SIM Card at Nanjing Airport - 2026 Nanjing Show
Once we clear Immigration and Customs, we exit into the public area of the Nanjing airport and immediately go to the Jiangsu Tourism Information Center located right across from the Immigration exit.
A sign in front of the booth shows the three options they have for China SIM cards that you can purchase and put into your phone. All options are incredibly affordable with the only differences being your length of stay (so the period of time during which the SIM card will be active), the number of minutes for phone calls and, most importantly, the number of gigabytes (GB) of cellular data you will receive with each package.
It's important to note that in China, they DO NOT use eSIM cards. They ONLY use physical SIM cards so if your phone ONLY uses eSIMs, then you can't put a Chinese SIM card into your phone. For example, ALL USA-based iPhones that are Models 14 or newer CAN NOT accept physical SIM cards so this option is not available for you.
The second thing to note is that these physical SIM cards CAN NOT be recharged without going to a China Mobile store to get a new physical SIM card. If you have any doubt, just get a larger amount of GBs than you think you might need. The difference between 30GB and 80GB is less than $15 USD.
The way that I do SIMs when I travel is to leave my main phone (iPhone) untouched. I always bring a spare Samsung phone with me that can accept physical SIM cards and I use that phone as my local phone.
Later in this series I'm going to post an in-depth test I did in China that compares many different ways of getting mobile data and I look at the pros and cons of each. Physical SIMs, eSIMs, different mobile WiFis and more.
