Airalo Expands 5G Coverage to 30 More Destinations
Airalo now offers 5G speeds in 30 additional countries, bringing its total 5G footprint past 80 destinations — who benefits and how to confirm your plan is 5G-ready.
Airalo, one of the largest eSIM marketplaces, announced this week that its 5G coverage has expanded to 30 more destinations, including popular travel spots across Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and South America.
What this means for travelers
With this expansion, Airalo’s total 5G footprint now covers more than 80 destinations. Travelers holding compatible devices can expect noticeably faster speeds when streaming, video-calling or navigating in the newly added countries.
No configuration is needed: eSIMs purchased for supported destinations automatically connect to 5G networks where available, falling back to 4G/LTE elsewhere. Worth knowing: the real-world benefit of 5G concentrates in dense urban scenes — Tokyo, Seoul or Bangkok show the clearest gap between 5G and congested 4G; rural and mountain areas remain mostly 4G-led, so don’t plan around 5G there.
Two prerequisites to actually get 5G
Getting 5G requires both of these to line up:
- A 5G-capable device with matching bands. iPhone 12 and later plus mainstream Android flagships are generally fine, but some US-model mmWave/sub-6 variants don’t fully overlap with Asian carrier deployments — trust the status-bar indicator after landing.
- A plan provisioned for 5G APNs. New Airalo plans include 5G by default, but older stock plans may still lock to a 4G APN in some destinations — if speeds look wrong, re-download the profile in the app or ask support to update it.
Pricing unchanged
The expansion comes at no extra cost. Regional plans covering multiple countries — such as the Asia and Europe packages — remain the best value for multi-country itineraries, with 5G access included in all of them.
For existing Airalo users this is a pure upgrade: same price, same plan, automatic speed-up in 5G areas. For shoppers, 5G destination count works as a quality signal — platforms willing to negotiate 5G access country by country tend to invest more in network priority generally.
How the 5G race looks across providers
Across the market, 5G support is tiered: Airalo sits in the top tier after this expansion (80+ destinations); Ubigi leans on NTT/Transatel carrier relationships for consistently strong European 5G; per-day platforms like RedteaGO and BCeSIM offer 5G unlimited on routes like Japan KDDI; some budget brands still run 4G-first to cut costs. If 5G matters to you, check the network-type label on each provider’s detail page before buying.
If you are planning a trip and want to check current coverage and prices, see our Airalo review page in the directory, or filter all providers by region.