SIM Cards, Mobile & Internet in the Philippines

Last verified: 2026-09-23

Day One Checklist

Here's the short version before I get into the weeds. Land, unlock your phone if it isn't already, and get a Philippine SIM registered the same day — you need one for basically everything, including GCash. Buy the SIM at the airport if you want it handled for you, or wait a day and get it cheaper at a mall. Register it with your passport (and visa doc if you have one beyond a tourist stamp). Load some data. Test it before you leave the terminal. That's the whole job.

Everything else in this guide is detail on how to not mess that up.

Frank's Take

Get prepaid first. Don't sign up for postpaid in your first month — you have no credit history here and the carriers will make you prove it, which is its own headache. Prepaid gets you online in twenty minutes with zero paperwork beyond ID.

Pick Globe or Smart as your primary. Not because DITO is bad — DITO is actually competitive on speed in some Opensignal metrics — but because Globe and Smart have more retail presence, more agents who know how to handle a foreign passport, and coverage that's more predictable outside Metro Manila. DITO's network is younger and its coverage map still has real gaps depending on where you land. If you're going to be in Palawan or a small Visayan island for a while, don't bet your only line on it.

Keep a second SIM as backup. Buy a second cheap starter pack from whichever carrier you didn't pick as primary, register it too (there's no cap on how many SIMs one ID can register — NTC confirms this), and keep it in a drawer with some load on it. When your primary carrier drops signal in a random province — and it will happen — you'll be glad you did this.

SIM Registration for Foreigners (RA 11934)

Republic Act 11934 requires every SIM sold in the Philippines — physical or eSIM, prepaid or postpaid — to be registered before it activates. This isn't new; the law rolled out starting December 2022 and the original grace period for existing SIMs ended in mid-2023. What matters for you in 2026: registration is now baked into the purchase. You can't walk out of a store with an unregistered SIM.

What you need. At minimum, one valid government photo ID. There's no rule capping how many SIMs one person can register — you can register five SIMs on your own passport if you want, as long as each one is in your own name (NTC FAQ). What is illegal is letting a shop register a SIM under someone else's identity — don't let a vendor talk you into that shortcut, even if it looks faster.

If you're on a tourist visa, you register with your passport bio page and visa stamp, proof of a Philippine address (a hotel booking or a letter from whoever's hosting you works), and your onward or return ticket. A tourist-registered SIM is valid for 30 days. If you extend your visa, you can extend the SIM registration to match — but the clock resets to whatever your new visa period covers, it doesn't extend indefinitely. Track this date. People do lose their number mid-lease because they forgot the SIM was tourist-tier.

If you're here on a longer visa — work, retirement (SRRV), spousal, student — you register with your passport, proof of a Philippine address, and whatever supporting document matches your visa type: your ACR I-Card, Alien Employment Permit, or school enrollment document. This route doesn't have the 30-day tourist cap (Globe's SIM Registration Act page has the specifics per document type).

The penalty for lying. Knowingly registering with a fake or fraudulent ID is a real crime here, not a slap on the wrist — 6 to 24 months in prison, a fine of PHP100,000 to PHP300,000, or both (full text of RA 11934). Don't use a friend's ID, don't let a vendor register a "spare" SIM for you under their own name. It's not worth it.

Globe vs Smart/TNT vs DITO

Three networks, and the honest answer is all three work fine in cities and get patchier the further you go from them.

Globe. A physical 5G starter SIM runs PHP59; the local prepaid eSIM is PHP99. Their Go+99 promo gets you 7 days with 8 GB of open-access data plus some conditional 5G/app allowances and unlimited texts, for PHP99 (Globe prepaid page). Buy at any Globe store, most malls, or sari-sari stores that stock SIM cards — reloading ("load," as everyone here calls it) is everywhere, from the GlobeOne app to the corner tindahan.

Smart / TNT. Smart's prepaid eSIM is PHP99; TNT (Smart's budget sub-brand, popular with students and younger locals) has a PHP75 digital eSIM. Smart's Power All 99 promo gives 7 days, 10 GB open-access data, conditional 5G/app data, and unlimited calls and texts for PHP99. I couldn't confirm the current regular physical starter-pack retail price on Smart's official store — it's not clearly published, so don't assume a number until you see it on the shelf.

DITO. The newest of the three, and it shows in both directions — faster where it has towers, absent where it doesn't. DITO lists a PHP39 physical starter pack, though the promo permit backing that price had expired as of this writing, so confirm the actual inclusions at purchase. Their Level-Up 99 promo is PHP99 for 15 days with 9 GB plus calls and texts — a longer validity window than Globe or Smart's PHP99 tiers, which is DITO's real selling point. DITO also sells a PHP99 prepaid eSIM with the same 9 GB/15-day terms, through DITO Experience Stores or the DITO app (DITO eSIM page).

eSIM is available on all three carriers and foreigners can use it the same as physical SIMs — the registration requirement doesn't change based on SIM format. If your phone is eSIM-capable and factory-unlocked, this is the cleanest path: no plastic to lose, and Globe and Smart both sell traveler eSIMs you can activate before you land (more on that below).

Airport SIM or Wait?

Globe and Smart both run booths at NAIA Terminals 1 through 4. The value isn't really the SIM — it's having someone walk you through registering a foreign passport on the spot, which is the step that trips people up most. Globe's NAIA-adjacent traveler eSIM option is PHP1,750 for 30 days with 80 GB and unlimited local calls/texts through the GlobeOne app — that's a real published number, but I couldn't confirm what the physical SIM bundles cost at the actual airport counter; it's not on Globe's public pricing page. Smart similarly sells a PHP599 digital tourist eSIM (24 GB, 30 days, unlimited local calls/texts) that you can grab before or after landing, but their airport walk-up counter price also isn't published anywhere I could verify.

My honest take: airport SIMs cost more for the convenience, and that's a fair trade if you're jetlagged and don't want to deal with paperwork. If you'd rather save the markup, wait a day, get settled, and buy a starter pack at any mall or sari-sari store — same registration requirement, usually a friendlier price, just a little more DIY. If your phone supports eSIM, the pre-arrival traveler eSIM (Globe's PHP1,750 30-day option) is worth it specifically because you land already connected and can deal with a permanent local SIM once you're not exhausted.

Reddit sentiment (not a source of truth, just a pattern): people who buy at the airport consistently say the premium bought them a working, correctly registered SIM with zero hassle; people who go the cheaper mall route sometimes report portal errors on the passport/address upload step that take a follow-up visit to sort out.

GCash and Maya

Your Philippine SIM number is the backbone of both major e-wallets, and losing that number means losing wallet access — so don't let it lapse.

GCash has two relevant paths for a foreigner. A regular ("Fully Verified") account needs a Philippine SIM and accepts an ACR I-Card, Philippine driver's license, SRRV, diplomatic ID, or Alien Employment Permit for KYC if you're a resident. If you're just visiting, GCash has a GTourist tier that works off a foreign number/card and a passport, and expires after 30 days — built for short stays, not long-term use. Wallet limits scale with verification: Basic accounts cap at PHP10,000 balance / PHP5,000 monthly incoming; Fully Verified and GTourist both raise that ceiling to PHP100,000 (GCash limits page).

Maya works similarly — your registered mobile number becomes your wallet identifier, and their current upgrade flow accepts a passport directly from foreign nationals, which some expats find less friction-heavy than GCash's ACR-based process. Maya's monthly wallet limits are PHP50,000 Basic / PHP100,000 upgraded (Maya account limits). Full details on setting either wallet up are in the guide on GCash for foreigners and the general banking guide.

The pitfall people actually hit: your GCash or Maya balance is tied to a specific number. If that SIM goes inactive — expired tourist registration, unpaid load, lost phone with no backup — you can get locked out of your own wallet balance until you sort identity verification with support. Keep the SIM active, keep it loaded, and don't switch numbers without migrating your wallet first.

Coverage, Roaming and Backup Internet

Coverage here is about your specific address, not really about brand loyalty. Opensignal's October 2025 measured report has Globe leading overall coverage experience, Smart leading several 5G benchmarks, and DITO leading raw download speed and reliability where its towers reach. All three claim service across Metro Manila, Cebu, and the major Visayas/Mindanao cities — but provincial towns, small islands, and indoor signal in older concrete buildings are hit or miss regardless of carrier. Ask locals in your specific barangay which network actually works before committing to a plan.

If you have a dual-SIM phone (most modern unlocked phones do), keep your home-country SIM active for bank OTPs and put your Philippine SIM in as the default line for calls and data. Turn off data roaming on the home SIM so you don't get hit with charges — check your phone's carrier settings; both iPhone and Pixel have this documented. If you want to keep a US number reachable without paying roaming, see the guide on keeping a US number abroad.

For home broadband, this guide isn't the place for the full comparison — the internet guide owns that detail — but briefly: Globe At Home, PLDT Home, and Converge fiber are the standard picks, and coverage is address-specific, so check serviceability before you sign a lease. Starlink is the fallback for anywhere fiber doesn't reach, which matters more than people expect once you're outside a handful of major cities.

Common Problems and Fixes

Problem: registration keeps getting rejected online. The portal upload for passport photo or proof-of-address is a common failure point — blurry scans, wrong file format, or address documents that don't match the required template. Go to a physical store instead. In-person staff can usually push a registration through that the app rejected.

Problem: my phone won't take a local SIM / says it's locked. Some phones sold under a US or other carrier contract come locked to that carrier and won't accept a foreign SIM. Confirm your phone is factory-unlocked before you fly, or buy an unlocked phone locally — decent Android options are cheap here and solve the problem instantly.

Problem: DITO SIM doesn't work on my phone. DITO uses a different band combination than Globe and Smart. Not every phone — especially older or budget models bought outside the Philippines — supports DITO's bands. Check DITO's compatibility list before buying, or just skip DITO for your primary line if you're not sure.

Problem: my tourist SIM stopped working after 30 days. That's expected — it's built into the registration, not a bug. If you're still here on an extended tourist visa, go re-register at a carrier store with your updated visa extension paperwork before the 30 days runs out, not after.

Problem: I need to escalate and the hotline isn't helping. Carrier retail stores can usually resolve identity and registration issues faster than call centers. Bring your passport, visa page, and (if you have one) a screenshot of the error you hit. For anything the store can't fix, the NTC (the regulator behind RA 11934) has regional offices that field escalations directly — worth knowing exists even if you never need it.