Saudi eSIM Setup on Samsung Galaxy (One UI)
Add a Saudi eSIM to a Galaxy: check the EID first, install through SIM manager on Wi-Fi, and flip the right roaming switch when you land in Saudi Arabia.
Updated August 28, 2026
Home carriers price Saudi Arabia well outside any roam-like-at-home zone for most travellers. A fortnight of navigation, group chats and uploaded photos at the out-of-region rate costs more than the trip’s meals for plenty of people. The obvious fixes are worse on arrival: airport Wi-Fi dies at the terminal doors, and a local prepaid SIM means finding an open kiosk, queueing, and producing your passport at the counter.
Installing a data eSIM before you fly sidesteps all of it. The plan is bought in the Saudi eSIM app, the line downloads onto the Galaxy over your own Wi-Fi, and the only thing left on the ground is to switch it on. Because the clock starts at the first connection to a Saudi network and not at checkout, install it the evening you pack. Plans are on pricing, and if the idea is new, what an eSIM is explains it in two minutes.
The Galaxy-specific complication is not the tap sequence, which is short and stable. It is whether your particular unit supports eSIM at all. Samsung sells the same model names into dozens of markets through dozens of operators, and some regional and carrier variants ship without the hardware even when the model generally has it, so we will not publish a model list we cannot verify. Dial *#06# on the phone in your hand: an EID printed under the IMEI is the real answer, and it takes five seconds. Other handsets are covered on the iPhone and general Android pages.
Two limits to know now rather than later. The plan is data-only, which means no Saudi phone number — worth weighing specifically here, because local services often expect a Saudi number for a verification text or a callback, and a data line has none to give. Your own number stays live on your own SIM. The other limit belongs to the geography: coverage is excellent in the cities and along the highway network linking Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah, Dammam and Khobar, and there are real dead stretches out across the Empty Quarter, on the drive to AlUla and around active NEOM construction sites. Nobody’s SIM changes where towers stand. Hotspot is included, so one phone can put a laptop or the rest of the car online where there is signal, and offline maps downloaded before the desert stretch cover the places where there is not.
Installation steps
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Step 1
Check the phone before you buy anything
Open the dialler and enter *#06#. An EID listed under the IMEI means your Galaxy has eSIM hardware. No EID means it does not, and no setting will add one. Model names are a poor guide here, so trust your own handset over any list.
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Step 2
Buy the plan in the Saudi eSIM app
Pick the plan that suits the trip and pay. The QR code and manual activation details land under your order immediately and stay there, which matters if the first attempt goes wrong.
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Step 3
Install on Wi-Fi before you leave
Downloading a profile needs a working connection, and airport Wi-Fi at Riyadh or Jeddah is a poor thing to depend on with luggage in one hand. Being early costs nothing: the plan counts from its first connection to a Saudi network, not from when you paid.
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Step 4
Open Settings and go to Connections
Connections sits near the top of the Settings list. If your build looks different, type SIM into the search box at the top of Settings — Samsung has moved this menu between One UI generations.
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Step 5
Open SIM manager and tap Add eSIM
SIM manager lists your physical SIM and any digital lines. The button is usually Add eSIM; on older One UI versions the same thing reads Add mobile plan.
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Step 6
Scan the QR code, or enter the code by hand
Choose the option to scan a QR code from a service provider and point the phone at the code on another screen. With no second screen, pick Enter activation code and copy the SM-DP+ address and activation code out of the app. Both install an identical line.
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Step 7
Name the line and leave it switched off
Call it Saudi so the preferred-SIM screens are readable later, keep your home SIM set for calls and texts, and turn the new line off until you land. Nothing is consumed while it sits there.
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Step 8
On arrival: enable it, select it for data, turn roaming on
Back in SIM manager, switch the Saudi line on and set Mobile data to it under Preferred SIMs. Then enable Data roaming for that line — on One UI the switch lives under Connections, Mobile networks — which is what lets it register on a visited network. Leave it off for your home SIM, where your own carrier is watching.
Troubleshooting
Does this give me a Saudi phone number?
It does not. The plan carries data only. There is no Saudi number on it, none can be added, and your own number stays where it is. Be aware of what that rules out: some local services ask for a Saudi number to text a verification code or call you back — a ride-hailing app, a hotel booking, a delivery order. Where one insists, fall back on an email login.
Will the phone have signal for a whole desert drive?
In the cities and along the inter-city highways it will, and coverage there is excellent — STC, Mobily and Zain all invest heavily around Riyadh, Jeddah and the holy cities. Across the Empty Quarter, on the road out to AlUla and around construction-stage NEOM it is genuinely patchy. That is tower placement across a very large country, not the SIM in your phone; a local prepaid SIM would leave you in the same spot. Download offline maps for any desert leg of the drive while you still have bars.
There is no Add eSIM option in SIM manager.
Either the handset has no eSIM hardware or it is carrier-locked. The dialler code *#06# settles the first question: an EID means the hardware is there. If the EID is present and the option is not, the phone is almost certainly locked to the operator who sold it, and only they can unlock it. Ask before you travel, not from a hotel lobby in another time zone.
The download failed partway with an error.
Usually the Wi-Fi dropped mid-transfer; occasionally the phone is locked. Get onto a stable connection, restart the Galaxy and try again. Your QR code stays valid until a profile installs successfully once, so a failed attempt has not burned it.
I am in Saudi Arabia and mobile data will not work.
In order: in SIM manager, confirm the line is on and selected as the Mobile data SIM; under Mobile networks, confirm Data roaming is enabled for it; then toggle Airplane mode to force a fresh search. If it is still dead, switch off automatic network selection, choose a network manually, let it register, and set selection back to automatic.
Does enabling Data roaming cost extra?
No. On a travel line that switch is not a billing decision — it is the permission Android needs to attach the line to a network other than its own, which is the only kind it will ever see. The switch that does cost money is the one on your home SIM, so leave that off.