Dubai SIM cards and mobile data: what the operators publish

What e& publishes

Pack shapes are published even where prices are not: a data-and-wifi pack, a voice-and-SMS pack and a combined pack, in 24-hour, 48-hour, 7-day, 14-day and 28-day validities, for “All visitors/recurring visitors to the UAE ages 18 and above”. The perks are priced where the plans are not — free SIM and activation “(saves AED 125)”, free 24-hour delivery “(saves AED 125)”, 25% off two Hala rides, 15% off five Careem rides.

The same four charges, at two different prices

e& publishes its out-of-bundle rates twice, on two of its own live pages, and the two do not match. Only one of the pages says whether VAT is in the figure.

The lower set looks like the same figures before VAT. But that is arithmetic, not a statement by the operator, and we are not going to present our arithmetic as its position. What follows practically is the thing worth knowing: a visitor cannot tell from the Transit Pack page whether AED 50 is the amount that will be charged.

One genuine trap is published clearly and deserves repeating in the operator’s own words: data on a Visitor Line is “Restricted to prevent accidental charges”, and out-of-bundle data runs at “AED 1.05 per 20 MB with a daily limit of AED 9.45”.

Registration: what you actually need

The regulator sets this, and its rules are clear. TDRA states the required document by category: “Visitors: Passport or GCC National ID”, and a cap of “Up to two SIM cards per service provider” for visitors, against five for residents. e& repeats it in its own terms: “Make sure you have the physical passport and visa copy available in order to issue the SIM” and “A maximum of 2 Visitor Line SIMs are eligible per passport”.

Two things to correct if you have read otherwise. No operator states a biometric or facial-recognition requirement for activating a visitor SIM — facial recognition appears only for converting an existing line in the app. And the Visitor Line’s validity is tied to your stay: “The Visitor Line validity is the same as the validity of your VISA upon arrival to the UAE”.

TDRA does contradict itself on the same FAQ page: one answer permits a passport for visitors, another states that “SIM registration is only allowed using the original Emirates ID”. The second is framed around identity fraud and reads as not written with visitors in mind. Both are published; we quote both.

Where to buy one, and the hours nobody publishes

Here is an oddity worth knowing before you land. Neither operator’s own website mentions DXB or any terminal. e&’s published answer on where to buy is generic: “By visiting your nearest e& Business Centre, outlet or partner with a valid passport and visa.”

The airport information exists only on Dubai Airports’ own site, which lists both operators at Terminal 1 Arrivals, Terminal 2 Main Terminal and Terminal 3 Arrivals, and states that du provides “free tourist SIMs at DXB’s immigration counters”. What nobody publishes — not the operators, not Dubai Airports — is the opening hours of any of those counters. Neither says “24 hours”. Dubai Airports’ FAQ has no SIM-card entry at all.

If you land late, the fallback is published and free: “unlimited, free, high-speed Wi-Fi, across all areas of DXB and DWC”, on the networks DXB Free WiFi and DWC Free WiFi. No time limit and no data cap is stated — so the common “free for two hours then paid” framing is not what Dubai Airports says.

Calling apps: what the regulator actually says

This is the most misreported subject in the category, so here it is from the regulator rather than from a summary of it. TDRA states that “Voice and video calls are considered Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services that are a regulated activity in the UAE” and that such services “shall be provided by the licensed service providers or in collaboration with them”.

TDRA does not publish a list of blocked apps. It publishes a list of approved ones, and the policy makes anything not licensed or approved illegal by default. That asymmetry is exactly what gets lost in translation. The published approved list names Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Zoom, Google Meet (meeting only), Cisco Webex, Slack, BOTIM and others. WhatsApp, FaceTime, Messenger, Signal and Telegram are not on it.

Two things about that list are worth flagging rather than repeating uncritically. The governing policy document behind it is dated 30 December 2009 — written before WhatsApp calling existed. And the list still names Totok, an app removed from both major app stores in 2019, and “Etisalat Cloud Talk Meeting”, under branding the operator retired. The list carries no review date.

What we could not read, and why we say so

du’s tourist SIM and tourist eSIM pages exist — we can confirm the URLs and their titles — but every path on du.ae is disallowed to automated fetching by du’s own robots file, and its shop renders only in JavaScript. So we have no verified du price, allowance or validity, and we are not going to fill that in from a comparison site. This is a different finding from “du publishes nothing”: du publishes, in a form that cannot be read.

Also not published by anyone: a visitor eSIM price from e& (it has no visitor eSIM product at all), and a compatible-device list for a visitor eSIM from either operator. Two more oddities on official estates: e&’s current visitor terms still refer to “the TRA registration rules”, using a regulator name retired in 2020, and du’s tourist-plan press releases from 2015 and 2016 are still live and still surfacing on searches for current plans.

Related: getting from the airport into the city, and what the visa itself costs.

More in Before you travel

• Souks & traditional markets
• Accessibility
• Visa fees & overstay fines

See everything in Before you travel.

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