2026 · 5 providers · 29 plans · 3 networks
Best eSIM for Costa Rica
Picked by your route, not by hype. Starting with the fact none of these companies puts on the buy button: not one travel eSIM runs on Kölbi.
Do you need an eSIM in Costa Rica? six honest cases
AT&T and Verizon day passes run about $12 a day. A ten-day trip costs more in roaming than a month of any plan on this page. Airalo 10GB at $34 ends that math.
Some T-Mobile plans include Costa Rica data at low speed, which is enough for WhatsApp and not enough for maps loading in a moving car. Test it on arrival, keep a 1GB backup plan for $6.99 in the phone.
The road between Jacó, Uvita and the Osa is where Liberty thins out first. Buy the plan that names its network, then download offline maps before you leave the Central Valley.
Hotspot to a laptop from Santa Teresa or Nosara eats 2 to 3GB a day and lodge wifi collapses at sunset. Take unlimited with a published cap: Airalo's 3GB a day is the only one here you can plan around.
An all-inclusive with strong wifi, one guided tour a day and no rental car needs almost nothing. A $4.99 Yesim 1GB or GigSky's free 100MB trial covers the airport-to-hotel gap and the ride home.
Dial *#06# and look for an EID. No EID, or a carrier-locked handset, and an eSIM cannot help you. Neither can it reach a Kölbi-only valley. Both problems have the same answer: a local prepaid chip.
Your trip three taps, one answer
Answer three questions and we name the plan, with the reason written out. Already know what you want? Jump to the picks.
How long are you going for?
How will you use it? Pick everything that applies.
Costa Rica only?
The picks in short
Airalo
Best for most trips, and the only one that names its network $34.00 10GB / 30 days- Publishes Claro and Liberty as its Costa Rica partners, so you can read a coverage map before paying
- Unlimited option with a printed 3GB/day cap, not a vague fair-use paragraph
- The Hot Telecom+ version adds a real +506 number for a few dollars more
Watch out: Middle of the pack on price. Yesim is $9.65 cheaper for the same 10GB.
Trustpilot 4.1/5 · 41,238 reviews
See Airalo's Costa Rica plansYesim
Cheapest at every size, with an asterisk you should read $24.35 10GB / 30 days- Undercuts everyone at 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20GB
- 5GB for $15.07 is the cheapest useful plan in this comparison
- Rides Claro and Liberty, the same two networks as Airalo
Watch out: Trustpilot suspended its score after removing fake reviews. Cheap, but buy it with open eyes.
⚠ Trustpilot score suspended, see below
See Yesim's Costa Rica plansGigSky
Best for a short first trip and for testing before you commit $21.99 5GB / 30 days- Free 100MB for 7 days, no card, so you can test coverage at your hotel before paying
- Cheapest 1GB at $6.99 and cheapest 5GB from a brand with an intact review record
- Daily 3.5GB plans if you would rather not ration
Watch out: 10GB jumps to $39.99, the worst big-bundle price here. Buy small or buy elsewhere.
Trustpilot 4.3/5 · 6,084 reviews
See GigSky's Costa Rica plansSaily is the fourth option and the one with the best support record of the five (Trustpilot 4.7 from 30,290 reviews). It is also the only brand here that will not say which Costa Rican network it uses, and it charges $36.99 for the 10GB that Airalo sells at $34.00. The full Saily review explains when that trade is still worth it.
Compare every Costa Rica plan side by side
| Provider | Best for | Price anchor | Costa Rican network | Unlimited cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo | Most trips; the only named network | $34.00 / 10GB | Claro + Liberty (published) | 3GB/day, then throttled |
| Yesim ¹ | Lowest price at every size | $24.35 / 10GB | Claro + Liberty | no cap published |
| GigSky | Short trips, free trial first | $21.99 / 5GB | Claro + Liberty | 3.5GB/day plans instead |
| Saily | Best support record | $36.99 / 10GB | not disclosed | no unlimited for Costa Rica |
| Holafly | Truly uncapped phone data | $36.50 / 7 days | Claro + Liberty | no daily cap; hotspot 1GB/day |
| Kölbi (local SIM) | Rural coverage nothing else reaches | ≈$24 / 5GB + 5GB apps | Kölbi (ICE) | n/a, prepaid top-ups |
Prices in USD, checked September 2, 2026, before any promo code. Holafly and Kölbi are listed unlinked because we earn nothing from either; they are here because leaving them out would make the table a lie. ¹ Hover the marker for the Yesim caveat.
The cheapest Costa Rica eSIM at each size one row, one winner
| You need | Cheapest | Price | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1GB | Yesim | $4.99 / 30 days | GigSky $6.99 / 7 days |
| 3GB | Yesim | $9.04 / 30 days | GigSky $16.49 / 15 days |
| 5GB | Yesim | $15.07 / 30 days | GigSky $21.99 / 30 days |
| 10GB | Yesim | $24.35 / 30 days | Airalo $34.00 / 30 days |
| 20GB | Yesim | $36.52 / 30 days | Airalo $40.50 / 30 days |
Yesim wins every row on price, which is exactly why we do not make it the default pick. Its Trustpilot score is suspended, so the cheapest column and the recommended column are not the same column. If the price gap is what decides your trip, take it and read the full review first. Checked September 2, 2026.
Two ways to act on that table. Take the cheapest row and accept the missing review record, or pay $9.65 more for the brand that publishes both its networks and its score.
See Yesim plans See Airalo plans Work out your size firstWho each provider is actually for plain answers
You want to know which network you are buying and you would rather pay $10 more than guess. Also the only route to a +506 number without a shop visit.
Full review →The budget is the constraint and you accept a brand whose review record has been cleaned out from under it. Cheapest at every single size.
Full review →First trip, short trip, or you want to test the signal at the lodge on a free 100MB before spending anything.
Full review →Support quality matters more to you than the network question or the price. The 4.7 Trustpilot score is earned.
Full review →You genuinely will not count gigabytes and you accept a 1GB/day hotspot ceiling. We earn nothing from this one.
Full review →Costa Rica has three networks and your eSIM gets two of them the Kölbi problem
This is the part that makes Costa Rica different from every other eSIM destination, and almost nobody writes it down. There are three national operators. Travel eSIMs have roaming deals with two of them. The third is the one that actually covers the country.
Kölbi (ICE)
Widest coverage · not sold as a travel eSIMState-owned, built out over decades of rural electrification, and the leader in Opensignal's April 2026 Coverage Experience ranking for Costa Rica. If a valley has one tower, it is usually this one. And not one of the five travel eSIMs on this page roams on it.
Claro
Fastest averages · good main-road coverageLed average 4G download speeds in SUTEL's 2025 road-based measurements and has 5G in the larger towns. Every travel eSIM here can land on Claro. Strong along the Interamericana and in the Central Valley, thinner once you turn off the pavement.
Liberty (ex-Movistar)
Strong in cities and resorts · patchy in the deep ruralSolid in San José, Alajuela, Tamarindo, Jacó and the Guanacaste resort strip, with 5G in populated areas since mid-2025. This is the network most travel eSIMs default to, and the one travelers most often report failing on the Pacific south and the Caribbean coast.
So the practical rule for Costa Rica: a travel eSIM is the right buy for the Central Valley, Guanacaste, Arenal, Manuel Antonio and the main highways. For the Osa Peninsula, Sarapiquí, Tortuguero and the far Caribbean south, carry a Kölbi prepaid chip as well. Two SIMs, about $25, and the map keeps working.
Sources & freshness: Opensignal Costa Rica Mobile Network Experience, April 2026 (Coverage Experience). SUTEL 2025 road-based mobile network evaluation (average 4G download). Network partners taken from each brand's own Costa Rica product page, September 2, 2026.
What "unlimited" really means in Costa Rica the caps in one table
| "Unlimited" plan | Real daily high-speed cap | After the cap |
|---|---|---|
| Airalo Unlimited (7 days, $36.50) | 3GB/day | Speed drops for the rest of that day, resets at midnight. Published on the product page. |
| Holafly Unlimited (7 days, $36.50) | none published | No daily figure anywhere. Hotspot is separately capped at 1GB/day, and the fair-use text allows the local operator to throttle for up to a day. |
| Yesim Unlimited (7 days, $40.58) | none published | Yesim does not publish a Costa Rica fair-use figure at all. Assume there is one. |
| GigSky daily 3.5GB (7 days, $26.49) | 3.5GB/day | Not branded unlimited, and it is the highest published daily allowance here. Cheapest of the four, too. |
| Saily | n/a | Saily sells no unlimited plan for Costa Rica. Its fixed 20GB at $47.99 is the substitute. |
Every figure above comes from the brand's own published terms on September 2, 2026, not from a test. If a plan is missing from this table it is because nobody would tell us the number. The full unlimited breakdown works out the price per real gigabyte.
If you want unlimited you can plan around, the published cap is the whole point. Airalo prints 3GB a day; three of the four alternatives print nothing.
See Airalo Unlimited Compare the capsHow much data a Costa Rica trip actually uses real numbers
| Trip style | 5 days | 10 days | 14 days | 30 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maps, WhatsApp, the odd booking | 1.5GB | 3GB | 4GB | 8GB |
| Plus photos, stories, some video | 4GB | 8GB | 11GB | 22GB |
| Plus laptop hotspot and calls | 9GB | 18GB | 25GB | 55GB |
Assumes wifi at your accommodation most nights, offline maps downloaded before you drive, and no video streaming over cellular. Costa Rica pushes the middle row higher than most destinations for one reason: you will re-load the map a lot on roads where the signal keeps dropping. The full calculator breaks it down per app.
Where a travel eSIM works and where it does not place by place
Nobody can promise you a bar of signal at a specific lodge. What we can do is tell you which network each place leans on, so you know when the travel eSIM is enough and when you want the Kölbi chip too.
| Where you are going | Network to prefer | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Central Valley and the classics | ||
| San José and Alajuela | Claro or Liberty | Everything works, 5G in parts of both. Any plan on this page is fine here. |
| La Fortuna / Arenal | Claro | Town is well covered. The signal thins on the road around the lake and inside the hanging-bridge parks. |
| Monteverde and Santa Elena | Claro, Kölbi outside town | The town has service. The cloud forest reserve and the road up from the Interamericana do not, on any network. |
| Pacific | ||
| Tamarindo and the Guanacaste resorts | Liberty | The one region where Liberty is genuinely the strongest option, which suits travel eSIMs well. |
| Nosara and Santa Teresa | Claro, Kölbi on the back roads | Fine in the village centres, unreliable on the dirt roads between them. Remote workers report needing both. |
| Manuel Antonio and Quepos | Claro or Liberty | Dense enough to be well served. A travel eSIM is all you need here. |
| Uvita, Ojochal and the Osa | Kölbi | This is where travel eSIMs start failing. South of Uvita, budget for a Kölbi chip if you are self-driving. |
| Caribbean and the north | ||
| Puerto Viejo and Cahuita | Claro | Town centres are covered. The stretch toward Manzanillo drops out on everything but Kölbi. |
| Tortuguero | Kölbi | Boat access, thin coverage, and lodge wifi that is often satellite. Do not plan on working from here. |
| Sarapiquí and the northern lowlands | Kölbi | Kölbi built out here first and still holds it alone in places. A travel eSIM will show one bar or none. |
Compiled from the operators' own published coverage maps, the Opensignal April 2026 report and traveler reports through August 2026. We have not driven every road on this list and we are not going to pretend otherwise. How we test.
Do not plan on buying a SIM at the airport SJO and LIR in 2026
If you want a local chip anyway, the closest reliable options are City Mall in Alajuela, about five minutes from SJO, where Kölbi, Claro and Liberty all have storefronts, and downtown Liberia, ten to fifteen minutes from LIR, where all three also have shops. Bring your passport. A prepaid chip costs ₡500 to ₡1,000 (≈$1 to $2) plus whatever you load onto it.
The alternative is the one this whole site is about: install a travel eSIM at home, land connected, and decide about a local chip later once you know whether your route needs it. The local SIM guide covers the shop route in detail.
Setting it up takes about four minutes before you fly
- Check the phone. Dial *#06#. If an EID appears, the phone takes an eSIM. If it is carrier-locked, sort that out first, because no eSIM works on a locked handset.
- Buy and install on home wifi. Install the profile before you fly. Do not scan the QR code at the gate; the plan does not start counting until it connects in Costa Rica, so there is nothing to save by waiting.
- Land, then switch. Turn the eSIM line on for data, leave your home line on for calls with data roaming off. That one toggle is what stops the $12-a-day charge.
- If it will not connect, set network selection to manual and pick Claro, then Liberty. On the Pacific south it may be neither, and that is the Kölbi gap, not a broken eSIM. Full setup and fixes.
Costa Rica eSIM questions answered straight
What is the best eSIM for Costa Rica in 2026?
Airalo, for most people. Its 10GB plan is $34.00 for 30 days and it is the only one of the five that publishes which Costa Rican networks it uses, Claro and Liberty. Yesim is cheaper at every size but its Trustpilot score has been suspended, and Saily has the best support record but will not name its network.
Which eSIM uses the Kölbi network?
None of the mainstream ones. Airalo, Saily, GigSky, Yesim and Holafly all sit on Claro and Liberty. Kölbi, the state operator with the widest rural coverage, does not sell wholesale roaming to them. If your route runs through the Osa, Sarapiquí, Tortuguero or the far Caribbean south, buy a Kölbi prepaid chip in addition to your eSIM.
What is the cheapest eSIM for Costa Rica?
Yesim, at every size: $4.99 for 1GB, $9.04 for 3GB, $15.07 for 5GB, $24.35 for 10GB and $36.52 for 20GB, all with 30-day validity. GigSky also gives away 100MB for seven days with no card, which is the cheapest way to test coverage before you commit.
Can I buy a SIM card at San José airport?
Not reliably. The Kölbi desks at SJO and LIR closed. A Claro counter in SJO baggage claim opens irregularly. The nearest dependable shops are City Mall Alajuela, five minutes from SJO, and downtown Liberia for LIR arrivals.
Does a Costa Rica eSIM come with a phone number?
Most are data-only, which is fine because WhatsApp is how Costa Rica communicates, including with tour operators and lodges. If you need an actual +506 number, Airalo's Hot Telecom+ packages include one for a few dollars over the data-only version. The phone number page compares the three options.
Will one eSIM cover Costa Rica and Panama?
A Costa Rica plan stops at the border. The fix is a Latin America regional plan, and here is the part that surprises people: Airalo's Latamlink is cheaper than its own Costa Rica plan below 10GB, at $22.00 for 5GB over 30 days against $26.50. Above 10GB the local plan wins again. We work through the crossover point here.
Is 5G available in Costa Rica?
Yes, from Claro and Liberty, in the more populated areas since mid-2025. Kölbi is still building out. On most of the country a travel eSIM gives you 4G, which is plenty for everything except large uploads.
Buy the one that names its network
Airalo publishes Claro and Liberty as its Costa Rica partners, prints a 3GB/day cap on its unlimited plan, and sells 10GB for $34.00 over 30 days. It also pays us the least of the five. Both of those things are true.
See Airalo Costa Rica plansSources & freshness: Plan prices pulled from esimdb.com and each brand's Costa Rica product page on September 2, 2026, in USD, before promo codes. Network partners taken from the brands' own product pages. Coverage claims from Opensignal's Costa Rica Mobile Network Experience report (April 2026) and SUTEL's 2025 road-based measurements. Trustpilot scores checked August 31, 2026. Airport and local-SIM details verified against operator store locators and current traveler reports, August 2026. Prices move; we re-check monthly and date-stamp every table.