An eSIM for your child's phone: what to sort out before the holiday

Your child's phone is coming on holiday, planned or not. The question is what happens when they leave the hotel Wi-Fi. A 13-year-old who has lost you in a market needs a working map and a way to message you, and that is much easier to sort out at the kitchen table than at the airport.

A travel eSIM is a tidy way to do it. You pay up front, the allowance is fixed, and when it's gone the data simply stops, so nothing lands on a bill when you get home. You have to be 18 to buy from us, so this one is your job rather than theirs. It only takes a few minutes, but start by looking at the phone itself, because that's the part that can stop you altogether.

Start with the phone, especially if it's a hand-me-down

Two things have to be true: the phone must support eSIM, and it must be unlocked. Older models often fail the first test, so look yours up on our compatibility page rather than going by how new it feels.

The second is easy to miss. Ofcom banned UK networks from selling locked phones in December 2021, but a phone bought before then can still be tied to the network that sold it. If you don't know the phone's history, ask that network, which can also tell you how to get it unlocked.

A phone with no SIM in it at all is fine, by the way. Plenty of children have an old handset that only ever runs on Wi-Fi, and if it passes both tests it can take an eSIM.

Watches are another matter. Our eSIMs can't be installed on a smartwatch, and that includes the ones made for children. If your child's watch has its own mobile plan, ask whoever supplies it what happens abroad. Wi-Fi-only tablets can't take one either.

How much data does a child really get through?

Less than you might fear, until video gets involved. These are the rough figures our data calculator uses, and real use varies from app to app.

Take a fairly ordinary day: an hour scrolling social feeds (about 120 MB), half an hour of maps (15 MB), messages on and off (a couple of hours is only about 6 MB), and around 100 MB of whatever the phone gets up to in the background. That comes to about 240 MB, or roughly 1.7 GB for a week.

Now add one hour a day of video at standard quality, which is about 700 MB an hour. The same week comes to about 6.5 GB. In HD, that one hour is around 2 GB on its own. TikTok and other short-video feeds will usually use more than the 120 MB above as well, since every swipe is another video.

So ask where the video is going to happen. If YouTube waits for the hotel Wi-Fi, a small plan will last the week. If it's the back seat of the hire car, buy more, or download the episodes before you leave. We have more ways to make data last if you want them.

Buying for more than one child

For one phone, an ordinary order is fine. For two or more, use a Group, which needs an account (guest checkout doesn't offer it). You create the group, add each person, pick a plan for each and pay in one go. Every eSIM is separate, so a teenager who burns through theirs by Tuesday doesn't take their brother's data with it. Our family travel page has the button to set one up.

When you add someone to a group you choose whether they're an adult or a child, and for children a few things work differently. They don't need an email address, because you can open their eSIM from your own account and install it yourself. Their low-data and expiry alerts come to you instead of them. And the group page shows how much data each child has left, so you can check without asking to see their phone. Where a plan can be topped up, you can do that from the same page. Another adult in the group can choose to keep their usage private. A child can't.

Install it at home, on Wi-Fi

An eSIM has to download, so it needs a connection, and the best one is your own Wi-Fi the evening before you leave, with the child's phone in your hand rather than theirs. Two screens make it easier: the QR code open on your phone or laptop, and their phone doing the scanning.

Keep that QR code to yourself. Each one can only be scanned once, so it doesn't belong in the family WhatsApp group, and a screenshot of it on their camera roll is no use to anyone. Once it's installed, tell your child not to delete the eSIM to tidy up their settings. If it does get deleted, contact us about a new code.

One thing to check before you scan. Most plans don't start until the eSIM first connects at your destination, but a few start when installed or at purchase, and each plan's page says which. If yours starts on install, leave it until nearer the day you fly.

The two settings that stop surprises

If the phone also has your child's usual SIM, two settings matter. The travel eSIM should be the line chosen for mobile data, with data roaming on for that line. Their usual line should have data roaming off, otherwise their home network may charge for roaming.

On an iPhone, both are under Settings → Mobile Data (Mobile Service on some models). On most Android phones, look under Settings → Network & internet → SIMs, though the wording changes from one make to another. Calls and texts to their usual number still go through their home network, so check what it charges abroad if they're likely to ring you rather than message.

Parental controls keep working

Screen Time on an iPhone and Family Link on Android belong to the phone and the child's account, not to the SIM, so a new eSIM doesn't switch them off. App limits, bedtimes and app approvals carry on as they did at home.

They can get in the way while you're setting up, though. Screen Time has a restriction on mobile data changes, and if it's set to Don't Allow you may need to lift it for a few minutes, then put it back. If anything refuses to change on a supervised phone, the controls are the first place to look.

There's a useful trick here too. Under Settings → Mobile Data an iPhone lists every app with its own switch, so you can turn off mobile data for YouTube and leave it working on Wi-Fi. That's a much easier conversation than banning it. Android has similar settings per app, but where they live depends on the make.

The low-tech bit

All of this assumes the phone is charged, and by mid-afternoon it may not be. So do the old-fashioned things as well. Download an offline map of the area before you go, since GPS keeps working without data. Agree a meeting point each day, somewhere big and obvious. Save your number and the hotel's address in their phone, then write both on a bit of paper for their pocket.

Look up the emergency number for where you're going, because it isn't the same everywhere, and make sure your child knows it. If you use Apple's Find My or location sharing in Family Link, try it before you leave. Both work best while the phone is switched on and connected.

Not sure which plan to get? Find My Plan will suggest one. And if a phone won't connect when you land, our step-by-step troubleshooter sorts out most problems in a few minutes.