Buying a SIM card in Nepal as a foreign visitor

There are no substitutes here. Registration is a legal KYC process, and counters will not process it without the documents.

Ncell and Nepal Telecom both operate counters in the arrivals hall at Tribhuvan International Airport, past immigration and baggage. They open for most international arrivals, including the late-night and early-morning banks of flights, and the staff speak English and handle foreign registration all day.

Expect ten to fifteen minutes from handing over your passport to a working SIM. Prices at the airport are broadly the same as in town for standard packs, though certain tourist bundles are only sold at official counters and kiosks.

One practical note based on repeated visitor reports rather than any published rule: counters tend to lead with the most expensive plan. Say how many days you are in Nepal and ask for the cheapest option that covers it.

Ncell sells a dedicated tourist range, available only to non-Nepali citizens. All three plans bundle unlimited data and unlimited all-net voice under a fair-usage policy, plus 100 SMS:

If your trip includes trekking, remote hill districts, or the far west, take NTC — or take both. As the state operator it carries a universal-service obligation and its towers reach places a commercial network would never cover. Trekkers routinely report NTC holding a signal at lodges and passes where Ncell has nothing.

NTC does not market as slick a tourist bundle, so you buy a normal prepaid SIM plus a data pack. That is marginally more fiddly and usually cheaper.

The strongest setup for a mixed trip: NTC in slot one for coverage, Ncell in slot two for speed. Foreign visitors are generally allowed up to two SIMs in total across operators.

Two different things get called 'eSIM for Nepal' and confusing them costs money.

A Nepali operator eSIM (Ncell's tourist eSIM, or Nepal Telecom's eSIM service) gives you a real Nepali number on local tariffs. It still requires passport registration — the KYC does not disappear because the SIM is digital.

An international travel eSIM bought from a global provider before you fly gives you data only, on a foreign number, at several times the local price. It is genuinely useful for the first hour after landing, or if you cannot face a counter — but it is not a substitute for a local number if you need to phone a Nepali hotel, guide or bus company, all of whom will call you back on a Nepali number.

Save these. They work offline with no data and are how everyone in Nepal checks a prepaid account.

The expensive errors are almost always made in the first hour, before anyone has bought a local SIM.