The Maldives has two mobile carriers — Dhiraagu and Ooredoo Maldives — and both have reasonable coverage across the populated islands and the main resort clusters. The signal picture is strongly correlated with where you’re staying: urban Malé has solid 4G; local islands within 30 kilometres of Malé (Maafushi, Thulusdhoo, Huraa) have functional coverage; outer atoll resort islands at distance from a populated island rely on tower installations that can have intermittent signal depending on the resort’s infrastructure.
Most eSIM providers cover the Maldives through roaming agreements with Dhiraagu or Ooredoo. Airalo offers the Maldives in its global coverage list, and the plan works in Malé and on the main local islands without issue. Pricing for the Maldives on Airalo runs $7-$12 for 7 days/1GB — the data requirement is genuinely lower here than most destinations because resort-focused travellers spend the majority of their time in environments where Wi-Fi is provided (usually at a cost at remote resorts, usually free at local guesthouses). Yesim covers the Maldives similarly through Dhiraagu roaming.
GigSky is worth mentioning here as a business-travel-focused eSIM option that covers the Maldives in its global plan. GigSky’s pricing is higher than Airalo or Yesim but its coverage agreements are designed for reliability in premium destinations and it may surface as the more dependable option for travellers staying at far-flung resorts where network consistency matters.
The honest coverage picture for remote resort atolls: if your resort is in the Ari Atoll, Baa Atoll, or Addu Atoll — all at significant distance from Malé’s tower infrastructure — mobile coverage from any foreign eSIM provider will be limited or absent in the water villa and overwater areas. The resort will offer Wi-Fi (typically priced $30-$80 per day at luxury resorts; free or cheap at local guesthouses), and that Wi-Fi is the practical connectivity solution for those stays. The eSIM is useful during the Malé transit, on local islands within carrier range, and on the seaplane approach where you have brief windows of coverage.
The argument for an eSIM in the Maldives is specifically about the Malé transit — arriving, navigating to your seaplane terminal or speedboat pickup, making last-minute contact with a resort or transfer operator — rather than connectivity on the island itself. For travellers spending a night in Malé (which many do due to seaplane scheduling), mobile data coverage is fully functional there. For travellers flying in and transferring directly to a remote resort, the eSIM serves the airport transit and then becomes secondary to resort Wi-Fi.
If you’re doing the local island circuit (Maafushi, Fulidhoo, Guraidhoo) rather than a remote resort, the eSIM case is stronger: local guesthouses typically have free Wi-Fi but it can be slow, and having your own data backup for navigation between islands and ferry booking is practical. The local SIM alternative is straightforward: Dhiraagu tourist SIMs are available at Velana International’s arrivals hall for approximately MVR 100-200 (£5-£10) with 5-10GB included. This is the simplest solution for a local-island itinerary.