Best eSIM for Italy in 2026 - any real experiences?

I used Nomad in Rome recently - dead easy, no problems.

I have used Saily in Italy.Portugal,Greece and Turkey. Works fine,but data only,no phone. 5gb

was enough for two weeks.What's app is good for calls

I always use Vodafone. Many trips to Italy and the signal is always strong wherever I am in Italy.
The vodafone stores are many and service is very good.
I was last in Italy in October 2025 and service was always good wherever I was.

I use Nomad and it has worked flawlessly for me in Scandinavia, Spain, South America, Morocco (remote areas). I have not used in Italy yet but I expect to work the same.
Great prices and it will pick up local cellular provider as soon as on the ground.

Make sure your phone is “unlocked” and compatible for esim.

I got an esim from Orange, and it worked perfectly. Even when we were in rural areas I never lost signal. I will definitely be going with them again when we go back to Italy.

I second Saily. It has a built in VPN. Worked fine in Sicily last fall. I never got Airalo to work on 2 previous trips.

I've used Airalo esim on 4 trips in Italy between December 2023 and November 2025. On these trips, each a month long, it worked great and I was very happy with it. We were in some areas far from a city when in Abruzzo and Sicily. I had 10GB each time and was glad of it because twice we were in an apartment with no wifi and twice I was as sick as a dog for a week and watched a lot of videos. Plus a lot of navigating in the car. The first time, I think I watched a youtube video about exactly how to install and activate the esim --- not Airalo's own video, some other guy's.

I used Skyalo in Italy recently and had a really smooth experience. I’ve also used Nomad and Ubigi before, so that’s what I’d compare it to.
Coverage felt pretty similar across all three since they rely on the same local networks, so the bigger difference was price and ease of use. Skyalo was the easiest for me - quick setup, worked right after landing, and the pricing was a bit better for the same amount of data.
Nomad was also reliable, just usually a little more expensive. Ubigi worked fine too, but I found it less intuitive.
For Italy, I wouldn’t go too low on data. Between maps, train tickets, restaurant searches, and regular browsing, 5-10 GB feels much more comfortable than 1-3 GB.

Your question made it on Monday Night Travel!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4xc53aGKC0&t=853s

Although this isn't Italy, last year we were in France and England and I used an Airalo eSIM. It was my first experience with eSIM and it was great, no problems, seamless. I'm replying because Airalo serves all of Europe and more.

I looked at some other providers but they didn't look as good, for example Holafly seemed to cost more for what I wanted.

I’m a fan of Vodaphone, I didn’t pore over vendors, I just wanted data and ability to tether my IPad,
and it’s been reliable in my travels to Italy.

I'm a fan of Orange, which has pretty broad coverage and can include voice and text as well as data. Once you get one of those you can register that phone number, and then top it up and/or add data to it in the future as needed. What's App messages can reach you any of the ways that you give to the app, too.

BUT the Orange coverage does not include Montenegro or Bosnia so I am going to install and buy a data-only eSIM from Saily and/or Airalo for that part of the trip. Airalo gets good reviews here on the forum, and Saily is by NordVPN.

Airalo- I just used this in April 26 for 3 cities in Italy with no problems.

I use Airalo, recently for a month mostly in Italy.

Worked well, install at home, lots of choices of plans, activates when you land (you may need to change over to that Sim)

Have used Airalo on several trips, data only.

Rome coverage was good for me with the eSIM, trains were the only places where the signal sometimes got weird.

Also, when traveling, we need some fast digital payments and that's why I used Cardtonic which also had eSIM included and generally it worked perfectly.

For Italy travel, I’d do eSIM first and public Wi-Fi only when needed. VPN is useful when you switch between hotel/café/airport networks. Ronin VPN is one of the options I’d test before leaving.