Best free Pay As You Go SIM cards

If you’re shopping for a Pay As You Go SIM card you’ve got a whole bunch of options, with numerous networks offering them alongside numerous packs, prices, and perks. But what if you don’t want to spend any money upfront?

In that case, your options are more limited, but there’s still quite a bit of choice. To make things easier, below we’ve highlighted the best free Pay As You Go SIM cards available right now.

These are SIM cards that you can order without either buying a pack alongside them or paying for the SIM card itself – so they’re completely free.

Three

Three Pay As You Go

+ Enjoy Three+ Rewards, including £1 coffee and £3 cinema tickets
+ Free roaming in 71 destinations
- Other networks offer better value bundles
Order free Three PAYG SIM >

With Three – and all of the following networks – you can either order a SIM card with no allowances and top up later, or you can order it pre-loaded with a pack or credit amount of your choice.

In the case of Three specifically, the available pack options top out at unlimited data, and 5G is included, although speeds top out at either 25Mbps or 50Mbps depending on your pack, so while you’ll get the improved coverage that 5G brings, you won’t be able to take full advantage of its speeds.

Every pack also comes with unlimited minutes and texts, and you can roam for free in 71 destinations, with a variable fair use limit on data when abroad.

You’ll also get access to the network’s Three+ app, packed with exclusive offers and discounts from other brands, including £1 coffee from Caffe Nero and £3 cinema tickets at Cineworld.

Outside your pack you’ll be charged 35p per minute, 15p per text and 10p per megabyte.

Vodafone

Vodafone Pay As You Go

+ Data rollover on some bundles, so you can carry unused data into the next month
+ Access to VeryMe Rewards, including treats, giveaways and prize draws
- Roaming costs extra on bundles
- Other networks offer better value bundles
Order free Vodafone PAYG SIM >

Vodafone offers a number of Pay As You Go bundles and they top out at unlimited data, as well as supporting 5G. In the case of Pay As You Go Plus (which is the main Pay As You Go service advertised by Vodafone), 5G comes as standard, but note that on its ‘Big Value’ bundles you’ll only get 5G on the 300GB and unlimited data packs. Though these Big Value bundles do additionally come with data rollover.

Other perks of Vodafone’s Pay As You Go service include access to Vodafone’s VeryMe Rewards service. This includes weekly treats, giveaways, and prize draws. However, roaming costs extra.

Bundles are the standard way to use Pay As You Go on Vodafone, and they’re quite pricey compared to most Pay As You Go offerings. But Vodafone also offers Pay As You Go 1, which for £2 each day you use your phone gives you unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, and 50MB of data. So that’s okay if you talk and text a lot but mostly stick to Wi-Fi for data.

Giffgaff

Giffgaff isn’t the cheapest Pay As You Go network or the most expensive, sitting somewhere in the middle, but what it does have is a wide range of bundles that you can select from, so you have more choice over your allowances than on some networks. And yes, 5G comes as standard.

Technically, you can’t get a true unlimited data plan on Giffgaff Pay As You Go, though 30-day SIM Only plans are available with unlimited data. If you stick to actual Pay As You Go bundles though then the maximum you can get is 200GB at the time of writing.

Choose to go without a bundle and you’ll pay 25p per minute, 10p per text and 10p per megabyte – which we wouldn’t recommend. The Pay As You Go bundles (which all last 30 days) are much better value.

With Giffgaff you can also roam at no extra cost in 37 European destinations (up to a 5GB fair usage limit).

Lebara

Cheap rates and international perks

Lebara offers some of the very cheapest bundles that can be paired with a Pay As You Go SIM card. These also top out at unlimited data and include 5G.

Lebara doesn't have any speed caps, and you also benefit from minutes that you can use internationally, to call over 50 countries, so this is a great choice if you’re regularly calling abroad. You can also roam in both the EU and India at no extra cost – with a fair usage limit of 30GB.

VOXI

Technically VOXI doesn’t offer a Pay As You Go service, but you can order a free SIM card from the network and then later choose which SIM Only plan you want – and these SIM Only plans are all 30-day rolling ones, with competitive prices. So they’re a lot like choosing a Pay As You Go bundle.

VOXI runs off Vodafone’s network (in fact it’s owned by Vodafone), and you can get up to unlimited data. Its plans also come with 5G, and if you choose less than unlimited data then you’ll also be able to use select social media apps without it affecting your data allowance.

Some plans also come with the same for select music and video streaming services. So your data allowance can go a lot further.

These plans also all include unlimited minutes and texts, but note that roaming costs extra on VOXI.

What other networks offer Pay As You Go SIM cards?

While the options above are the main ways to get truly free Pay As You Go SIM cards, there are other networks with a Pay As You Go service.

Specifically, EE, O2, iD Mobile, Lyca Mobile, 1pMobile, Asda Mobile and Tesco Mobile offer Pay As You Go SIM cards as well.

These SIM cards are technically ‘free’ too, in that the card itself won’t cost you anything, but you will have to buy a pack or top up in order to get it, so you’ll still be spending money during the order process.