eSIM and SIM cards in Uzbekistan

Buy it in the arrivals hall

Ucell, Uzmobile, Mobiuz and Beeline all have desks in the Tashkent airport arrivals hall, immediately after customs. This is the easiest SIM purchase in Central Asia and there is no reason to wait.

• Ucell is the default pick for visitors, with the most consistent 4G along the Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva route.
• Uzmobile, the state operator, is the one to have in the regions away from that corridor.
• Mobiuz is the cheap option and is fine if you never leave the cities.
• Beeline is the weakest network and is worth avoiding despite competitive pricing.
• A tourist SIM with a usable data bundle is cheap by any standard, and 10 to 30 GB packages are normal.

Get the registration right

• Your passport is required and the line is registered in your name. This is normal and not a red flag.
• Buy from an operator desk or an official shop, not a street kiosk. The known failure is a kiosk that sells you a working SIM without completing the registration, and the network cuts the line off days later, usually when you are in Bukhara and need a taxi.
• Ask them to make a call and load a page before you walk away.
• Keep the receipt and the SIM's packaging with the number on it.

Coverage, and where it fails

• Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara have good 4G and increasingly 5G.
• The desert stretches, the Aral region and the mountains south of Tashkent are patchy, and the Nukus to Moynaq road has long dead sections.
• Download offline maps of every city you plan to visit. Street addressing here is not intuitive, and the old towns are a maze.
• Hotel wifi is common and slow.

Two local habits

• Telegram is the country's messaging app, far more than WhatsApp. Restaurants, guides and drivers will ask for your Telegram.
• Do not photograph metro stations, bridges, checkpoints or anything military. Tashkent's metro photography ban was lifted years ago and the stations are spectacular, but the wider rule about official buildings is enforced, and a police officer's opinion is the one that counts.