Buy French SIM Card: How to Get Your Number Before You Arrive From Abroad
Ordering a French SIM card from your sofa
You can order a French SIM card online and have it posted to you. That part is true, it is widely advertised, and on at least one network it costs nothing at all. If you are moving to France for study or work and you want the admin done before you fly, ordering a SIM card weeks ahead feels like exactly the right move.
There is a catch, and it is not the one people expect. It is not the price, and it is not delivery. It is that the card arrives without a number you can use yet – and the number is usually the reason you ordered early in the first place.
TL;DR
A French SIM card can be ordered online from at least one network and delivered free in about five working days. But France allows no anonymous mobile line, so the card must be registered against a valid identity document before it works, and you are not told your own number until the card has been put in a phone and used. That order of events makes a posted SIM useless for any form you need to complete before you travel. If the number itself is the thing you need, a france esim with the number issued at purchase gives you one immediately, with no card and nothing to wait for.
What you can actually order online
Lebara’s own pages say the clearest version of this. The SIM card is free, delivery is free, and their order page states the card arrives “sous 5 jours ouvrés max. par courrier” – within five working days maximum, by post. Their prepaid plans run 30 days and start at 7,99 EUR for 30Go, rising to 9,99 EUR for 200Go and 13,99 EUR for 350Go, all with unlimited calls and texts within France on the SFR network. For a student with a confirmed address in France and several weeks to spare, that is a genuinely good offer and this article is not going to pretend otherwise.
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SFR is a different picture, and their own page is blunt about it. Their prepaid offers page states that buying a prepaid plan “nécessite au préalable d’être déjà client et de posséder une carte SIM SFR La carte” – requires you to already be a customer and to already hold an SFR La Carte SIM. Every button on that page says “Recharger”, top up. It is a page for people who already have the card, not a way in. Their prepaid plans run 31 days: 4,99 EUR for 10Go, 9,99 EUR for 200Go, 14,99 EUR for 300Go, 19,99 EUR for 350Go.
So of the two, one will post you a card and one expects you to already have one. Neither is unusual, and the difference matters mostly because the advice you find online tends to treat “buy a French SIM online” as a single thing that obviously works.
The registration step nobody mentions in the ad
France does not permit anonymous mobile lines. Every French number has to be tied to an identifiable person, and that check happens before the line is fully usable rather than after. Lebara’s registration page is titled “Enregistrement légal” – legal registration – and tells you plainly what to have ready: “la pochette de votre carte SIM et une pièce d’identité valide”. The SIM holder, and a valid identity document.
This is the same wall described in why you cannot get a french sim until you arrive, approached from the other direction. Ordering by post does not remove the check. It relocates it to your kitchen table and adds a delivery wait in front of it.
The part that actually breaks the plan
Here is the detail that makes a posted SIM the wrong tool for pre-arrival admin, and it is visible on the registration form itself. To register, Lebara asks you for your mobile number, described on the form as the number “reçu par SMS lors de la première utilisation de la carte SIM” – received by SMS on first use of the SIM card.
Read that order of operations again. The card is posted to you. You put it in a phone. You use it. Only then does the network send you the number. You cannot look it up in advance, you cannot be told it at checkout, and until the card is physically in a working handset you do not have a French number to give anybody.
For most travellers that is a mild inconvenience. For anyone with a form in front of them it is the whole problem. University enrolment portals, student accommodation applications, rental agencies, employers – they ask for a French mobile number now, weeks before you land. A SIM card in the post cannot answer that question no matter how early you order it. This is the same gap that drives people toward a short-term french number without a local address in the first place.
Side by side
| Lebara | SFR | Europe Number | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy online | Yes | No – must already hold the card | Yes |
| Price and data | 30Go 7,99 EUR · 200Go 9,99 EUR · 350Go 13,99 EUR | 10Go 4,99 EUR · 200Go 9,99 EUR · 350Go 19,99 EUR | 20GB 19,90 EUR · 60GB 34,90 EUR · 120GB 49,90 EUR |
| Arrives by post | Yes – free, up to 5 working days | Store or distributor | Nothing to post |
| Identity document | Yes – valid ID at registration | Not stated on that page | No ID |
| Number before activation | No – sent by SMS on first use | Not stated on that page | Yes – issued at purchase |
| Top up | Online, app, auto-renew, tabac | Online, 560 stores, distributor | No – plans do not renew or extend |
Prices are as published on each provider’s own pages in October 2026 and will move. Two cells are deliberately empty: SFR’s prepaid page does not state its identity or activation requirements, and it would be wrong to fill those in on their behalf.
Yes, it costs more
Three to five times more, and the table says so. That is the honest shape of the trade and it is worth being clear about why rather than talking around it.
The cheaper rows are cheaper because you do the work. You wait for the post, or you find a shop. You produce a document. You activate the card. And you find out your number at the end of that sequence rather than the start. If you have the time and you are already in France, that is a sensible way to spend 7,99 EUR.
What you are paying the difference for is the sequence being reversed: the number exists first, before anything is posted, installed or verified. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you have a form in front of you with an empty field on it.
It is also a different length of commitment. These are short plans for a trip or a first few weeks, not a replacement for living somewhere – a french number without the store visit sets out the version aimed squarely at a short visit.
The same network, reached differently
Worth saying plainly because it affects whether any of this is a real French line. Europe Number runs on Bouygues Telecom, one of France’s four national networks. It is not a virtual number, a messaging-app number or a forwarding service. The line registers on a French network, shows up in your phone’s own mobile settings, and the network sends a confirmation SMS when it activates.
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That is the same infrastructure the shops on the high street are selling. The difference is the route to it, not the quality of it. If you want to see how a second line behaves alongside your existing one, how calls and sms work on a second line covers the setup.
What this does not solve
It is not a French contract. A forfait with a French provider needs a French address, bank details and usually residency, and nothing here substitutes for that. If you are settling in France long term, you will end up with a local contract eventually and you should.
National SMS short codes are country-scoped and do not reliably route to a line registered in another country. Most sign-ups use standard international SMS and are unaffected, but a French service sending from a five-digit short code may not reach you. Test anything critical before you depend on it. And keep your existing number active for anything to do with your bank – banks tie security codes to the number already registered to your identity, and a travel line is the wrong tool for that job.
The plan runs 30 days and it does not renew or extend. When it ends the number is released, and a new plan means a new number – so anything you will need later, confirmations, references, receipts, belongs in your email rather than a text thread. On that one row the posted SIM genuinely wins: both networks above will top up an existing line and keep the number on it indefinitely.
Roaming between EU countries is governed by the single market rules, and the European Commission publishes the current position on its roaming policy pages if you want to check how your existing carrier should be treating you while you are there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you buy a French SIM card online from outside France?
You can order one online from at least one French network, and the card and delivery are free, arriving within about five working days by post. What you cannot do is get a usable French number that way before you travel, because the number is only sent to you by SMS after the card is in a phone and in use, and the line must be registered against a valid identity document first.
Do you need ID to activate a French SIM card?
Yes. France does not permit anonymous mobile lines. Lebara’s registration page, titled “Enregistrement légal”, states that you need your SIM card holder and a valid identity document to complete registration. The requirement applies to prepaid cards, not only contracts.
When do you find out your French phone number?
On a posted SIM card, after you have received it, put it in a phone and used it. Lebara’s registration form describes the mobile number as the one “reçu par SMS lors de la première utilisation de la carte SIM”. You cannot be told it at checkout, which is why a posted SIM cannot fill in a form you need to complete before you travel.
Can I buy an SFR prepaid SIM online?
Not as a new customer. SFR’s own prepaid page states that buying a prepaid offer “nécessite au préalable d’être déjà client et de posséder une carte SIM SFR La carte”. The online prepaid offers on that page are top-ups for existing cardholders rather than a way to start.
Is a French eSIM number a real French number?
If it runs on a French network, yes. Europe Number uses Bouygues Telecom, one of France’s four national networks. The line appears in your phone’s own mobile settings and the network sends a confirmation SMS on activation, which a messaging-app or forwarding number never does.
What happens to the number when the plan ends?
Plans run 30 days and the number is released when the plan ends. Plans do not currently renew or extend, so if you need a line for longer you buy a new plan and you will not keep the same number. Anything you will need afterwards, such as booking references, confirmations and receipts, should go to your email address rather than staying in a text thread.
