eSIM not working? Here is how to fix it
Short answer: If your eSIM is not working, the cause is almost always one of two things: data roaming is switched off on the travel line, or the phone is still using your home SIM for mobile data. Both take seconds to fix in your phone settings. The rest of this page covers every other cause in order of how often it is the answer.
Start here: the two fixes that solve most cases
1. Turn data roaming ON for the travel eSIM only. This sounds wrong and is not. Your travel eSIM is a foreign profile roaming onto a local network — without roaming enabled it connects to nothing. Your home line stays off, so it cannot run up a bill.
- iPhone: Settings → Mobile Service (or Cellular) → tap the travel line → Data Roaming ON.
- Samsung: Settings → Connections → Mobile networks → Data roaming ON, then confirm it applies to the travel SIM in SIM manager.
- Pixel: Settings → Network & internet → SIMs → travel line → Roaming ON.
2. Make the travel eSIM your mobile-data line. Installing an eSIM does not select it. On iPhone: Settings → Mobile Service → Mobile Data → choose the travel line. On Android, the equivalent is the SIM manager or SIMs screen.
If both are already correct, work down the list below.
"No Service" or no signal
- Have you landed yet? Most travel plans only attach to a network in the destination country. Nothing happening before you arrive is expected, not broken.
- Toggle airplane mode on, wait thirty seconds, off. This forces a fresh network search and fixes a surprising share of cases.
- Restart the phone. Worth doing once, properly, rather than repeatedly toggling settings.
- Select a network manually. Turn off automatic network selection and pick one of the local operators from the list. Our destination pages name which networks each plan can use.
- Check the line is switched on. A profile can be installed but disabled — look for a toggle next to the travel line, not just its presence in the list.
Stuck on "Activating" or "Installing"
The profile downloads over the internet, so it cannot finish without a connection. Connect to Wi-Fi, give it a few minutes, then restart.
If it stays stuck for more than about ten minutes on a good connection, stop and contact support. Do not delete the eSIM — an activation code normally works only once, so deleting it can leave you with nothing to reinstall. This is the single most common way a working situation is turned into an unrecoverable one.
The QR code will not scan
If you bought on the same phone you are installing to, you cannot scan your own screen. Use the manual route instead: every order page shows the SM-DP+ address and activation code underneath the QR code for exactly this reason. Choose “Enter details manually” and type those two values.
It worked, then stopped
Two possibilities, both normal:
- The data is used up. Our plans are a fixed amount — when it is gone the connection stops rather than silently charging you more.
- The validity period ended. Validity counts from the moment the eSIM first connected in the destination, not from purchase. A 7-day plan that first connected on the 1st ends on the 8th.
Both figures are on your order page. If you need more data, buy another plan — plans do not auto-renew, which is why nothing happens automatically.
Everything looks right and it still will not connect
Then the likeliest remaining cause is that the phone is carrier-locked. A locked handset installs the profile happily and then refuses to register on a foreign network. Nothing in your settings fixes this — only your home network can unlock it, usually free once the contract or device is paid off.
Less often, the handset has no eSIM hardware at all. Dial *#06#: if no EID appears alongside the IMEI, the phone cannot take an eSIM, whatever the model name suggests. Our device compatibility guide covers this per brand.
What to send support
If you have worked through the above, email us with: your phone model, the destination, the email on your order, and what the phone shows (for example “No Service”, or stuck on Activating). That is enough to diagnose almost anything without a back-and-forth.
Plans start at £1.49, and if an eSIM genuinely could not be made to work we would rather sort it out than leave you without data.
