We searched for the best value pay-as-you-go mobile phone sim cards for travellers visiting the United States and found that the T-Mobile sim card is the best overall option combining generous data and local call allowance, simple pay-as-you-go daily charges and ease of topping up at thousands of shops throughout the United States.

T-Mobile has several prepaid plans. The Pay By The Day plans are generally the best deal for most travellers and when you activate your sim card you get the choice of putting it on either the $2/day or $3/day Pay By The Day plan.

It is cheap for your friends and family to call you since calls to mobile phones in the United States cost the same as calls to landlines. In many cases it will be cheaper for your friends and family in the UK to call you on your USA mobile that it currently costs them to call your UK mobile.

Activate on the T-Mobile Pay By The Day plan of your choice

We have found that this is by far the most popular rate plan for most travellers visiting the United States. Benefits of this rate plan include:

T-Mobile’s Pay By The Day plans offer excellent value with unlimited calls and data and no minimum monthly charge.

International calls are expensive with this plan, but there are a number of ways to save on calls back home. If you need to make international calls you are advised to combine this plan with either the Localphone or Rebtel service (which gives you international calls at much cheaper rates than T-Mobile’s standard international call charge).

This rate plan is not suitable if you need to access email on a BlackBerry device, however you can still buy this sim card and call T-Mobile to change to one of their Monthly4G prepaid plans with a BlackBerry data feature.

Activating your service

After you have received your sim card you can activate it to receive your US mobile phone number. Activating your sim only takes five minutes and within 24 hours of activating your sim (although it is usually much quicker) you will receive an email containing your US mobile phone number.

During the activation process you get to choose whether you want to go on the $2/day or $3/day Pay By The Day plan (both give you unlimited incoming calls, unlimited calls to US mobile and landline phones, unlimited text messages to US mobiles and unlimited data, but internet access is faster on the $3/day plan) and you also have the option of requesting the area code of your mobile phone number.

These prepaid plans are very flexible and changing plans is very easy using the T-Mobile customer service number, on 611 from your mobile or 1 877 778 2106 from any other phone. You can do this via an automated service, or even speak to a real customer representative! You can switch between Pay By The Day plans as often as you like, as long as there is enough credit on your phone to change to the plan you wish to.

How do I make cheaper international calls with my T-Mobile USA sim card?

T-Mobile’s standard charge to call landlines and mobile phones in the UK is USD $1.99 per minute, but calls home are only USD 1¢ per minute to UK landlines and USD 7.9-19.9¢ per minute to UK mobiles if you combine your T-Mobile USA service with either the Localphone or Rebtel international discount calling service.

Here’s a quick comparision for the call costs for the Pay By The Day plan with and without the Localphone and Rebtel international service to illustrate how much you can save on international calls when you combine your T-Mobile USA sim card with one of these two services.

Use the following widget to work out the cost of calls to other countries using Rebtel:

Rebtel gives you cheap calls home from your mobile by assigning a local US number to your contacts back home so you are charged for a local call (from on the $2/day Pay By The Day plan) and then Rebtel forwards the call to the UK at a substantial discount. If you’re planning on making a few calls home, then it is highly recommended to sign up for the Rebtel service.

Because Rebtel is an international service independent of T-Mobile USA, you can continue to use any unused Rebtel credit for cheap international calls from your regular mobile service after you get home.

You will need to sign up for the Rebtel service to qualify for the cheaper international calls shown in the last column of the above table. It only takes 10 minutes to set up a Rebtel account online.

Localphone is a similar service that may offer cheaper rates to some destinations.

What is my total cost to get started?

When you buy a T-Mobile USA SIM card from us, you pay £26 for the SIM card which includes USD $10 credit.

The included $10 will be enough to get you started and may be all you need if you will be visiting the USA for fewer than six days. However you will need to by a refill card from a convenience store during your first few days in the USA so you can add more credit to continue using your service if you plan on staying a week or longer or if you want to make calls that are not included as free calls on the Pay By The Day rate plan.

What size sim card should I buy?

If you have an Apple iPhone 5 you need to buy a nano sim.

If you have an Apple iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S; an HTC One X; LG Google Nexus 4; Nokia N9 or any Nokia Lumia Windows Phone or the Samsung Galaxy SIII you will need to buy a micro sim.

For all other mobile phones (including the Apple iPhone 3G and iPhone 3Gs and older versions of the Samsung Galaxy) you will need a regular sim card.

Coverage

The T-Mobile GSM mobile network offers good coverage in most areas of the United States including Hawaii and even Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. You can check coverage on the T-Mobile website.

T-Mobile has the largest 1900 Mhz GSM network in the United States and is the best option if you have a tri-band phone, but you will get better coverage if you have a quadband phone that also supports the 850 MHz GSM band.

Please note that there are some areas of the United States where T-Mobile uses the networks of partner networks, which range from AT&T to smaller regional operators. These networks may run on the 850 MHz GSM band. In these cases you would need a quad band phone compatible with both the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz frequencies. This mostly impacts visitors to rural areas including large parts of Alaska as well as Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Is 3G data available?

The $2/day Pay By The Day rate plan includes unlimited data access at EDGE speed on T-Mobile’s 2G network. Although relatively slow, EDGE data is fine for email and most apps (including maps, Twitter and What’s App); however a faster 3G data connection is better suited for some apps including any app that uploads large files or handles streaming audio or video (including Skype, Viber or YouTube). If you want to access data at faster 3G speed you can choose the $3/day Pay By The Day plan when activating your service.

How do I top up my credit?

There are several ways to buy refill vouchers and top up your T-Mobile SIM.

You can top up with refill cards available from the following retailers in the USA:

Will the sim card work in my mobile phone?

The T-Mobile USA sim card will work in any unlocked GSM mobile phone that operates at the 1900Mhz GSM band. This includes all tri-band and quad-band mobile phones from Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. You will get expanded coverage in rural areas if your phone also supports the 850MHz GSM band and if you choose to switch to the $3/day plan your phone will also need to be compatible with the 1900MHz 3G band (with expanded coverage if your phone also supports the 1700MHz 3G band).

We strongly recommend that you check your phone’s specifications before you travel to ensure that your mobile phone is compatible with the 1900MHz GSM band. It is also essential that you double check that your phone is unlocked before travelling

What’s the deal with unlocking my phone?

When you buy a mobile phone it is usually locked into the network you bought it from; this means that it will only accept a sim card from that network. If you call your mobile phone company, they should be able to unlock your phone for you so it will accept any sim card (including the T-Mobile USA SIM).

Refer to the unlocking section of our support site for more information.

Do I need to activate my sim card?

The T-Mobile USA sim card is already activated with either a USA phone number and is ready to use.

You don’t need to give any personal details to activate your American sim card.

Can I roam with this sim?

You can also use this sim to roam outside the USA; however roaming charges apply so it is not recommended to use this sim outside the United States except for short trips into Canada where roaming charges aren’t too bad (59c per minute on top of the regular call charges), but it is very expensive (around $2 per minute on top of the regular call charges) to use it in most other countries.

Text messages in Canada are 10¢ to send or receive, but in other countries this will cost 50¢ to send and 10¢ to receive. MMS picture messages cost 25¢ to send or receive.

The T-Mobile SIM is ideal for travellers going to the USA and making side trips to Canada, but if you’re spending more than a three to four days in Canada we recommend that you also buy a Canadian sim card.

Will I get a brand new number?

The T-Mobile SIMs that we have in stock are activated with numbers allocated direct from T-Mobile.

In the United States (as with most other countries) when telephone numbers expire they are put back into circulation. This is basically an issue with all phone numbers, anywhere, but it is more noticable in the USA where there is a shortage of phone numbers per area code (because they still use seven-digit phone numbers). To avoid running out of numbers, they are recycled shortly after being disconnected. All phone companies do this, and it is certainly not an issue that is unique to T-Mobile.

Unfortunately, this means that some people have recieved calls and text messages intended for people who previously had their phone number.

Rest assured that the numbers are direct allocations from T-Mobile, and we have now requested that they come from different area codes to reduce the chance that you get a recycled number.

When should I order my T-Mobile USA sim card

You can order your T-Mobile USA sim card any time from a few days to a couple of months before you travel.

This sim card usually takes a couple of days to be posted within the UK, but it is a good idea to allow up to a week in case there are any delays in the postal system.

Additional Information