The best eSIM for the Maldives in 2026. Six eSIM brands for the Maldives priced on the same day: Holafly is cheapest for unlimited, Airalo for 20 GB, and where Ringo Light fits.
Prices read on 28 September 2026. Six travel eSIMs get most of the traffic for this search, and four of them sell a Maldives plan. We priced all six on the same day, for a few days in Malé, a week or two at a resort or on a local island, and a month, and read the fine print on unlimited. In the Maldives we are not the cheapest, and this page says plainly who is.
Ringo Light: Unlimited with no speed cap, one payment, and the only plan that tops itself up. Unlimited data at full speed for 2 weeks at $128.99 or 30 days at $257.99, one payment each, nothing renews. Holafly is cheaper for both: $120.50 for 14 days and $199.50 for 30 days.
Holafly: Cheapest unlimited, for any length. 3 days at $32.90, a week at $53.90, 14 days at $120.50 and 30 days at $199.50, on Dhiraagu. No daily cap stated for your own phone; sharing limited to 1 GB a day.
Airalo: Cheapest 20 GB, and a local number. 20 GB for 30 days at $40 on Dhiraagu, or $45 with a +960 number, calls and texts. No unlimited plan for the Maldives.
Nomad: Most bucket sizes. 1 GB for 7 days at $17, 3 GB at $25, 5 GB at $35 and 10 GB at $55 for 30 days, and 20 GB for 10 days at $45, on Dhiraagu.
Model: Airalo One bucket: 20 GB; Holafly Unlimited days only; Saily One bucket: 1 GB; Nomad Buckets only; Ringo Light Unlimited trips: 2 weeks or 30 days.
Unlimited, 3 days: Airalo No unlimited plan; Holafly $32.90; Saily No unlimited plan; Nomad No unlimited plan; Ringo Light No 3-day plan.
Unlimited, 7 days: Airalo No unlimited plan; Holafly $53.90; Saily No unlimited plan; Nomad No unlimited plan; Ringo Light No 7-day plan; 2 weeks $128.99.
Unlimited, 2 weeks: Airalo No unlimited plan; Holafly 14 days $120.50; 15 days $128.90; Saily No unlimited plan; Nomad No unlimited plan; Ringo Light $128.99.
Unlimited, 30 days: Airalo No unlimited plan; Holafly $199.50; Saily No unlimited plan; Nomad No unlimited plan; Ringo Light $257.99.
10 GB, 30 days: Airalo Not sold; its only size is 20 GB; Holafly No buckets; Saily Not sold; Nomad $55; Ringo Light No buckets; 2 weeks starts with 10 GB, $128.99.
20 GB, 30 days: Airalo $40; $45 with a local number, calls and texts; Holafly No buckets; Saily Not sold; Nomad Not sold for 30 days; 10 days $45; Ringo Light No buckets; 30 days starts with 20 GB, $257.99.
Small buckets: Airalo None; Holafly None; Saily 1 GB, 7 days, $14.99; Nomad 1 GB, 7 days, $17; 3 GB $25 and 5 GB $35, 30 days; Ringo Light None.
Full speed on unlimited: Airalo No unlimited plan; Holafly No daily cap stated; sharing 1 GB a day; Saily No unlimited plan; Nomad No unlimited plan; Ringo Light No speed cap; starts with 10 or 20 GB, adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
Networks: Airalo Dhiraagu, 4G; Holafly Dhiraagu; Saily Not named by Saily; Nomad Dhiraagu, 4G; Ringo Light Local partner network.
Renews?: Airalo No; Holafly No; Saily No; Nomad No; Ringo Light No, one payment; the trip ends when it ends.
App needed: Airalo Yes; Holafly No, QR code; Saily Yes; Nomad Optional; Ringo Light No, the eSIM arrives by email.
Only two of these brands sell unlimited data for the Maldives: Holafly and Ringo Light. Airalo, Saily and Nomad sell buckets only. Holafly charges $32.90 for 3 days, $53.90 for a week, $120.50 for 14 days and $199.50 for 30 days. Ringo Light charges $128.99 for 2 weeks and $257.99 for 30 days, one payment each, nothing renews. Holafly is cheaper for both lengths: by $8.49 for two weeks and by $58.49 for a month. That is the honest answer for this country.
Read what unlimited means before you pick. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone, limits sharing to 1 GB a day, and says that in rare cases a network may slow you for up to a day under fair use. 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 $128.99 top-up. A heavy two weeks with us costs $257.98 and a heavy month $386.98, far above Holafly's $120.50 for 14 days and $199.50 for 30 days.
For a short trip, Ringo Light sells no 3-day or 7-day plan. Holafly sells 3 days of unlimited at $32.90 and a week at $53.90.
The Maldives has two mobile networks, Dhiraagu and Ooredoo. Airalo, Holafly and Nomad all name Dhiraagu; Saily does not name its network. Coverage is good in Malé, on inhabited islands and at most resorts. It gets thinner on small remote islands and on the boat or seaplane between atolls, as Holafly's own page says.
Most resorts include Wi-Fi, so many visitors need mobile data for the transfer, excursions, local islands and the beach rather than for the villa. That is why a bucket is often enough here, and why the cheapest answer for a resort week is usually not unlimited.
Airalo, $40 for 20 GB. Its only Maldives plan: 20 GB for 30 days on Dhiraagu, or $45 with a +960 number, calls and texts. The cheapest way to get a lot of data here.
Nomad, $55 for 10 GB. 30 days on Dhiraagu. Also 20 GB for 10 days at $45, and small packs from 1 GB for 7 days at $17 to 5 GB for 30 days at $35.
Saily, $14.99 for 1 GB. Its only Maldives plan, 7 days. Enough for maps and messages if your resort has Wi-Fi.
Ringo Light, no buckets. Our 2 weeks starts with 10 GB for $128.99 and our 30 days with 20 GB for $257.99. For a fixed amount of data, Airalo, Nomad and Saily are all far cheaper in the Maldives. 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 the Maldives it sells two trips, both unlimited data at full speed with no speed cap: 2 weeks at $128.99, starting with 10 GB, and 30 days at $257.99, starting with 20 GB. Each adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged at $128.99. One payment, nothing renews. The eSIM arrives by email in seconds and installs in one scan, no app.
In the Maldives our prices are high. Holafly is $8.49 cheaper for two weeks and $58.49 cheaper for a month, and Airalo's 20 GB at $40 is enough for most resort weeks. None of our regional trips and not our Global plan covers the Maldives, so there is no cheaper Ringo Light route in. Buy ours if you want unlimited with no speed cap and are happy to pay for it.
The card to buy it is just below this article.
A few days in Malé or a stopover. Saily, 1 GB for 7 days at $14.99. Holafly, 3 days of unlimited at $32.90, if you will use more. Ringo Light sells no 3 days.
A week at a resort with Wi-Fi. Airalo, 20 GB for 30 days at $40, enough for the transfer, excursions and the beach. Holafly, a week of unlimited at $53.90, if you want no limit.
Two weeks on local islands. Holafly unlimited, 14 days, $120.50, $8.49 under Ringo Light's 2 weeks at $128.99. Nomad, 20 GB for 10 days at $45, for a shorter stay.
A month in the Maldives. Holafly unlimited, 30 days, $199.50. Ringo Light's 30 days is $257.99.
You want no speed cap at all. Ringo Light, 2 weeks at $128.99 or 30 days at $257.99, one payment, the eSIM by email.
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 the Maldives, and what your phone needs for it. Eight places most first trips include, from Malé and the airport islands to the atolls of the far north and south, with the one thing your data does for you at each. Coverage is good on inhabited islands and resorts and thinner on the water between them.
Hukuru Miskiy, the Old Friday Mosque, Malé. Built in 1658 from carved coral stone, it is the oldest mosque in the capital. Go in the morning, then walk to the fish market by the harbour. Malé is small but its lanes all look alike. A maps app gets you from the ferry terminal to the mosque and back.
Sinamalé Bridge, Malé to Hulhulé. The 2.1 km bridge opened in 2018 and joins Malé to the airport island and Hulhumalé. You cross it on the bus or taxi from arrivals. Check the airport bus route in maps before you leave arrivals, or message your hotel on WhatsApp for the pickup.
Hulhumalé beach, Hulhumalé, next to the airport. A public beach on a reclaimed island a short ride from the airport. A good first or last night before a seaplane or a late flight. Flight and seaplane times move. Keep your airline app and transfer details on your phone the night before.
Maafushi, South Malé Atoll. A local island with guesthouses, a bikini beach and snorkel trips, reached by speedboat or public ferry from Malé. Outside the bikini beach, local dress rules apply, and local islands serve no alcohol. Speedboat times change with the weather. Confirm the day's boat with your guesthouse on WhatsApp.
A sandbank off Kuramathi, Rasdhoo Atoll. A long strip of white sand running out from the tip of the island into the lagoon. Sandbanks shrink and grow with the tide, so go at low water. Look up the tide times before the boat leaves, and save offline maps: signal thins out on open water.
Baa Atoll, North of Malé. A UNESCO biosphere reserve and home to Hanifaru Bay, where manta rays gather to feed in the southwest monsoon, roughly June to November. Coverage is patchy on the seaplane and boat between atolls. Save your transfer and booking details offline before you leave Malé.
Fuvahmulah, Far south. A single-island atoll with freshwater lakes, the white pebble beach at Thoondu, and dives with tiger sharks off the harbour. Reached by a domestic flight from Malé. Keep your domestic flight booking on your phone and check its time on the day.
Addu Atoll, Southernmost atoll. Islands joined by a link road, the old British base at Gan, and reef and wreck dives. A quieter side of the Maldives, with its own international airport at Gan. The islands are joined by road, so a taxi or a rented bike works. A maps app shows the link road and where it ends.
We priced Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad and Ringo Light for Maldives 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: Ubigi, it does not list the Maldives among its destinations on cellulardata.ubigi.com, and esimdb.com has no Ubigi plan for it, so there is nothing to compare.
Left out: Maya Mobile, we compared the brands that get most of the traffic for this search and did not price Maya Mobile on the day.
Source for Airalo: https://www.airalo.com/maldives-esim?currency=USD (read on the site in dollars, 28 September 2026; esimdb.com/maldives/airalo shows the same two plans, listing dated 28 September 2026).
Source for Holafly: https://esim.holafly.com/esim-maldives/ (dollar prices from the page data, 28 September 2026; the page shows euros).
Source for Saily: https://saily.com/esim-maldives/ (read on the site in dollars, 28 September 2026; the esimdb.com listing, dated 15 May 2026, shows the same single plan).
Source for Nomad: https://www.nomadesim.com/maldives-eSIM (dollar prices and network from the page data, 28 September 2026; matches esimdb.com/maldives/nomad, listing dated 17 September 2026).
Source for Ubigi: https://cellulardata.ubigi.com/data-plans-and-coverage/ubigi-esim-data-plans/ (the Maldives is not among its destinations, 28 September 2026; esimdb.com has no Ubigi listing for the Maldives).
It depends on how much data you need. On 28 September 2026, for unlimited data, Holafly: $32.90 for 3 days, $53.90 for a week, $120.50 for 14 days and $199.50 for 30 days, cheaper than Ringo Light's $128.99 for 2 weeks and $257.99 for 30 days. For a bucket, Airalo's 20 GB for 30 days at $40. For a stopover, Saily's 1 GB for 7 days at $14.99.
Airalo, Holafly and Nomad all use Dhiraagu, one of the two Maldives networks; the other is Ooredoo. Saily does not name its network. Coverage is good in Malé, on inhabited islands and at most resorts, and thinner on the water between atolls.
Only Holafly and Ringo Light sell unlimited here. Holafly states no daily cap for your own phone, limits sharing to 1 GB a day, and says a network may slow you for up to a day under fair use in rare cases. Ringo Light has no speed cap: it starts with 10 or 20 GB and adds 10 GB once at 80%, charged.
Dhiraagu and Ooredoo both sell tourist SIMs at Velana International Airport, and they ask for your passport. A local SIM needs a physical slot and replaces your home SIM while it is in. We did not price them on the day. An eSIM installs before you fly and works the moment you land.
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