Nomad eSIM in Saudi Arabia Review (+5G Speedtests)

Many people visit Saudi Arabia for religious reasons (Hajj and Umrah).

And as of 2019, the Kingdom opened up to tourism (which was surprisingly close to impossible before that time).

Being in the top 15 largest countries worldwide (rank 13), staying connected while exploring the country is crucial.

So, while trying to find the best way to stay in Saudi Arabia, I tried out seven travel eSIMs from various eSIM providers, including Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIM, and three Saudi SIM cards.

I spent over 250 USD for my Saudi Arabia SIM card and travel eSIM review series – I went all out 😎.

In most countries, getting a local SIM card is the cheapest way to stay connected (and you will have a local phone number, something you often do not get with a travel eSIM).

But installing an eSIM is quick, easy & convenient, as you do not have to queue up upon landing (after a long flight) or deal with SIM card registration requirements (such as getting your passport details and fingerprints captured in Saudi Arabia – mandated by law).

And travel eSIMs, like Nomad's, are relatively affordable (especially compared to international roaming).

But what matters is how the eSIM performed in Saudi Arabia – especially compared to the local mobile operators (and the network Nomad uses in the Kingdom).

Let's get started.

Original publication: 16^th of January 2024.Last updated: 29^th of February 2024.

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Table of Contents

Nomad's List of Compatible eSIM-Supported Phones

Before I even focus on Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIM, does your phone support Nomad eSIMs?

If you have an eSIM-compatible smartphone, it is almost guaranteed that you can use a Nomad eSIM.

While Nomad had to certify phones in the past, almost all are supported nowadays.

As of December 2023, the phones shown in the infographic below are compatible with Nomad eSIMs:

Now we can actually focus on the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM.

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How Much Does the Nomad eSIM for Saudi Arabia Cost?

You can get the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM between 9 USD (1 GB for 7 days) and 32 USD (10 GB for 30 days).

These are not the cheapest Saudi Arabia travel eSIMs out there.

In fact, Nomad's were the most expensive of the travel eSIMs I tested in the Kingdom.

However, prices have decreased significantly compared to Nomad's first Saudi Arabia offering.

Because you used to pay 25 USD for 1 GB of data and 54 for 5 GB.

Anyway, below is an overview of how much each Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM costs:

1. Saudi Arabia 1 GB eSIM for 7 days, costing 9 USD
2. Saudi Arabia 3 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 14 USD
3. Saudi Arabia 5 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 20 USD
4. Saudi Arabia 10 GB eSIM for 30 days, costing 32 USD

>>> Get your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM and use code “ADU123” for USD off! <<<

The links above will bring you to the Saudi Arabia eSIM product page.

Nomad allows you to pay for its eSIMs in many currencies, including American/Canadian Dollar, Euro & British Pound (Sterling).

I found that paying in USD is often cheaper than in other currencies.

For example, the 5 GB costs 20 USD or 18.50 EUR.

When considering currency exchange rates, it should cost close to 18.30 USD (1 USD was about 0.91 EUR at the time of writing).

It is a small difference – Holafly is a worse offender with currency exchange premiums of over 16% (USD compared to EUR).

That is why when I buy a Nomad eSIM, I pay in USD with my Wise account/debit card.

Their exchange fees are MUCH lower than banks and credit card companies charge you (and Wise is transparent about their fees, unlike banks).

I have saved literal THOUSANDS of Australian Dollars and Euros, my main currencies, when using Wise abroad when traveling compared to my debit and credit cards.

Open a Wise account for FREE!

What if you buy the 5 GB Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM, as I did, and realize you need another 3 GB of data close to exhausting your data allowance?

Would you need to purchase a new eSIM? Not at all.

You can top up your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM for the same amount of data and prices as listed earlier.

The 3 GB top-up would still cost 11 USD as if you bought the 3 GB eSIM from the start.

That way, you will never run out of data.

You can top-up on the Nomad website or its apps.

But do not buy top-ups, or eSIMs, too early.

Nomad has a 60-day activation policy, meaning an eSIM will start its validity after 60 days, even though you have not installed or activated the eSIM in Saudi Arabia.

So, if you plan on using 15 GB of data in Saudi Arabia (10 GB eSIM + 5 GB top-up, as an example) in May, but you buy them both on the 1st of January, your allowances will expire by early April.

The grace period is in January (31 days) and February (28/29 days), while the timer runs throughout March (31 days).

A handful of Nomad eSIMs do not allow for top-ups. But that does not apply to the Saudi Arabia eSIM – so worry not.

>>> Get your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM and use code “ADU123” for USD off! <<<

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My Nomad eSIM in Saudi Arabia Experience

During this trip, I used my Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM only in Jeddah.

Although I plan on testing the eSIM in various other Saudi cities in the (near) future.

Travel eSIMs, including the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM, roam on the networks of local mobile operators.

Nomad itself is not a mobile (network) operator (MNO), so it partners with various MNOs, which roam on local MNOs' networks.

Okay, that may sound a bit confusing – all you need to know is that you will be treated as a guest on one of the Saudi mobile networks while using another network to make this system work.

Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIM uses the Mobily (review) and Zain Saudi Arabia network (review) while being powered by eSIM Go/Drei Austria (so your phone, some apps, or sites you visit may claim you are using Drei eSIM instead of Nomad – that is correct).

In my case, the eSIM kept defaulting to Zain KSA, so I will focus on that for the next section (but you can manually change it to Mobily in your phone's settings if you want).

So, is Zain Saudi Arabia any good? Kind of.

Regarding 4G/LTE availability in Saudi Arabia, the three mobile operators cover almost all populated areas of the country, with an availability of more than 95.7%.

If we focus on 5G NR availability, Zain Saudi Arabia is behind (19.9%) but not by much (20.8% for Mobily and 22% for STC Saudi Arabia (review)).

If we look at speeds, Zain Saudi Arabia is supposed to be the slowest in all categories (4G/5G download/upload speed).

Do not worry yet; these figures are worse than Zain's actual performance (in Jeddah) due to Opensignal not having as many data points as Speedtest typically has (but it has not made a recent report for the Kingdom at the time of writing).

I did speed tests with the Speedtest app throughout Jeddah.

For reference, I consider an average download speed of 25 Mbps and an average upload speed of 10 Mbps fast enough.

Why is that? A more than 25 Mbps download speed is enough to video stream content @ 4k resolution.

Social media sites that do live streaming, like Facebook Live, recommend an upload speed of at least 10 Mbps.

I have way higher standards, but not everyone demands a download speed of 500 Mbps 🤪.

In the section below, you will find various colors and formatting.

Results in dark green mean that the result was the fastest download or upload among all SIM cards and travel eSIMs I tested at that location.

Whereas results in light green were the fastest download or upload within the category (among all SIM cards OR all travel eSIMs) but not the fastest when considering the other category.

The same applies to dark red and light orange results – the slowest download or upload among all (dark red) or the slowest within a category (light orange).

All underlined results are on 5G NR, while results in italics are on 3G – results without additional formatting are on 4G/LTE.

That should clear up the colorful speed test results in the next section.

For now, let's see how the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM performed in Jeddah.

>>> Get your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM and use code “ADU123” for USD off! <<<

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Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM in Jeddah Speed Test Results

I tried to test the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM as much as I could.

But as I mentioned before, getting into the city from the airport took thrice as long and the next day's flight was moved forward by hours, leaving me with little time to explore Jeddah (which in turn meant fewer test locations).

Worry not; I will revisit Jeddah/Saudi Arabia for sure and get more results for you in the (near) future.

The majority of travel eSIMs I tested used the Zain Saudi Arabia network (including the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM).

So I will compare the Nomad results with Zain Saudi Arabia and all the other travel eSIMs using the same network.

This includes Airalo Red Sand (Saudi Arabia), Airalo Menalink (Middle East), Airalo Discover (global – can also use Mobily), Alosim (can also use Mobily), Holafly (can also use Mobily) & Nomad Middle East (can also use STC Saudi Arabia).

But remember, you can manually select the Mobily network as well if you wish.

Below are the results:

>>> Get your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM and use code “ADU123” for USD off! <<<

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My Overall Experience with the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM – Is It Worth Your Money?

I would recommend the Nomad Saudi Arabia, and it would be one of my top eSIM recommendations for anyone wanting to buy an eSIM for Saudi Arabia.

Getting the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM or any other Nomad eSIM is easy.

You scan the QR code shown on the app or send it to your email (the latter method works better).

Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIMs are reasonably priced but not the cheapest, and standard options are available (1 GB, 3 GB, 5 GB & 10 GB).

Previously, the eSIMs were so expensive that I discouraged Phone Travel Wiz readers from even considering the Saudi Arabia eSIM (20/25 USD for 1 GB, 48 USD for 3 GB & 54 USD for 5 GB).

Anyway, the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM uses the Mobily (review) and Zain Saudi Arabia (review) networks, which both have extensive 4G/LTE availability throughout the country.

In my case, the eSIM used Zain KSA by default, but you can manually switch to Mobily in your phone's settings.

And its 5G NR coverage is good in urban areas – and yes, you get 5G NR access with the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM.

With an average download speed of 62.65 Mbps, you do not have to worry about slow speeds with the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM.

When looking at upload speeds, it also performed well – 16.89 Mbps.

This was slower than the Nomad Middle East eSIM (KSA review).

Perhaps the towers were busier when I tested the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM… I cannot tell.

Anyway, all the other travel eSIMs on the Zain KSA network, except for Airalo Discover+ (review), had an average upload speed of more than 12 Mbps, which is fast enough for HD live streaming.

If you want cheaper eSIMs for Saudi Arabia, I would recommend Airalo's Red Sand (formerly Salaam) eSIM (review) or Alosim's Saudi Arabia eSIM (review).

Both are cheaper than Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIM while offering double the download speed (120+ Mbps for both).

You may also want to consider Holafly's Saudi Arabia eSIMs (review) if 10 GB (Alosim) or 20 GB (Airalo Red Sand) of data is insufficient or if you do not want to deal with data allowances.

Holafly offers unlimited data plans for 5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 15 days & 20 days between 19 USD and 54 USD (product page).

But Holafly throttles speeds for unlimited data eSIMs significantly, so it must be a trade-off you are willing to make.

Anyway, by using a near-perfect 4G/LTE network, offering reasonably priced data plans & offering super-fast download speeds, you should have a smooth browsing experience with the Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM.

>>> Get your Nomad Saudi Arabia eSIM and use code “ADU123” for USD off! <<<

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Saudi Arabia eSIM & SIM Card Reviews

Besides Nomad's Saudi Arabia eSIM, I also tried the Nomad Middle East eSIM and other travel eSIMs in the Kingdom.

I encourage you to read those reviews to decide which eSIM suits your needs.

>>> Airalo Red Sand (formerly Salaam) eSIM | Airalo Menalink (Middle East) eSIM in Saudi Arabia | Airalo Discover (global) eSIM in Saudi Arabia | Alosim Saudi Arabia eSIM | Holafly Saudi Arabia eSIM | Nomad Middle East eSIM in Saudi Arabia <<<

Besides travel eSIMs, I also tried Saudi SIM cards.

You can find those below.

>>> STC Saudi Arabia | Mobily | Zain Saudi Arabia <<<

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