Visiting Panama soon and looking for ways to stay connected and not being charged high roaming costs? This is your complete guide for buying a prepaid sim card on arrival at Panama City Airport. I will show you where to buy a sim card for Panama, up to date prices as per July 2022, give you my recommendation as well as information about international and e-sim cards for Panama and even have a vlog for you about my experiences buying a sim card for my trip to Panama at PTY Airport.
As Traveltomtom is on a mission to visit every country in the world I get to a lot of new countries constantly. A local prepaid sim card is the cheapest way to get connected and buying one is the first thing I do in every new country. Therefore on Traveltomtom you can find already more than 200 prepaid sim card guides from: Guatemala, Mexico City, Colombia, Bogota, Paraguay, Costa Rica, New York, Newark, USA, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Europe and many more.
Of course you can also find a complete guide about the best prepaid sim card in Panama in 2022 on Traveltomtom. I can already tell you that buying a sim card in Panama City center is MUCH cheaper!
Where to buy a sim card at Panama City Airport
Seems like there is only one store that has the rights to sell prepaid sim cards for tourists at Panama City Airport and that is Travel Data Global, which you can better recognize by: Sim Card Internacional ‘Conexion en más de 150 Paises’.
Apart from these kiosks there is no other place where you can buy a sim card at Panama City Airport. You can find these kiosk all over the airport: land-side and air-side. Meaning as soon as you walk out of the plane, even before you go through immigration and picked up your bags you can already buy a sim card for Panama at one of these stores.
See my vlog about my experiences below.
Although you will see prepaid sim card advertisement of the 4 mobile internet providers in Panama all around the airport there is unfortunately no Digicell, Mas Movil, Tigo or Claro store at Panama City Airport.
Prepaid sim card prices at Panama City Airport
Since Travel Data Global holds the monopoly for selling Panama tourist sim cards at Panama City Airport the prices are high.
For me it was a very easy and quick research as whichever sim card kiosk I went they sold everywhere the exact same tourist sim cards for ‘tourist’ prices.
Although around the airport you will see for example Claro advertisements offering: ‘Unlimited data for 1 week for $5 USD’, at the Travel Data Global shops they sell this exact same prepaid sim card for $30 USD.
At the Travel Data Global stores they also offer the exact same prepaid sim card deals for Digicell, Mas Movil and Tigo.
So if you would like to buy a prepaid sim card at Panama City Airport there is only 1 sim card deal available for a flat fare of $30 USD and you get 1 week of unlimited data. However, there is one Digicel prepaid sim card that costs $50 USD and that is unlimited data for 30 days.
My recommendation
Well, some people really can’t wait to get connected straight away, but for those that have a little more patience I recommend you to NOT buy a sim card at Panama City Airport PTY. If you go to Panama City center and you go to any of the 4 main internet provider stores in for example the Multiplaza Mall you can find the exact same prepaid sim card deal for just $5 USD! That is 6x cheaper!
For more info check out my article about buying a sim card in Panama in 2022.
E-sim cards for Panama
The easiest way to get connected when traveling abroad in 2022 is an e-sim card. Unfortunately I couldn’t find that many e-sim card deals for Panama yet, but here are two options:
- 1 GB data for 7 days = $9 USD
- 3 GB data for 30 days = $18 USD
Click here to order the above e-sim card for Panama directly online. With an e-sim card you keep your own phone number.
International sim cards for Panama
You can also buy an international prepaid sim card for Panama online before your trip and get it shipped to your home address. These travel sim cards cover Panama and are automatically activated from its first use, plug and play.
Check out the following international sim card deals for Panama:
- 10 GB data for 30 days = $29.90 USD
- 12 GB data for 30 days = $39.90 USD
- 24 GB data for 30 days = $79.90 USD
Click here to order one of the above international sim cards for Panama directly online.
I hope all the above information for buying a prepaid sim card at Panama City Airport was helpful for your upcoming trip. Let me know if you have any more questions in the comments below and I will try to help you out.
Want to be fuelled by wanderlust then I recommend you to check out my Instagram account @traveltomtom and follow my journey to visit every country in the world. As of July 2022 I visited more than 135 countries. I also visited Panama lately, check out my Instagram post below.
Enjoy your trip to Panama!
