Cape Verde eSIM

Staying connected in Cape Verde

Cape Verde is a country of ten volcanic islands, 600 to 850 km west of Dakar, and Sal, home to its main international airport, had almost half of the country's tourist beds in 2017. Install a travel eSIM at home and switch it on when you land. AirOva sells Cape Verde plans from $13.99, with a fixed amount of data or unlimited, all data only, with no call minutes, SMS or local phone number.

Which Cape Verde plan to choose

GB plans suit most beach holidays, since messaging, maps and photos take little data, and run on CVMóvel. Unlimited plans give unlimited data with no data cap and no fair-usage limit, priced by the number of days, and run on Alou. Each plan card lists its network and whether it is listed as 4G or 5G.

CVMóvel and Alou

The two labels belong to the same company. CVMóvel was the mobile arm of Cabo Verde Telecom, which merged its companies from January 2023 and launched the Alou brand later that year. It held 68% of active mobile SIM cards at the regulator ARME's latest count. The other operator, Unitel T+, is not on our plans.

Arriving on Sal, Boa Vista or Santiago

Amílcar Cabral International (SID) on Sal, the country's busiest international airport, lies 2 km from Espargos and 16 km north of the resort town of Santa Maria. Aristides Pereira International (BVC) is about 5 km southeast of Sal Rei on Boa Vista, Nelson Mandela International (RAI) about 3 km northeast of central Praia on Santiago, and Cesária Évora (VXE) nearly 5 km from Mindelo on São Vicente. After landing, switch the eSIM line on, choose it for mobile data and enable Data Roaming for that line.

Island hopping and EU roaming

The plan covers Cape Verde as a whole, but we cannot confirm signal on every island or at sea between them, so save bookings and offline maps before you move on. Cape Verde is outside the EU, so Roam Like at Home does not apply to Portuguese, French or other EU SIMs, and roaming there can be expensive, especially for data; our guide to EU roaming rules explains the limits.

Tip: install the eSIM over Wi-Fi before you fly and keep your home SIM in for bank codes, with roaming off. Save your hotel address and transfer details offline, in case the signal drops on a remote beach or trail.