a week at $39.
Saily, $47.99 for 10 GB. For 30 days. Its listing is from May; saily.com would not load for us, so check the price at checkout.
Airalo, $48 for 10 GB. For 30 days on Safaricom, as airalo.com showed it on the day. esimdb also lists a second Airalo line for Kenya, called Safarilink, with 10 GB at $35.50 and unlimited days; airalo.com did not show it to us, so it is not in the table. Check the Airalo app before you buy.
Ringo Light, no buckets. Our 2 weeks starts with 10 GB for $60.99 and our 30 days with 20 GB for $119.99. For a fixed amount of data, Nomad, Ubigi, Saily and Airalo are all cheaper in Kenya, Nomad by $23.99 on 10 GB. 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 Kenya it sells two trips, both unlimited data at full speed with no speed cap: 2 weeks at $60.99, starting with 10 GB, and 30 days at $119.99, starting with 20 GB. Each adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged at $60.99. One payment, nothing renews. The eSIM arrives by email in seconds and installs in one scan, no app.
For a month in Kenya our 30 days is not the cheapest: Ubigi sells 60 GB for $99, $20.99 less. For two weeks of unlimited, ours is.
The card to buy it is just below this article.
A few days in Nairobi. Holafly unlimited, 3 days, $19.90. Ringo Light sells no 3 days.
Two weeks, safari and the coast. Ringo Light unlimited, 2 weeks, $60.99, less than any rival charges for two weeks of unlimited. Holafly 15 days at $64.90 if you will stream every evening.
Two weeks, light use, budget first. Nomad 10 GB for 30 days at $37.
A month in Nairobi, working remotely. Ubigi, 60 GB for 30 days at $99 on Safaricom. It is $20.99 cheaper than our 30 days at $119.99.
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 Kenya, and what your phone needs for it. Eight places most first trips include, from the parks of the Rift Valley and the south to the Indian Ocean coast, with the one thing your data does for you at each. Nairobi, Mombasa and the coast towns have good 4G; the parks between them often do not.
Nairobi National Park, Nairobi. Lions, rhinos and giraffes on open plains with the city skyline behind them, a short drive from the centre. Go at opening time in the morning, when the animals are most active. Kenya's parks are cashless: fees are paid online through the eCitizen portal, so have data and a card ready at the gate.
Maasai Mara National Reserve, Narok County. Rolling grassland with lions, cheetahs and elephants all year, and the great wildebeest migration from roughly July to October. Most visitors stay two or three nights in a camp inside or beside the reserve. Signal comes and goes across the Mara. Download the reserve map offline and leave big uploads for the camp.
Amboseli National Park, Kajiado County. Herds of elephants cross the swamps under Kilimanjaro, which stands just over the border in Tanzania. The mountain is clearest at dawn and often hides in cloud by midday. Save the route from Nairobi offline before you set off; signal thins out on the last stretch to the park.
Lake Nakuru National Park, Rift Valley. A soda lake in the Rift Valley, known for its flamingos and a fenced sanctuary with both black and white rhinos. Flamingo numbers rise and fall with the water level, so ask before you go. Signal is patchy on the far side of the lake. Download the park map offline before the game drive.
Hell's Gate National Park, Naivasha. One of the few Kenyan parks you can cycle or walk through, past zebras and giraffes, to a narrow gorge carved in volcanic rock. Walk the gorge with a local guide and avoid it in heavy rain. Share your live location with someone before you ride out; signal near Lake Naivasha is good.
Fort Jesus, Mombasa. A Portuguese fort from the 1590s on the edge of Mombasa Old Town, now a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pair it with a walk through the old town's narrow streets. The Madaraka Express train links Nairobi and Mombasa. Book tickets online ahead of time; seats sell out.
Diani Beach, South coast, near Mombasa. Miles of white sand on the Indian Ocean south of Mombasa, with a reef offshore and colobus monkeys in the trees behind the beach. The calmest, clearest water comes at low tide. Many beach bars, tuk-tuks and small shops ask for M-Pesa, which needs a Kenyan line; carry shillings or a card as well.
Lamu Old Town, Lamu Island. The oldest and best preserved Swahili town in East Africa, a UNESCO site of stone houses and narrow lanes with donkeys and dhows instead of cars. Flights land on Manda Island, a short boat ride across. The lanes are narrow and all alike. Save the old town in offline maps before you start exploring.
We priced Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad, Ubigi and Ringo Light for Kenya 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/kenya-esim?currency=USD (nine packages in dollars on the site, 28 September 2026; esimdb.com/kenya/airalo, updated 28 September 2026, also lists a Safarilink line the site did not show).
Source for Holafly: https://esim.holafly.com/esim-kenya/ (read on the site in dollars, 28 September 2026).
Source for Saily: https://esimdb.com/kenya/saily (listing dated 13 May 2026; saily.com refused the fetch).
Source for Nomad: https://esimdb.com/kenya/nomad (listing dated 21 September 2026; network from nomadesim.com/kenya-esim).
Source for Ubigi: https://esimdb.com/kenya/ubigi (listing dated 17 September 2026; network from cellulardata.ubigi.com/kenya).
For two weeks of unlimited data, Ringo Light at $60.99 on 28 September 2026, against $64.90 for 15 days at Holafly. For a month, Ubigi at $99 for 60 GB, less than our $119.99. For 3 days, Holafly at $19.90. For a 10 GB bucket, Nomad at $37.
Airalo and Ubigi ride Safaricom, Kenya's largest network, and Holafly and Nomad ride Airtel. Saily does not name its network. Both cover Nairobi, Mombasa and the main roads; Safaricom reaches further into the country, and signal comes and goes in the parks on every network.
Every brand has a limit somewhere. Ubigi slows you to 2 Mbps after its fixed full-speed amount. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone and limits sharing to 1 GB a day. Airalo, Saily and Nomad sell no unlimited plan for Kenya on their sites. Ringo Light has no speed cap: it starts with 10 or 20 GB and adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
A local Kenyan SIM, yes: you show your passport at a Safaricom or Airtel counter and wait for the line to be set up. A travel eSIM is installed before you fly and works the moment you land, with no counter. It carries data only, so it does not give you M-Pesa.
Loading the full Ringo experience…