Setup guide
A calm ten minutes before departure beats a stressful hour after landing.
This guide covers delivery, installation, naming and the data-line setting that decides whether anything connects.
iPhone and Android are treated separately where the menus differ, and marked as such.
Follow the sequence
Four stages, in the order that prevents most problems
The code is only the delivery mechanism. What happens after the scan decides whether the profile installs cleanly, and the same ten seconds can go wrong in three different ways. Here is the sequence that avoids all three.
Walk through the stepsConnection, order details, the phone in your hand rather than a photo of a screen, and an honest answer about your carrier lock.
Why labels like eSIM 2 cost you time at a border, and a naming habit that takes four seconds.
Providers start the clock in different ways. Knowing which rule applies to your plan prevents a wasted week of validity.
Follow the order on this page and skip nothing that applies to your device
Installation is a download over the internet, so you need a connection that is not the profile you are installing. Home Wi-Fi is ideal. Airport Wi-Fi, captive portals and hotel networks that require a login page are not, because the download can stall halfway and leave you with a partially configured profile.
Have the order confirmation and the original QR code open on a second screen, or printed. If the code is displayed on the same phone you are installing onto, ask the provider for the manual activation details instead of photographing the screen with that phone. This is the single most common practical obstacle reported by travellers.
Finally, settle the carrier-lock question before you begin. A locked device may accept a profile from another provider and then refuse to register on a network, which looks like a failed installation but is a commercial restriction. Your current operator can confirm the lock status, and on iPhone the setting is shown in the device information screen.
The exact wording of each menu depends on the device, the operating system version and occasionally the region. The structure, however, is consistent: you tell the phone to add a mobile plan, you point the camera at the code, the phone contacts the provider's server, and the profile is written to the embedded chip.
On iPhone the path usually runs through Settings, then Mobile Service or Cellular, then Add eSIM or Add Cellular Plan. On most Android devices it is Settings, then Network and internet, then SIMs, with an option to download a SIM or add an eSIM. Samsung places the same entry under Connections and SIM manager. If you cannot find the entry at all, the device probably does not support eSIM, which is a hardware answer rather than a menu answer.
After the scan, the phone shows what the provider has sent: a plan name, sometimes a phone number, and the services included. Read that screen before confirming. It is the last point at which cancelling is trivial. Then wait. Do not close the settings app, do not switch to another task, and do not lock the screen repeatedly while the profile downloads.
Manual entry uses the same mechanism as scanning, with typed input instead of optical input. The provider supplies two pieces of information: the address of the provisioning server, and an activation code. Some providers also include a confirmation code. Together they identify your order in the same way the QR code does.
The option appears at the bottom of the add-plan screen, usually as a text link labelled something like Enter details manually or Use activation code. Fields are labelled SM-DP+ address, activation code and sometimes confirmation code; the terminology comes from the industry standard, not from your provider's marketing department.
Type carefully. These strings are long, contain hyphens and are case-sensitive in practice. Copying and pasting from an email into the phone's own fields is usually possible and safer than typing by hand. If the phone rejects the details, check for a trailing space before assuming the code is invalid.
A new profile arrives with a generic label, often the provider's internal plan name. Rename it to something you will recognise at a glance in a foreign language: the provider plus the trip, for example. This takes four seconds and saves confusion later, because the settings screen lists every profile you have ever installed, including expired ones.
The second setting is the important one. Your phone has a default line for mobile data, and it does not necessarily switch to the new profile by itself. Open the mobile data settings and select the travel profile as the data line. On iPhone this is the Mobile Data line setting; on Android it is the default SIM for mobile data under SIMs.
Keep your home line active for calls and messages if you need to receive verification codes, and turn off data roaming on that line unless your home tariff includes it. Otherwise the phone may use your home allowance for background traffic even though the travel profile is installed. The travel profile, by contrast, often requires data roaming to be switched on for that line, because from the phone's perspective it is roaming on a partner network. Follow the provider's instruction for its own line, and treat the two lines separately.
Installing puts the profile on the chip. Activation is the commercial clock starting. Providers define that moment differently: some start validity when the profile is installed, some when it first connects to a supported network in a covered country, some at a fixed date chosen at checkout, and some on first use of data. There is no universal rule, and assuming the wrong one is how people lose half their plan before landing.
The distinction matters most for trips booked weeks in advance. A plan that activates on installation should not be installed in December for a trip in March. A plan that activates on first connection is more forgiving, but even then the definition of first connection may exclude your home country, which is helpful, or include it, which is not.
Look for the phrase activation policy, validity start or start date in the provider's documentation. If it is not stated clearly, ask support before you install and keep the answer. This is one of the few cases where a written confirmation is worth the extra email.
Five sections in the order they become relevant
Connection, code, instructions, unlock status and charge. Missing any one of them is enough to turn a ten-minute job into an evening.
What the confirmation screen tells you, why you should not leave the settings app mid-download, and what a rejected code means.
Server address, activation code, confirmation code: which field is which, and why a trailing space can look like an invalid order.
A naming habit that pays off at borders, plus the two settings that decide whether traffic leaves on the right profile.
Four common activation policies and how to find out which one applies before you install anything.
Four stages, each with its own failure modes
How the code reaches you, what it contains and why it should be treated as single-use.
Scanning or typing, the confirmation screen, and the download window you should not interrupt.
Labels, default data line, roaming per line, and keeping the home number available.
Why the validity clock is a commercial decision rather than a technical one.
The four that come up most often in the first hour
Usually yes, because a stable connection at home is more reliable than airport Wi-Fi. The exception is a plan that starts its validity on installation. Check the provider's activation policy first; if validity begins at installation, install as close to departure as the instructions allow.
No. A rejected code usually means it has already been used, it has expired, or it was scanned by a device that cannot install it. Contact the provider with the order number and ask for the activation details or a replacement code. Do not keep retrying the same code.
It depends on the plan and the line. Many travel eSIMs require roaming to be enabled on that specific line, because the phone is using a partner network. Your home line should normally have roaming switched off unless your tariff includes it. Follow the provider's instruction for its own line rather than applying one rule to both.
In most current phones, yes: one line handles data while the other remains available for calls and messages. Which combinations are possible depends on the model, and some older devices allow only one active line at a time. Check the device's SIM settings to see how many lines can be active simultaneously.