7
votes
Prepaid SIMs in Germany / Prepaid Jahrestarif
I need a German phone number, so I need a German SIM.
My preference would be a prepaid year because it’s a bit cheaper. Also, I have a physical sim slot and would rather use a physical sim than an eSIM.
Many apps (Mein O2, MeinMagenta for cell services and most of the local transit apps) are region locked. I can’t currently change my Apple ID to Germany and can’t make a new Apple ID for Germany without a German phone number.
Any hot takes on Telekom, Vodafone, O2, etc. or recommendations on getting a physical SIM card?
Note: The Aldi closest to me only had eSIM today or thought they only had eSIM.
Edit: I actually need a phone number for things, e.g. kita being able to call me if one of my kids get sick at daycare.
I have used and enjoyed Airalo before, but they do eSIMs. If you change your mind on eSIMs, I can send you a referral code that gives us both some free credit.
Anyway, you don’t need a German phone number for a German Apple ID. Just a German address (and you don’t need to verify it in any way). I have a UK and French Apple ID, both verified with my US phone number. And they are all on the same phone number. The UK Apple ID has the House of Commons as the address, so you literally can pick any address.
Using AirAlo for data at the moment, but if you managed to get a UK and French Apple ID with a US number I’ll try to rip it with the US number and see what happens for a German Apple ID.
I use this one, not pre-paid but can be canceled per month, 7GB for €10, requires PayPal.
https://www.freenet-flex.de/
At least when it came to my (android) phone, region-locked apps don't depend on your phone number. They depend on the region you have set for your payment account in the app store, which at least for Android I had to change within my Google account. So this likely won't solve that particular problem, unless Apple is way more different from Google than I thought they were. That said, I'm surprised you're having trouble with the transportation apps. I only really had trouble and needed to switch when the Covid tracking apps were a thing. But maybe some regions in Germany are worse about that than others.
I've never gotten a prepaid SIM myself, so I don't know much about their pros and cons. They make sense if you're going to be in Germany for a short time, I guess? But if you'll be there long enough, a plan with a cheap reseller is probably the way to go tbh. They'll provide a SIM and give you a phone number, and they can be pretty dang cheap. I have a plan with winSIM and I think I'm still paying ~7€ a month for 3 gigs of data (plus unlimited calling and texting, ofc). But I'm on the same phone plan I got back when I first moved here in 2018, so my impression might not be up to date. I used Check24 to compare plans when I first moved here and my impression is that they're still a solid place to compare options.