A Serbian SIM gets you online within minutes of walking into a shop, but only after you’ve shown a passport. That single requirement, in force since February 2025, catches more visitors off guard than anything else about getting connected here.
Three operators are actually licensed to run a network in Serbia, and all three sell an eSIM as well as a physical card. Their prepaid and eSIM prices sit on pages that carry no publication date at all, so this page treats them differently from everything else on it: not as a settled fact, but as a snapshot of what one operator’s website showed on the day we looked. What’s solid instead comes from the regulator, and from the law behind the passport rule.
If your passport is already part of your packing list for other reasons, Serbia travel essentials covers the border side of that document. This page stays with the phone.
The short version. Registering a prepaid SIM to your identity has been compulsory since 10 February 2025; bring your passport. Three operators are licensed in Serbia, mts, Yettel and A1, and all three sell eSIM. 4G reaches 96.4 to 98.4 percent of the population depending on operator, with no published coverage figure yet for the newer 5G rollout. A Serbian SIM roams free across six Western Balkans economies, but Serbia sits outside the EU’s own roam-like-home zone. Operator prices below come from undated pages: treat them as a sense of scale, not a quote.
On this page
Registering your number before you can use it
Since 10 February 2025, any prepaid SIM sold in Serbia must be registered to an identified person, under article 158 of the electronic communications act. Registering means giving your name and one identity document, and the regulator’s own guidance names a passport specifically as accepted proof for a foreign visitor. You can register at the point of sale, in an operator’s shop, or complete the process online. Numbers that weren’t registered under the rule were first suspended, then deactivated, so this isn’t a formality the regulator has left unenforced.
In practice, that means packing a passport before looking for a shop, not a photocopy that was never made.
One operator’s own page adds detail the regulator doesn’t spell out. A1’s registration FAQ states that a foreign visitor without a Serbian residence permit can register with a passport, or with a national ID card issued by an EU country, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania or Bosnia and Herzegovina; a visitor holding an approved residence permit can use a Serbian-issued foreigner’s ID card instead. That page carries no publication date, and we did not check mts’s or Yettel’s own registration pages for the same level of detail, so read this as one operator’s account rather than a rule guaranteed at every counter. A passport works everywhere the rule applies, which makes it the one document worth having regardless of the shop.
Choosing among the three licensed operators
Only three companies hold an individual radio-frequency licence to run a mobile network in Serbia: Telekom Srbija, trading at retail as mts; Yettel; and A1 Srbija. Every one of them runs a technology-neutral licence across the same set of frequency bands, and every one operates GSM, UMTS and LTE on that spectrum, so the practical difference between them comes down to how far each signal actually reaches.
| Operator | 4G population coverage | 4G territory coverage |
|---|---|---|
| mts (Telekom Srbija) | 98.4 percent | 85 percent |
| Yettel | 97.0 percent | 78 percent |
| A1 Srbija | 96.4 percent | 76 percent |
Those are the regulator’s own 2024 figures, its most recent published set, and the gap between operators only matters if your route runs through the western mountains or another thinly covered stretch. Anywhere closer to a city or a main road, the three sit close enough together that the choice comes down to price and convenience instead.
mts
mts reaches the most people and the most territory of the three, and it’s the retail brand of Telekom Srbija, a company that’s majority state-owned at just over 58 percent. You can buy an eSIM through its own website, or a physical SIM in one of its shops.
Yettel
Yettel comes second on both coverage measures. The brand itself changed hands in August 2023, when the Emirates Telecommunications Group became its majority owner; before that it operated under PPF, and earlier still under the name Telenor. It sells eSIM online alongside a physical card.
A1 Srbija
A1 trails narrowly on coverage. It’s part of Austria’s Telekom Austria group and has operated in Serbia since 2006, first under the name Vip mobile before the A1 rebrand. Like the other two, it sells its own eSIM directly online.
Reading what each operator currently shows, and why we won’t repeat it as fact
All three operators publish prepaid and eSIM prices directly on their own websites, and none of those pages carries a publication date, a last-modified header, or any other timestamp to check. That matters more here than it would on a page about opening hours, because prepaid bundles on routes like this one are known to change within weeks. So the table below isn’t a price list. It’s a record of what each operator’s own page displayed when we looked, on 9 September 2026, offered to show roughly what shape an offer takes, not what it will cost.
Displayed without a date, on the operator’s own site. Verify before you buy.
| Operator | Package | Data | Validity | Price shown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mts | Tourist SIM | 150 GB | 5 days | 700 RSD |
| mts | Super Tourist SIM | 500 GB, plus unlimited mts-to-mts minutes | 30 days | 2,150 RSD |
| Yettel | Pripejd | 100 GB | 15 days | 600 RSD |
| Yettel | Pripejd Plus | 150 GB | 15 days | 950 RSD |
| Yettel | Transit | 500 GB, plus 500 MB usable in EU countries | 15 days | 1,200 RSD |
| A1 | Prepaid eSIM, promotional price shown for 1 Sep to 30 Nov 2026 | Not part of this specific offer | Not stated on this offer | 300 RSD (600 RSD regular price stated) |
| A1 | WelcomeSIM (data-only eSIM) | 200 GB | 7 days, extendable to 30 | Not stated on this page |
Every figure above came straight off the operator’s own page on the date given. None of the three pages is dated, so none of the three can be treated as still current, whether that’s next week or next year. Check the live offer on the operator’s own site, or ask in its shop, before committing to a package; use the table only to judge roughly what 600 to 2,150 RSD buys, not as a quote.
Getting connected before you land, or after
You don’t have to wait until you’re in Serbia to sort out data. All three operators sell an eSIM through their own websites, and A1 states directly on its page that its data-only WelcomeSIM can be bought online before you arrive in the country. The registration rule above still applies to an eSIM exactly as it does to a physical card, so have your passport ready during setup even without a shop counter in sight.
If you’d rather sort it out once you land, look for an operator’s own shop rather than a kiosk. We looked for an official source confirming a SIM sales point inside the Nikola Tesla Airport terminal and found none, from either the airport or any operator, so this page won’t point to one there. What we can confirm is an eSIM bought online before you fly, and operator shops once in the city.
Roaming into neighbouring countries, and what doesn’t roam here
Since 1 July 2021, a Serbian SIM roams at domestic rates across six Western Balkans economies under a regional agreement: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia itself. If your trip continues into any of the other five, a Serbian number carries no roaming surcharge for the crossing.
The reverse doesn’t hold for a European SIM used here. Serbia sits outside the EU and outside its roam-like-at-home area, so a European number is roaming in the ordinary, chargeable sense the moment it connects to a Serbian network. A 2022 declaration signed by 38 operators caps retail data at 18 euros per gigabyte within the offers it covers, which is a ceiling rather than a bargain. Serbia opened negotiations with the European Commission in June 2026 aimed at eventually joining the EU roaming regime, but no date for that taking effect has been published.
Weigh the two options against your own itinerary. For a stay of more than a couple of days, a local prepaid or eSIM usually beats what a home operator charges for the same data used inside Serbia. For a weekend, check your own carrier’s rate first: it may already undercut the cost and the passport trip of registering a new number.
Watching 5G arrive without a coverage map yet
The regulator awarded 5G licences in December 2025, and by August 2026 it counted 2,354 dedicated 5G base stations active across the country. What it hasn’t published is a coverage percentage the way it has for 4G: there’s no population or territory figure yet to weigh against the numbers in the table above. All three operators sell 5G-capable plans, but whether a given route runs through a 5G footprint or a plain 4G one isn’t something this page can answer for you.
If 5G speed matters to your plans, check the operator’s own current coverage claim rather than a fixed figure here, and expect that map to keep changing through the rest of 2026 as more stations come on line.
Knowing who actually owns the network you’re on
The three brands on shopfronts, mts, Yettel and A1, are also the only three companies actually licensed to run a network in Serbia. Nothing else marketed as an option is a fourth, separate network. Each holds a technology-neutral licence spanning five frequency bands, from 800 MHz up to 2100 MHz, and each runs GSM, UMTS and LTE across that spectrum. The licences were first issued in 2006 for ten years and renewed in 2016 for a further ten; 4G itself rolled out from 2015, completing after a round of spectrum auctions closed in early 2016.
Behind those three names, ownership has shifted more than once. Telekom Srbija, trading as mts, stays majority state-owned. Yettel changed hands in August 2023, when the Emirates Telecommunications Group became its majority owner, after years under PPF and, before that, under the Telenor name. A1 Srbija belongs to Austria’s Telekom Austria group and has run in the country since 2006, when it launched as Vip mobile. None of that changes which SIM you should buy, but it explains why an older review or an outdated map might still mention Telenor or Vip instead of the names above.
Common questions
Can I buy an eSIM before I land in Serbia?
Yes. mts, Yettel and A1 all sell an eSIM through their own websites, and A1 states directly that its data-only WelcomeSIM can be bought online before you arrive. The passport-registration rule still applies to an eSIM the same way it applies to a physical card.
Does a Serbian SIM roam free in Bosnia, Montenegro or Kosovo?
Yes, at domestic rates, under a regional agreement running since 1 July 2021 across six Western Balkans economies: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia itself. A Serbian SIM carries no roaming surcharge crossing into any of the other five.
What happens if my prepaid number never gets registered?
It gets suspended, and later deactivated. The rule has applied since 10 February 2025, and the regulator has already enforced both steps against numbers that weren’t registered under it.
Is there a SIM kiosk at Belgrade airport?
Not one we could confirm. We looked for an official source naming a SIM sales point inside the Nikola Tesla Airport terminal and found none, from the airport or from any operator. Buy an eSIM online before you fly instead, or find an operator’s shop once you’re in the city.
Is 5G available yet?
Only in patches. The regulator awarded 5G licences in December 2025 and counted 2,354 active base stations by August 2026, but it hasn’t published a coverage percentage the way it has for 4G. Expect solid 4G nationwide, with 5G as a bonus wherever it happens to reach so far.
Can someone else buy and register a SIM on my behalf?
A1’s own FAQ says no: registration has to be completed by the person the number will belong to. That’s one operator’s stated rule rather than a law we found written out the same way for the other two, but since it follows directly from an identity-based registration requirement, expect mts and Yettel to work the same way at the counter.
Continuing your Serbia planning
Serbia travel essentials covers the other formalities before you land, including the identity document you’ll need at the border and not just at the phone shop. Belgrade airport to city picks up right where this page leaves off, once you’ve decided whether to buy a SIM before immigration or after it. Serbia travel budget covers the cash and card side of a trip, for when a phone bill isn’t the only cost you’re planning around. Serbia in 7 days ties this into a full itinerary.