How much data do travellers actually use? Real figures from RoamMore eSIMs
Most advice on travel data is a guess: an app list, a rule of thumb, a number that happens to match the plan being sold. These figures are not a guess. They are what RoamMore travellers actually used, added up across every customer and published as medians, percentiles and shares, so you can size a plan on what real trips look like.
Two numbers do most of the work. On a day they were online, half of travellers used less than **470MB. Over a whole trip, half used less than 3.2GB**. The spread around those numbers is what decides whether a plan runs out, so the tables below show it.
Data per active day
An active day is a day the eSIM was in use, from the day it first connected to the day of its last recorded use. Days at home, before the trip, do not count.
| How travellers compare | Data on an active day |
|---|---|
| A quarter used less than | 225MB |
| Half used less than (the median) | 470MB |
| Three in four used less than | 1,032MB |
| Nine in ten used less than | 1,607MB |
The top tenth of travellers use more than 1,607MB a day, several times the median. That is the streaming, hotspot and video call crowd, and it is why one rule of thumb fits nobody well.
How long an eSIM is in use, and what a whole trip uses
| Half of trips under | Three in four under | Nine in ten under | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days in use | 7 days | 10 days | 13 days |
| Data for the whole trip | 3.2GB | 6.3GB | 10GB |
Only 7% of eSIMs were still in use after two weeks. The plans most people buy last 30 days, so for most trips the data runs out before the days do, if anything runs out at all.
Would each data style have covered a real trip?
Our plan finder sizes a trip at one of three daily amounts. Here is how many of the measured trips each would have covered, had the plan been sized at that amount for every day of the trip.
| Data style | Per day | Trips it would have covered |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | 300MB | 33% |
| Standard | 1GB | 74% |
| Heavy | 2GB | 94% |
Standard is the right starting point for most people. Lite suits a trip on hotel wifi with maps and messages on the go, and it leaves most travellers short if they do anything more.
Plan size: what people buy and who runs out
These figures count plans that have finished: the plan ran out of days or out of data after connecting, so a plan still in use does not read as unused. From June to October 2026, 93 fixed plans had finished.
| Plan size | Share of orders | Used, median | Share of the plan used, median | Ran out of data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3GB | 13% | 0.9GB | 30% | 4% |
| 5GB | 18% | 3.1GB | 63% | 19% |
| 10GB | 36% | 5.3GB | 53% | 24% |
20GB plans are 25% of orders and 50GB plans 5%, but too few of them have finished yet to report how they were used. The single most popular plan is 10GB for 30 days, 35% of all fixed plan orders.
Two things stand out. People who buy small plans mostly use little: on an active day, the median 3GB buyer used 196MB, against 556MB for the median 10GB buyer. And the middle sizes are where people get caught: 24% of 10GB plans and 19% of 5GB plans ran dry before the plan ended.
Where you go changes how much you use
| Destination | Data on an active day, median | Three in four used less than | Days in use, median | Data for the whole trip, median | Ran out of data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia | 607MB | 1,397MB | 8 | 4.9GB | 21% |
| Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific | 376MB | 600MB | 6 | 1.7GB | 9% |
Trips to Asia used more on every measure: more a day, more days and more in total. We can only guess at the reasons. Translation apps, ride hailing, maps in an unfamiliar script and less free wifi all push data up, and an Asia trip from here is often longer than a hop across the Tasman. Europe and the Americas are not shown yet because fewer than 20 of those plans have finished.
What this means when you choose a plan
- Start at about 1GB a day. It covered 74% of real trips. Multiply by your days away and pick the plan at or above that, as our cost and data guide shows step by step.
- Go up a size for Asia, long trips or heavy use. Running out happens most on 5GB and 10GB plans, so if your trip sits near the top of one, take the next size.
- If you cannot predict it, do not guess. Our data calculator breaks use down by app, and Endless gives you full speed data every day and then a slower cruising speed, so you never run out.
- Running out is not the end of the trip. Most plans can be topped up from your order page, with nothing new to install.
How we measured
- Period. Data per active day, days in use and data per trip come from 110 trips on eSIMs that connected from July to October 2026, read from our supplier's usage records on 3 October 2026. Plan sizes, plan use and running out come from 291 fixed plan orders placed from June to October 2026, of which 93 had finished.
- What a trip is. A trip counts once its plan has ended, or once no data has been used for three days, so a trip still under way does not read as a short one.
- Active day. The days from first connection to the last recorded use, at least one. Data per active day is the trip's total divided by those days.
- Left out. Test orders, refunded and disputed orders, cancelled eSIMs (a refund cancels the eSIM), plans under 1GB and daily (unlimited) plans, whose allowance resets every day.
- Privacy. Every figure is a median, a percentile or a share across all customers. A group is shown only when it holds at least 20 plans, and nothing here can identify a person or an order.
- Limits. These are RoamMore customers, so the destinations lean towards Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Indonesia. We see mobile data on the eSIM only, not wifi. Shares are rounded to whole percentages.
We will update these figures as more plans finish, including 20GB and 50GB plans and trips to Europe and the Americas. Questions about the data are welcome at [email protected].
Prices for popular trips
Cheapest plan with 1GB or more, in US dollars from our catalogue, updated 27 Sep 2026.
Questions travellers ask
How much mobile data does a traveller use in a day?
Across 110 finished RoamMore trips, the median was 470MB on a day the eSIM was in use. A quarter used less than 225MB, three in four less than 1,032MB and nine in ten less than 1,607MB.
Is 1GB a day enough for travel?
For most trips, yes. A plan sized at 1GB for every day away would have covered 74% of the trips we measured, and 2GB a day 94%. If you stream, share your connection or work online, size up or choose unlimited.
How many days do travellers use their eSIM?
The median was 7 days from first connection to the last use, three in four trips were 10 days or shorter, and 7% ran past two weeks.
How often do travellers run out of data?
Of 93 finished plans, 17% used all their data before the plan ended. It was most common on 10GB plans (24%) and rarest on 3GB plans (4%), because people who buy small plans tend to use little.
Where do these figures come from?
From RoamMore orders and our eSIM supplier's usage readings, aggregated across every customer. Test orders, refunds, disputes and cancelled eSIMs are left out, and a group is shown only when it holds at least 20 plans, so nothing here points at one person or one order.