Can an eSIM do hotspot, receive SMS OTP, and make calls?

The line that matters most: most travel eSIMs can share a hotspot and can make calls through apps like WhatsApp, but they cannot receive your bank’s SMS verification codes — so don’t pull out your home SIM. These three questions trip up almost everyone before they buy. The summary table first, then each one in detail.

Feature	Can a travel eSIM do it?	What you should do
Hotspot / tether to a laptop or friend	Usually yes	Turn it on, but it counts against your data and drains battery
Receive bank / app SMS OTP codes	Usually no (data-only, no number)	Keep your home physical SIM in the phone (dual-SIM) for OTP
Make a traditional phone call	No (no number to dial out)	Use data calls instead: WhatsApp, FaceTime, LINE

The reason it works this way: most travel eSIMs are data-only. They get you online, but they don’t come with a phone number — nothing to dial out from, nothing for people to call, nowhere for a text to land. Once that distinction clicks, all three answers below make sense. If you’re still fuzzy on how an eSIM differs from a plastic SIM in the first place, start with eSIM vs physical SIM.

1. Can an eSIM share a hotspot?

Yes. Most travel eSIMs can tether, meaning you can share your connection with a laptop, a tablet, or a friend’s phone. Setup is exactly the same as on a physical SIM: Settings → Personal Hotspot on iPhone, Settings → Network & internet → Hotspot & tethering on Android.

Two things to be ready for. First, whatever you share comes out of your data: a friend watching YouTube off your hotspot is billed to your eSIM just as if you’d watched it yourself. One person checking maps is nothing, but a whole group streaming and video-calling off a single phone drains data fast. Second, tethering eats battery. The phone acts as modem and broadcaster at once, so it warms up and the battery drops noticeably faster than usual. Pack a power bank.

The practical advice: a hotspot is great for the occasional save (the hotel Wi-Fi is useless, or a friend hasn’t set up their eSIM yet), but don’t make it the permanent internet source for a whole group. If you do plan to use it that way, budget generously. soda makes this simpler because there’s no fixed bucket of GB to pre-buy: it bills by actual usage and applies the cheapest combination of plans in retrospect at settlement, so tethering a little or a lot leaves nothing to guess at.

2. Can an eSIM receive bank SMS OTP codes?

This is the question that catches people out, so to be blunt: most travel eSIMs are data-only with no phone number of their own, which means they cannot receive your bank’s or app’s SMS verification codes (OTP).

OTP stands for one-time password, the short string of numbers your bank texts you when you pay, log in to online banking, or transfer money. The catch is that the text is sent to a phone number, and that number is almost always your home line, the one registered with the bank. Since a travel eSIM doesn’t come with a number, there’s nowhere for that text to land. Plenty of people only discover this when they try to pay for something abroad, the code never arrives, and they’re stuck at the checkout. That’s a miserable way to find out mid-trip.

The fix is simple and costs you nothing extra: keep your home physical SIM in the phone and use dual-SIM. Most phones that can run an eSIM also support dual-SIM, meaning a physical SIM and an eSIM can both be active at the same time. Let the eSIM handle the internet, and let your home number sit there on standby just to receive texts. Your bank’s OTP then arrives on your usual number exactly as it always does.

One detail people miss: keeping your home number on to receive texts is not the same as turning on roaming data. You can switch the home line’s data roaming off and still receive OTP texts, because receiving an SMS doesn’t use roaming data. The home line quietly catches verification codes without racking up data charges. （Some carriers charge a small fee for receiving SMS abroad; most don’t — check yours if in doubt.） To check whether your phone supports dual-SIM, see eSIM-compatible phones.

The setup, in order:

1. Don’t remove your home physical SIM. Leave it in the phone.
2. Install your eSIM (steps in how to install an eSIM).
3. Set your mobile data / internet line to the eSIM.
4. Turn off data roaming on your home line so you don’t get roaming charges.
5. Keep your home line powered on and on standby, and bank OTPs arrive normally.

3. Can you make calls with an eSIM?

Two cases here. A data-only eSIM cannot make a traditional phone call to a regular number, but calls over the internet (WhatsApp, FaceTime, LINE) work perfectly.

First, the part that doesn’t work. Dialling an actual phone number directly — calling a restaurant to book a table, ringing a guesthouse — isn’t possible on a data-only eSIM, because there’s no voice number to call from. By the same logic, nobody can ring “your eSIM number” to reach you, because there is no number to ring.

For most travellers this barely matters, because almost everyone keeps in touch over data apps now. WhatsApp, FaceTime, Messenger, and LINE all carry voice over the internet, and as long as the eSIM is online they work for calls exactly as they do on home Wi-Fi. To reach family back home, call them on the same app you always use; neither of you ever places a real international call.

And if you genuinely need to dial a local phone number? That’s where the dual-SIM trick from earlier comes back: keep your home line in the phone and use it for the rare real call (it’ll cost a roaming call fee at your carrier’s rate), while the eSIM keeps handling your cheap data. On a normal trip you’ll rarely need it, but it’s good to know the option is there.

The one-line takeaway

A travel eSIM is for getting online, not for being your phone number. It can run a hotspot and make app calls, because both ride on data. Receiving verification texts and making traditional calls depend on having a phone number, which it doesn’t have. So the rock-solid setup is: let the eSIM handle the internet, and keep your home physical SIM in the phone as the number that catches your OTP. Sort that out before you fly, and no verification code will strand you abroad.

soda is built on the same logic, treating a stable local line as the floor so the eSIM does its one job — getting you online — well: land, switch it on, and it bills by actual usage. At settlement, it automatically applies the cheapest combination of plans in retrospect — use a little, pay a little; use a lot and you still never pay more than if you’d picked the right plan upfront. Your balance never expires. It isn’t the cheapest eSIM out there, but you don’t have to guess how much data tethering will use.