SIM Card in Antigua Guatemala: Tigo, Claro and eSIM

Claro publishes a prepaid eSIM ("eSIM Prepago") that activates wherever you are with a unique QR code, no store visit needed, and its prepaid data packages start at Q35 ($4.58). It also sells a welcome kit whose price is not on the page. Tigo offers eSIM for both prepaid and postpaid, with the QR code generated at a Tienda Tigo, so a store visit is part of that product; Tigo's current prepaid package prices were not readable during our check because its site blocked automated access, which is why its tourist-package figure below is flagged as commonly reported rather than published.

The reported price zone for the plastic SIM itself runs Q10 to Q50 ($1.31 to $6.54) depending on the guide and the kiosk, and neither operator publishes that starter fee in a form we could verify. One more convention to carry: the quetzal is not pegged to the dollar, and every Q figure on this site uses a fixed editorial rate of $1 = Q7.64, so treat conversions as "about". Figures in this section were current in Q3 2026.

Official Tienda Tigo and Claro centres are the full-service route and the only place a Tigo eSIM is generated. Supermarket kiosks sell starter SIMs for cash and are the fastest option in the centre of Antigua. La Aurora airport has SIM counters as well, but guides that cover them warn they may close for late arrivals, which makes the airport desk a bonus rather than a plan.

Whether a passport is legally required to register a prepaid SIM in Guatemala: not stated in any source we could check, so bring your passport anyway, because every guide that describes the purchase assumes you have it.

Payment is the second practicality. Cards are accepted at hotels, larger restaurants and for airport shuttles, usually with a surcharge, while cash is the normal currency of kiosks and small purchases, and ATM fees are high enough to matter: commonly reported figures run Q40 ($5.24) at BAC and Q49 ($6.41) at 5B per withdrawal. Withdraw once, buy the SIM with cash, and keep the rest for tuk-tuks at the municipal Q10 ($1.31) fare.

Claro's prepaid eSIM is the only fully remote product: you buy it with a unique QR code and activate it wherever you are, which you can in principle do on the airport wifi before the shuttle leaves. Tigo's eSIM exists for prepaid and postpaid lines but the QR code is generated at a Tienda Tigo, so it is a store product even though the result is the same embedded SIM. What neither operator publishes in verifiable form is the tourist-package fine print: data allowances, social-app bundles and validity were all beyond what their sites would show us during the check, so the honest instruction is to compare the live offers in store or in the Claro flow rather than trust any figure, including ours.

Wikivoyage's connect section puts it plainly: Antigua has good LTE coverage with both Tigo and Claro. In a city where most days end within five blocks of the park, that is the whole technical story, and data is worth having for the practical tools: shuttle times, the municipal parking map during Semana Santa, and the volcano status checks before any hike. The unanswerable half is hotel Wi-Fi: no authority rates it and we cite no hotel's speed, so the working assumption for calls and uploads is your own data plan, not the guest network.

If your trip continues past the city, the same SIM rides along on the shuttle network to Panajachel and beyond, and the airport transfer page closes the loop on arrival day.