Travel Romania eSIM | Orange, Vodafone & Digi Coverage
Roami
Roami is a global eSIM carrier focused on travel connectivity. This guide is compiled from network data, official carrier and manufacturer documentation, and traveler inquiries.
📑 Table of Contents
Romania is Europe’s data-price anomaly. Locals pay about USD 0.54 per gigabyte — 50th of 237 markets, roughly a fifth of the price of data in Germany — and fixed broadband runs at 276.18 Mbps nationally, 15th in the world. Mobile speeds are more ordinary: Ookla’s August 2026 index puts the country 56th at 82.57 Mbps. For a Romania eSIM, the interesting tension is exactly there: world-class cheap data, world-class fibre, and a mobile landscape where Orange leads on speed, availability and consistency while DIGI — the discount giant that made Romanian data famously cheap — owns 5G consistency and gaming. Set aside a few minutes, no more — that is all any Romania step below has ever taken our test users.
Quick answer: Pick Orange for the widest footprint, DIGI for the lowest cost per gigabyte, and install your eSIM before departure either way. Speeds, prices and registration rules later in this Romania guide explain the fine print behind that split.
This guide works through that landscape for travellers: what each carrier is actually good at, how the EU roaming rules apply, where the coverage map betrays you (the Transfăgărășan and the Danube Delta, mostly), and what to have ready before you install. Confirm your handset against our eSIM compatibility table when you are ready.
The verdict up front: Orange is the default pick — fastest mobile network (median 86.91 Mbps, 156.76 Mbps on 5G), best 5G availability (50.9%), best consistency (92.6%), and the best rural reach. DIGI is the value challenger: cheapest data culture in Europe, 5G consistency of 88.1%, and the country’s best 5G gaming experience. Install a Romania eSIM before departure, and expect city performance to be excellent, mountain passes to be patchy, and the delta to be offline — for everyone.
Which Romania eSIM is right for your trip?
The speeds cited in this guide originate in Ookla’s H2 2025 Romania report.
| Your plans | Go-to carrier | What makes it the pick |
|---|---|---|
| Bucharest, Cluj, Timișoara city stays | Orange | Fastest medians, most 5G availability, and the strongest all-round urban experience. |
| Carpathian drives: Transfăgărășan, Bucegi | Orange | The best consistency (92.6%) and rural reach — the difference between a live map and a blank one. |
| Budget-heavy data use | DIGI | The network behind Romania’s famously cheap data; 88.1% 5G consistency where it reaches. |
| Mobile gaming | DIGI | Best 5G gaming experience in Romania in the H2 2025 report. |
Romania eSIM carrier speeds: how fast is each network?
How fast is Orange in Romania?
Orange Romania’s H2 2025 report card is close to a clean sweep: median download 86.91 Mbps overall and 156.76 Mbps on 5G, upload of 18.57 Mbps (27.62 on 5G), the country’s highest 5G availability at 50.9%, and the best consistency at 92.6% of samples clearing 5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up. Add the best 5G video streaming score (85.99) and regulator ANCOM’s picture of Orange holding the largest spectrum portfolio, and the summary is simple: the fastest network is also the one most likely to still have signal when you leave the city limits. Iași’s 155.1 Mbps city median — the fastest in Romania — sits on Orange’s eastern network.
How good is DIGI’s 5G?
DIGI (RCS&RDS) built its reputation by collapsing Romanian mobile prices, and its 5G network is no longer a punchline: a median 5G download of 126.22 Mbps, the country’s best 5G consistency at 88.1% of samples above 25 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up, and the best 5G gaming experience in the H2 2025 report. Its overall median (64.75 Mbps) trails Orange’s, and its footprint concentrates on cities and suburbs — Timișoara is its showcase, where 333.25 Mbps fixed broadband sets the pace. For travellers, DIGI is the value lane: strong where it is strong, and clearly second on rural reach.
What about Vodafone and Telekom Romania?
Both remain licensed national operators, and both appear in multi-network eSIM plans as fallback lanes. Neither won a category in the H2 2025 Ookla report, so this guide — like most traveller itineraries — treats the market as an Orange-versus-DIGI race with two understudies.
Ookla’s H2 2025 Romania report measures performance where people actually are, not just nationally. Because a Romania eSIM attaches to whichever network is strongest, the practical question is whether your itinerary sits in a fast county or a slow one — and the spread is wide.
Romania median mobile download by city
| City | Median download | Upload | Latency | Consistency | Fastest provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iași | 155.13 Mbps | 31.66 Mbps | 42.17 ms | 96.2% | No winner |
| Cluj-Napoca | 140.17 Mbps | 27.77 Mbps | 41.59 ms | 95.3% | No winner |
| Ploiești | 129.06 Mbps | 29.2 Mbps | 29.29 ms | 93.1% | Orange |
| Timișoara | 120.58 Mbps | 23.1 Mbps | 44.65 ms | 94.4% | Orange |
| Oradea | 107.24 Mbps | 26.36 Mbps | 44.14 ms | 95.9% | Orange |
| Constanța | 102.36 Mbps | 23.57 Mbps | 37.97 ms | 92.5% | No winner |
| Sibiu | 101.33 Mbps | 18.95 Mbps | 37.73 ms | 92.5% | Orange |
| Craiova | 94.12 Mbps | 19.14 Mbps | 45.21 ms | 93.3% | Orange |
| Brașov | 92.03 Mbps | 16.81 Mbps | 34.61 ms | 92.3% | Orange |
| Bucharest | 91.89 Mbps | 24.54 Mbps | 31.11 ms | 94.9% | Orange |
The counter-intuitive result: Bucharest is the slowest of Romania’s big cities, at a 91.89 Mbps median, while Iași leads at 155.13 Mbps. The capital’s number reflects congestion and a huge device mix rather than a weaker build; latency is still the best in the country at 31.11 ms. For a visitor, all ten cities clear 90 Mbps — more than enough for maps, video calls and uploads.
Romania median mobile download by county
| County | Median download | Consistency | Fastest provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iași County | 113.53 Mbps | 92.6% | No winner |
| Cluj County | 103.43 Mbps | 92.6% | No winner |
| Bucharest | 91.89 Mbps | 94.9% | Orange |
| Timiș | 87.93 Mbps | 90.8% | Orange |
| Bihor County | 74.24 Mbps | 91.7% | Orange |
| Mehedinți County | 74.24 Mbps | 91.3% | Orange |
| Constanța | 72.21 Mbps | 89.4% | No winner |
| Dolj County | 71.17 Mbps | 90.4% | Orange |
| Sibiu | 70.62 Mbps | 89.1% | Orange |
| Brașov | 69.55 Mbps | 88.7% | Orange |
| Prahova | 59.22 Mbps | 87.4% | No winner |
| Mureș | 57.22 Mbps | 88% | Orange |
| Tulcea | 55.75 Mbps | 89.3% | Orange |
| Maramureș | 53.59 Mbps | 89.8% | Orange |
| Suceava County | 44.56 Mbps | 86.3% | No winner |
| Caraș-Severin County | 46.47 Mbps | 85.3% | No winner |
| Harghita County | 38.23 Mbps | 85.1% | No winner |
| Covasna County | 38.44 Mbps | 89% | No winner |
| Giurgiu County | 33.96 Mbps | 79.3% | No winner |
Orange was the fastest provider in 14 of Romania’s regions; no single carrier wins everywhere, and consistency — the share of samples clearing 5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up — stays above 79% even in the weakest county. Transylvania’s tourist belt (Brașov, Sibiu, Cluj) sits in the 70–103 Mbps band; the Carpathian counties toward Harghita and Covasna are the slow end, at roughly a third of Iași’s median.
EU roaming rules for a Romania eSIM
EU membership cuts both ways in Romania. On the plus side, a SIM or eSIM from another member state works here at domestic rates under “roam like at home” — the European Commission’s roaming page sets out the rights and the fair-use data limits. Second, it matters as a warning: Romania’s famously cheap local data does not travel — an EU plan’s roaming allowance is capped by fair-use formulas, so heavy users arriving on EU profiles still hit ceilings.
For visitors with no EU plan, a travel profile is the predictable answer: installed before departure, attached to Orange or DIGI on landing, with the home SIM kept in place for verification. Data-only profiles include no Romanian number — fine for tourists, since ride-hailing, reservations and messaging all work over data with your existing number. Identity registration applies to locally bought SIMs (passport at the carrier store), which is the in-person step the eSIM route skips.
💡 Bucharest, Budapest and Sofia in one trip? One regional profile beats three; our Hungary eSIM guide and Bulgaria travel eSIM page cover the neighbours.
Romania mobile data in numbers: how cheap and how fast?
Romanian tiers, from data-only bundles to unlimited, are catalogued on the Romania eSIM page. The public data frames the local reality:
| Measure | Romania | Global median |
|---|---|---|
| Median mobile download | 82.57 Mbps (56th worldwide, Aug 2026) | 109.05 Mbps |
| Median mobile latency | 21 ms | 24 ms |
| Median fixed download | 276.18 Mbps (15th worldwide) | 129.68 Mbps |
| Average cost of 1 GB | USD 0.54 (50th of 237) | USD 2.59 |
The gap between the mobile and fixed columns is the Romania story in one table: fibre is world-class, mobile is mid-table, and data is cheap by any standard. DataReportal counted 17.8 million Romanian internet users (94.0%) and 25.3 million mobile connections (133%) as 2025 opened. For a visitor, the practical takeaway is that hotel and apartment Wi-Fi in the cities is often excellent — the Romania eSIM earns its keep on the road, which is precisely where Orange’s consistency advantage matters.
Romania eSIM coverage: Bucharest, Transylvania and the coast
| Destination | Best carrier | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Bucharest | Orange | The deepest 5G availability in the country and the best all-round medians; expect downtown congestion at peak. |
| Iași | Orange | The fastest city median in Romania (155.1 Mbps) — Orange’s eastern stronghold. |
| Timișoara | DIGI, Orange | DIGI’s showcase city, with the fastest fixed broadband (333.25 Mbps); Orange holds the mobile edge. |
| Cluj-Napoca | Orange | The tech hub gets Orange’s low 5G latency (39 ms) and strong uploads — well suited to remote work. |
| Brașov & the Carpathians | Orange | Consistency wins in the valleys and around the resorts; the high passes have gaps on every network. |
| Danube Delta | Orange | Signal exists in the towns and along the main channels; the deeper you go, the more offline it becomes. |
How to set up and activate a Romania eSIM
There is no counter and no clerk: pay online, receive the profile by email, add it in Settings, and permit roaming on the eSIM line. The whole thing is a five-minute job on home Wi-Fi, and doing it early avoids hunting for a SIM at Henri Coandă after a long flight. You can follow the activation how-to for either platform, and the failure list covers what to do when it does not work.
Two Romania-specific notes for road trippers. First, the Transfăgărășan and Transalpina highways cross genuine coverage voids — spectacular ones — so download offline maps and accommodation details in Sibiu or Brașov before the climb, not at the summit. Second, if your phone parks on a weak carrier in the mountains, select Orange manually from the network list; automatic selection does not always pick the strongest available network in terrain. City arrivals are simpler: Bucharest Otopeni airport has solid coverage from all networks, and the profile connects the moment you land if roaming was enabled before departure.
Five pre-trip checks for your Romania eSIM
| # | Check | Passing state |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Device unlocked | “No SIM restrictions” |
| 2 | eSIM hardware present | EID visible under *#06# |
| 3 | QR code saved twice | Screenshot on the phone and in cloud storage |
| 4 | Profile installed before departure | Install over home Wi-Fi, not airport Wi-Fi |
| 5 | Data line and roaming set | eSIM carries data, data roaming enabled |
Four eSIM failure patterns in Romania
A. Installed, but no bars in Bucharest. Choose the network by hand — Orange, Vodafone or DIGI — under Settings → Cellular → Network Selection. Romanian networks sometimes decline a foreign profile’s first automatic attach, and a manual pick sidesteps the wait.
B. Signal, no data. Nine times in ten this is the APN row above, or the data line still pointing at the home SIM. Check both before resetting anything.
C. Data works in the city, dies in the Carpathians. Expected behaviour in the thinner counties (Harghita, Covasna, Giurgiu). Switch to the strongest available network manually and drop to 3G/2G only if the handset insists on holding a weak 5G cell.
D. Cross-border failure in Bulgaria or Hungary. A Romania-only profile stops at the border. If your route continues to the Black Sea coast or through the Balkans, check the Bulgaria eSIM page or a regional Europe profile before you leave.
Romania eSIM on trains, buses and the road to the Danube Delta
Romanian travel splits into two connectivity regimes, and planning for both is what keeps a Romania eSIM useful.
The rail and bus network. The Bucharest–Brașov line, the westward routes to Timișoara and Cluj, and the intercity bus network all hold usable coverage on Orange for most of their length — long enough for streaming on the plain, with expected dropouts where the line climbs into the Carpathians. Tickets for the rail operator and the long-distance bus platforms are bought in apps and validated by QR, which makes live data part of the boarding process.
The Delta and the back roads. Everything east of Tulcea behaves differently: signal follows the main channels and the towns, guesthouses have Wi-Fi that stops at the property line, and boat transfers into the reed beds are offline by nature. The correct pattern is the same one the salt flats teach in Bolivia — book and download in the last city, treat the boat as airplane mode, and let Orange’s consistency handle the drive to Tulcea.
Cash, cards and connectivity. Romanian cities are card-friendly, but rural fuel stations, market stalls and guesthouses in the Delta still lean on cash — download maps and carry lei, and the eSIM’s job stays simple: navigation, messaging and the occasional video call from a mountain valley.
Which Romanian networks sell eSIMs to visitors?
Buying locally is genuinely cheap in Romania, and every carrier now has a prepaid route a tourist can complete with a passport. Prices below are the published prepaid tiers as of 2026 and are quoted in lei (RON); €1 sits near 5 RON, so 20 RON is roughly €4.
Orange prepaid plans and rural reach
Orange holds the widest 4G footprint and the best rural reach, which is why it is the default recommendation once your trip leaves Bucharest.
| Plan | Data | Validity | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prepaid 5 GB | 5 GB | 30 days | 20 RON |
| Prepaid 15 GB | 15 GB | 30 days | 40 RON |
| Prepaid 30 GB | 30 GB | 30 days | 55 RON |
| Prepaid Unlimited | Unlimited | 30 days | 79 RON |
Orange runs staffed kiosks in the arrivals hall at Henri Coandă (Otopeni), which is the fastest airport-to-connected route in the country. Bring your passport: registration is completed on the spot.
Vodafone Romania prepaid plans
Vodafone’s prepaid tiers track Orange’s within a few lei — 18 RON for 5 GB, 38 RON for 15 GB, 52 RON for 30 GB and 72 RON for unlimited. Historically it has edged ahead on the Black Sea coast; in Transylvania and the cities the two are interchangeable. Its APN differs from Orange’s, which matters only if your phone fails to pick up the settings automatically.
DIGI prepaid plans and prices
DIGI (RCS & RDS) was postpaid-only for years, then acquired Telekom Romania Mobile’s prepaid customer base in November 2025 and migrated it through March 2026 — which is why DIGI prepaid is now sold everywhere rather than at a handful of stores.
| Plan | Data | Validity | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prepaid 10 GB | 10 GB | 30 days | 15 RON |
| Prepaid 30 GB | 30 GB | 30 days | 22 RON |
| Prepaid 50 GB | 50 GB | 30 days | 28 RON |
| Prepaid Unlimited | Unlimited | 30 days | 35 RON |
At 22 RON for 30 GB, DIGI is roughly a third of Orange’s price for the same volume. The trade-off is single-digit percentage coverage differences in deep rural areas and fewer stores outside the big cities.
YOXO is Orange Romania’s digital-only brand and the reason Romanian price lists look impossibly cheap: month-to-month plans, no stores, no contract, everything in the app. It runs on Orange’s network, so coverage is identical to the Orange prepaid above, and the trade-off is support — app chat or nothing at all. YOXO eSIM is issued through the same app once the account is verified, and verification is the sticking point for a visitor: Romanian SIM rules require ID registration, and the app route assumes a Romanian payment method, which is usually where a foreign card stalls. Worth the twenty minutes if you are staying a month on Orange coverage; not worth it for a week.
How long does buying a local SIM take?
| Step | What happens | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Find a store | Orange and DIGI have airport kiosks; all three are in every shopping centre | 5–20 min |
| Register | Passport handed over, details entered against the line | 5–10 min |
| Activate and configure | Staff activate on the spot; check the APN if data does not flow | 5 min |
| Top up later | Recharge vouchers from supermarkets, or the carrier app | — |
That is 15–35 minutes of your first morning. A travel eSIM trades the queue for a higher per-gigabyte price and no local number — the calculation most visitors make in favour of the eSIM once they see 30 GB of local data costs less than a coffee.
Will your phone work with a Romania eSIM?
Which network bands do Romanian carriers use?
| Technology | Bands in use | What it means for your phone |
|---|---|---|
| 4G LTE | 800 MHz (B20), 1800 MHz (B3), 2600 MHz (B7) | B20 carries rural reach; B7 carries city speed. Most global handsets have all three. |
| 5G | 3.5 GHz (n78) | The workhorse band for Romanian 5G. Flagships from 2020 onward usually include it. |
| Fallback | 2G/3G legacy bands | Used for voice fallback and the thinnest rural pockets. |
A phone without n78 still works well: it stays on LTE, and Romanian LTE medians (86.91 Mbps on Orange nationally) beat most countries’ 5G.
Four device checks before installing a Romania eSIM
- Carrier lock. On iPhone, Settings → General → About carries a Carrier Lock entry that must read “No SIM restrictions”. EU-sold phones are locked only if bought on a subsidised contract.
- eSIM support.
*#06#shows an EID on a compatible handset; our eSIM compatibility checker confirms the model. - Dual SIM behaviour. Set the eSIM as the mobile data line and leave the home SIM for calls and SMS codes.
- China-market iPhones. Models sold in mainland China disable eSIM hardware entirely; use a physical SIM in Romania or a different device.
How to enter Romania APN settings manually
You need these only if you bought a Romanian SIM or carrier eSIM directly, or if your phone did not receive the settings automatically. A travel eSIM supplies its own APN and needs nothing changed.
| Carrier | APN | Username | Password |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange Romania | internet |
blank | blank |
| Vodafone Romania | live.vodafone.com |
blank | blank |
| DIGI | internet |
blank | blank |
Where to enter it: the iPhone path runs Settings → Cellular → the line → Cellular Data Network. The Android path runs Settings → Connections → Mobile Networks → Access Point Names, where you add a fresh entry. Save, reboot, and make sure the eSIM is carrying data before you diagnose anything else.
How much data do you need for a Romania trip?
Romanian prepaid is cheap enough that over-buying costs little, but a travel eSIM prices data closer to the European norm — so match the allowance to the itinerary rather than defaulting to the largest tier.
| Trip | Typical length | Comfortable allowance | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bucharest city break | 3–4 days | 3–5 GB | Hotel and café Wi-Fi absorb evenings; maps, Bolt rides and messaging are the only constant draws. |
| Bucharest + Transylvania by train | 7 days | 5–8 GB | Onboard Wi-Fi is patchy on CFR trains, so station lookups and timetables run on mobile data. |
| Carpathian road trip | 7–10 days | 10–15 GB | Navigation, offline map downloads, music and photo uploads from the road; valleys eat signal and data. |
| Danube Delta | 4–5 days | 4–6 GB | Villages are covered; the channels between them are not. Download maps at Tulcea before the boat. |
| Black Sea coast, July–August | 7 days | 8–12 GB | Beach-season congestion slows Wi-Fi, so more traffic moves to mobile; uploads from the coast add up. |
| Remote-work month | 30 days | 25 GB+, or local DIGI prepaid | A DIGI 30 GB prepaid at 22 RON undercuts any travel eSIM over a month. |
Where mobile coverage gets weak in Romania
The Danube Delta. Tulcea, Sulina, Sfântu Gheorghe and Murighiol all have usable coverage, and Tulcea County posts a 55.75 Mbps median — respectable for a wetland region. The gap is on the water: channels between villages lose signal for long stretches, on every network. Download an offline map of the delta at Tulcea and treat the boat crossings as offline time.
High Carpathian passes. Transfăgărășan and Transalpina hold signal through most of their length, with the failures concentrated in narrow, forested valleys. Above roughly 1,800 m, treat the phone as unreliable for emergency calls and carry a paper map on serious hikes. Snow-closed sections in winter remove the question entirely.
Is Romania’s mobile data cheaper than the rest of the EU?
Yes, by a wide margin. Cable.co.uk prices a gigabyte of Romanian mobile data at around USD 0.54, 50th of 237 markets surveyed, against a global average of USD 2.59 — and DIGI’s prepaid tiers undercut even that. The catch is procedural rather than financial: a local line means registration and a shop visit, which is where the travel eSIM premium goes.
Which carrier wins in the Danube Delta?
Orange, on the strength of its consistency in the delta’s towns and along the main channels. Signal exists in Tulcea, Sulina and the larger villages and thins out on the smaller waterways, where no carrier reaches. Download offline maps for the channels before you board, because the boat will not have Wi-Fi.
Does a Romania eSIM work in Moldova or Serbia?
Only on a regional plan — a Romania-only profile stops at the border, and neither neighbour is inside the EU’s roaming framework in the same way. If your itinerary continues east or south-west, buy a multi-country profile rather than relying on EU roaming rules to carry you.
Quick FAQ for Romania eSIM buyers
Does a Romania eSIM work in Bulgaria, Hungary or Ukraine?
Only inside Romania’s borders. Border-hoppers should either carry a profile per leg (our Ukraine eSIM guide covers the eastern neighbour) or use a regional plan. EU roaming rights only apply to profiles issued inside the EU bloc, not to travel eSIMs generally.
Which is better in Romania: Orange or DIGI?
Orange wins on speed, availability, consistency and rural reach; DIGI wins on price culture, 5G consistency in its cities and gaming performance. For a visitor on the move, Orange is the safer default — the moment your route leaves city centres, its network is the one still standing.
Where 5G works in Romania
Orange leads at 50.9% 5G availability, concentrated in the major cities; DIGI’s 5G is strong in its urban strongholds. Rural Romania — including the Carpathian resorts — runs on 4G, which at Orange’s 92.6% consistency is perfectly dependable.
Which handsets work with a Romania eSIM?
Practically any modern unlocked handset: Romania’s LTE layers at 800/1800/2600 MHz and its 5G layers on n78 and n1 are standard on mainstream models. One pass through the eSIM compatibility list tells you whether yours qualifies.
When does my Romania eSIM validity start?
With most travel eSIM plans, the clock starts at first network connection in Romania — install at home, and the validity waits until you land. One-time upfront purchase, no auto-renewal. The plan page states the exact validity window per tier.
Local SIM vs travel eSIM in Romania: which wins?
Romanian prepaid is cheap enough that over-buying costs little, but a travel eSIM prices data closer to the European norm — so match the allowance to the itinerary rather than defaulting to the largest tier. A shop-activated prepaid SIM card from Orange or DIGI remains the local price benchmark; a travel data plan with a mid-trip top-up trades a little of that price for never queueing.
How good is coverage on the Carpathian passes?
Cluj County records 103.43 Mbps median download and Brașov 69.55 Mbps, both with consistency above 88%. The gaps are on the mountain passes rather than in the towns: Orange and Vodafone hold most of the valley sections and the tunnel approaches, DIGI is thinner at altitude, and the high passes drop out entirely for stretches long enough to matter. Download the route in Sibiu or Curtea de Argeș, and treat the drive itself as offline time rather than waiting for bars to return.
Is Digi really cheaper than Orange in Romania?
For data volume, yes — 30 GB on DIGI costs 22 RON against 55 RON on Orange’s prepaid tier. What you buy with the difference is coverage depth: Orange led on speed in 14 regions of the H2 2025 report, and has the better grip on scattered rural settlements. In Bucharest, Cluj and Sibiu the two are close enough that price decides.
Can you buy a Romania eSIM at the airport?
Orange and DIGI both run kiosks in the arrivals hall, with the usual airport premium and queues after large arrivals. If your flight lands late, the kiosks may already be closed; an eSIM installed before departure removes that risk entirely.
Manual APN values for Romania
internet, with username and password left blank. Vodafone Romania uses live.vodafone.com and DIGI uses internet. A travel eSIM configures itself and should not be touched.
Which documents work for a Romania SIM?
Romanian law requires prepaid lines to be registered to a verified identity, so the carrier records your passport details at the point of sale. The same rule applies to a local carrier eSIM — which is one of the quiet advantages of a travel eSIM issued abroad.
How much does 30 GB of Romanian data cost?
On DIGI, 22 RON — about €4.40. Orange charges 55 RON for the same volume and Vodafone 52 RON. For comparison, Cable.co.uk’s survey prices Romanian mobile data at roughly USD 0.54 per gigabyte — well below the USD 2.59 global average.
How much data for a Romania trip?
City travel: 5–10 GB covers maps, ride-hailing, streaming and video calls comfortably, especially with good apartment Wi-Fi absorbing evenings. A Carpathian road-trip week earns its data twice over — navigation, music and photo uploads from the road — so carry double if the route leaves Bucharest for more than a day, and keep hotspot use for the evenings — rural towers throttle tethered loads sooner than city medians suggest.
Is Orange worth the premium over DIGI in Romania?
In rural Transylvania and Maramureș, yes — Orange took the fastest-provider title in 14 regions of Ookla’s H2 2025 report. In Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara the two are within a few megabits, and DIGI’s prepaid data costs roughly a third as much.
Will my Romania eSIM work on the Bucharest metro?
Yes. Mobile coverage runs through the metro network and stations in Bucharest, though the tunnels between stations behave like tunnels anywhere — expect brief dropouts on the platform edges rather than a dead system.
What is the right moment to turn the Romania profile on?
At home, on your own Wi-Fi, in the day or two before departure — and then leave it inactive until Bucharest. It wakes up on first registration with a Romanian network, so there is no cost to installing early and a real cost to doing it at Henri Coandă after a long flight.
Will my home number keep receiving texts in Romania?
Yes, and given how many services now depend on a code to a familiar number, it is worth keeping. Run calls and one-time passwords on the physical SIM, data on the eSIM, and confirm before you leave that roaming voice on your home tariff is priced in a way you are happy with.
Romania’s data is the cheapest in the EU — why not just buy prepaid?
Local prepaid is the cheapest data in the European Union, so the question is entirely about time rather than price. A Romanian prepaid line means a shop, a passport and an identity registration, and it commits you to Orange, DIGI or Vodafone for the whole trip. The travel profile costs more per gigabyte and reaches all of them, which is why a Romania eSIM is the better answer for anything shorter than a month.
Is topping up possible out in the Danube Delta?
Possible, but do it before you go. The top-up itself is a couple of minutes in the provider’s app, and the trouble is finding the connection to run it — the Delta is exactly the kind of place where the allowance quietly runs out days before you notice. The other stretch to plan around is the Carpathian passes, where coverage thins on every network.
Where our Romania eSIM data comes from
- Network and county performance — from Ookla’s H2 2025 Romania report, which yields the Orange, DIGI and Vodafone metrics, the ten city medians and the county table.
- Where Romania ranks right now — Romania on Ookla’s monthly Global Index.
- The roaming rules — set out formally on the European Commission’s Your Europe roaming pages.
- The USD 0.54 per-gigabyte comparison — Cable.co.uk’s worldwide survey.
- Market size — DataReportal, Digital 2025: Romania.
- Prepaid tiers as sold — the operators’ own sites: Orange Romania, Vodafone Romania and DIGI, where the plans above are listed with their validity windows. DIGI took over Telekom Romania Mobile’s prepaid base from November 2025, which is why those tiers now sell nationwide. Where sources disagree on Romania, we publish the gap, not the friendlier number.
Each number is a dated outside measurement: reliable for comparing markets, useless for guessing one Carpathian pass.
Get your Romania eSIM ready before you fly
Local prepaid is the cheapest route, but it costs you a shop visit; a travel profile swaps a little of that saving for doorstep setup.
- Compare Romania eSIM plans — data-only or unlimited
- Start with the free Romania eSIM — no charge
Bought on Wi-Fi, live the moment you land
If you would rather test before you commit, Roami’s trial eSIM runs on the same networks this guide compares — including the local networks. New Roami customers can also use WEB20 for 20% off a paid Romania plan.
