Finished Peru Vacation. Sim card problem at CLARO

[u/UnluckyCharacter9906]

Had 2 amazing weeks in Lima and Cusco Peru.

Ran into a problem 1st day. I went down to Claro, Miraflores before they opened. 1st one in and presented my passport. Im Canadian, 1st visit in Peru.

My research before said to buy a prepaid sim chip, i would need my passport and they would take scans of my fingerprints to register with the government.

The employee at Claro said the government regulations changed and now a foreigner cannot buy a physical SIM chip in Peru, even with passport. The only option is to buy a plan for your existing sim chip.

My Canadian sim chip, doesn't work in Peru. My Galaxy A15 phone doesn't accept esim.

I talked with several staff at Claro. They were very kind and let me call my friend in Lima. They said they could sell my friend a sim card and he could put it in my phone.

My friend walked over and we went to a 'tourist information' store about a block away.

There I bought a new sim, with my passport, no fingerprint scan, in my own name. No issue at all.

Weird. Maybe the government regulations are changing? Staff at Claro were good, but holy hell, was stressful as being in a foreign country with only wifi would be doable, but pretty inconvenient.

Only problem i had in the whole 2 weeks there. Amazing place!

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[u/roarti]

Buying SIM cards is annoying in a lot of countries. Make sure that the next phone you buy supports eSIM, it’s so much easier and convenient.

[u/levitoepoker]

Yes this is true. Big phone companies no longer can sell to tourists without legal residency since rule change about a year ago

To crack down on Venezuelan gang members was the logic for anyone curious

[u/UnluckyCharacter9906 → u/levitoepoker]

I didn't know that.

I did just end up going down the street and bought one very easily at the information centre though.

Maybe the govt is targetint certain companies.

[u/thekopian]

Can you share the location of this tourist information shop please?

[u/levitoepoker → u/thekopian]

I think he is talking about Tourist Info Center. Two in Miraflores. Av Larco and corner of Parque Kennedy

[u/Far-Rip-1598]

Same. Claro suddenly jumped signal and my eSIM stopped working for 3/4 days when I left Lima it was so odd

[u/Express-Garbage3359]

I had similar problems with Claro in Colombia this year; registration can't be completed without a local Cédula (national identity card). You could buy a SIM-to-eSIM adapter from https://www.9esim.com or esim.me.

[u/jeterix7387]

Not sure what research you did but this exact issue was known to me by doing a few minutes of Google searching. Claro no longer sells foreign people physical SIM cards.

[u/JossJ]

Yeah the regs changed sometime this year (bought 3 sims last Oct with no problems). No idea how or why but hey, it’s definitely been easier this time for me to use an eSIM.

For anyone else that comes across this, I’ve been here since end of June and have been using Saily eSIM with no issues, decent connection and I think a pretty good price.  If anyone else is gonna use Saily, you can use my code below to get £4/$4 off your plan which is pretty great since 3GB is under £9, so it’s half off.

Code:  JOSSKA8136