eSIM for Greece

Island hopping and your phone at sea

Greece has about 6,000 islands and islets, 227 of them inhabited, spread across groups such as the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the Ionian Islands, the Sporades and Crete. Many trips here are a chain of ferry crossings, so it helps to know what happens to your phone between ports.

Under EU rules, a subscription from an EU or EEA country is charged at home prices on a ship only while it is connected to a land-based mobile network, for example in a harbour. Once the phone picks up a satellite-based service on board, EU rules no longer apply and there is no price cap. The EU's Your Europe portal advises switching roaming off or using flight mode while you sail. Our guide to roaming in France explains where the same rules stop on land, for example once you travel on to the United Kingdom.

If your SIM was issued outside the EU, the EEA, Ukraine and Moldova, roam like at home does not apply to you in Greece at all, on land or at sea; your home plan's own roaming terms set the price.

Calling 112 and receiving public warnings

In Greece, 112 can be called free of charge from a mobile phone at any time, even without a SIM card, and calls are answered in Greek, English and French. The civil protection ministry adds that when you are out of range of your own network, 112 calls are carried by other mobile networks covering the area.

The 112 service also warns people about wildfires, heavy rain or earthquakes, sending Cell Broadcast messages with a distinctive alarm sound to smartphones in the area. The same warnings are posted on its official Facebook and X accounts, which are worth following during a summer trip when you are on a foreign SIM.

Arriving in Athens and choosing a plan

Athens International Airport has free Wi-Fi in the terminal, ATH Free Wifi: choose Internet Access for a session of 120 minutes, then reconnect at no charge if you need longer.

Local plans cover Greece alone, which suits a mainland stay or an island route that never leaves the country. Daily plans give you an allowance for each day, a good match for island days spent on maps, ferry times and messages. If the journey goes on to Cyprus, Italy or Bulgaria, regional plans that include Greece also cover those destinations, along with Croatia and Malta.

Your phone has to support eSIM and be unlocked, which the compatibility guide helps you confirm, and the activation guide explains what decides when a plan's term begins.