Buy a Chile eSIM Online

Mobile internet, 4G and 5G in Chile

Chile's mobile operators are Entel, Movistar, Claro and WOM, all four of which bid in the 5G spectrum auction alongside Borealnet. 5G launched commercially in December 2021, with Entel, Movistar and WOM first out; the 2020-21 tender covered the 700 MHz, AWS, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands, with Movistar, Entel and WOM each receiving 50 MHz of 3.5 GHz.

In September 2023, two months ahead of schedule, Entel reported completing its rollout: 5G in 311 communes, built with 1,371 base stations across two phases. That is Entel's own network rather than Chile's coverage — the attribution is the whole point here. At the second auction on 19 June 2024 Claro was the sole winner, taking five blocks of 10 MHz at 3.5 GHz with obligations to bring 5G to more than 120 new locations and to cover 1,500 kilometres of highways. SUBTEL publishes digital coverage maps, but no national percentage comes with them, so we quote none.

Roaming in Chile without an eSIM

Chile is outside the EU and the EEA, so 'Roam Like at Home' does not apply. That arrangement covers the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, along with Moldova and Ukraine, and Chile is not among them. Your Belgian or Dutch bundle therefore does not cross the border with you: your operator bills every megabyte at its own out-of-bundle roaming tariff, with none of the EU price caps that apply inside the zone. Chile also runs thousands of kilometres from end to end — a tour takes days, and that meter runs throughout. The European Commission advises checking the tariff first.

Multibanda's 30-day rule: what SUBTEL publishes about your handset

Chile is one of the few countries that publishes, in black and white, what happens to a handset brought in from abroad. Multibanda/SAE is a public policy, relaunched on 11 February 2019 and run under the regulator SUBTEL, which validates the certifying companies. It governs the homologation of mobile handsets and the SAE emergency alert system, so that phones sold in Chile can receive SENAPRED alerts.

The published rule has two halves. On handsets belonging to foreign subscribers, Multibanda writes: 'Los teléfonos traídos por personas que tienen servicios de otras operadoras internacionales y que los usen en la modalidad de roaming o WiFi los pueden seguir usando sin problemas, y no necesitan realizar ningún trámite de inscripción.' On a Chilean SIM card it says: 'si quieres usar el teléfono con una SIM Card de una compañía móvil chilena por más de 30 días, deberás realizar la inscripción del mismo.' The system's own device states confirm the sanction: an unregistered handset 'puede operar por 30 días', and a device can show as 'bloqueado' 'porque vencieron los 30 días'.

One point of honesty: multibanda.cl does not mention eSIMs anywhere. So we do not claim that a travel eSIM falls under the roaming exemption — we give you the rule as published, and it is clear enough on its own to be worth thinking about before you fly. If you are staying longer than a month, or plan to use a Chilean SIM card, read the current text at Multibanda and SUBTEL before you go.