Staying connected in Poland.

Polish prepaid is aggressively cheap. A Play or Plus starter with a data bundle runs under 10 dollars for tens of gigabytes over a month, sold in phone shops, Zabka convenience stores and at the airports, with your passport for registration. The networks are good: Play and Orange both have strong nationwide reach and 5G in the cities.

The part that makes this genuinely competitive rather than merely cheap is Roam Like At Home. Poland is in the EU, so a Polish prepaid allowance works in Germany, Czechia, Italy, Spain and the rest of the union at no surcharge, subject to a fair-use policy aimed at permanent roaming rather than a three-week trip. If Warsaw or Krakow is your first stop on a multi-country European trip, one Polish SIM can cover the whole thing for less than a travel eSIM would cost for one leg. It does not cover the UK or Switzerland, which are both outside the zone.

We earn a commission on eSIMs and none on a Play starter, so it is worth being plain: in Poland the eSIM is not the cheap option, it is the frictionless one. A Nomad eSIM is a few dollars per gigabyte, activates before you fly and works from landing, with no shop, no queue, no registration form and no need to work out which bundle code to text.

For a long weekend in Krakow that convenience is worth more than the few dollars it costs. For two weeks moving across central Europe, the Polish SIM wins clearly and it is not close. Both are far cheaper than roaming, so the worst outcome here is only mildly wrong.

This section is short because Poland does not give us much to warn about. Coverage is strong in Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk and Wroclaw, across the countryside, on the trains and in the Tatra foothills, with 5G widespread in the cities. High in the Tatras and deep in the Bialowieza forest you can lose it, which is a hiking note rather than a trip-planning one.

On the alternatives: AT&T and Verizon day passes are about 10 to 12 dollars a day and AT&T caps its Day Pass at 10 daily fees per line per bill period, about 120 dollars, and covers the rest of that bill period on land, so the daily arithmetic stops past day 10, and T-Mobile's current tiers include roughly 5GB on Experience More, Magenta MAX and Go5G Plus, 15GB on Experience Beyond and Go5G Next and 30GB on Better Value. Do not roam with no plan, since pay-per-use is about 2 dollars a megabyte. This guide is written for US travelers departing the US. For more, see cash or card in Poland, taxis and apps in Poland, and the Poland money guide.

Common questions

Quick answers.

More on Poland

The little money things nobody warns you about.

• Taxis in Poland, and the Bolt appPoland is cheap and easy to get around by app, with Bolt the local favorite. The main thing to sidestep is the old-school station or street taxi that overcharges tourists. Here is how.
• Tipping in PolandPoland tips a little more than Western Europe: about 10% at a restaurant. There is one quirk worth knowing, where saying thank you as you pay can mean keep the change. Here is what you actually owe.
• Do I need cash in Poland, or can I use cards?Short answer: a card for most things, a little zloty for the rest. Poland is very card-friendly, keeps the zloty rather than the euro, and is a pleasant bargain by Western European standards. Here is how to handle it.
• Bringing your dog or cat to Poland.Poland runs on the single EU pet-entry process for a US-origin dog or cat: microchip, rabies in the right order, and an EU health certificate on a 10-day clock. No quarantine, no rabies titer. Here is what that means for Poland, and the local parts worth knowing.
• Common money scams in Poland, and what they cost youPoland is a genuinely low-crime country, it sits at the calmest US advisory level, and violent crime against visitors is uncommon. Scams here are rare and usually small, and most travelers meet none of them. The short list worth knowing is: a driver who approaches you at the airport, a bar that hands out discount flyers, a phone call from someone claiming to be reception, and an exchange booth with a sign that is too good. Here is each one, what it costs, and how to sidestep it.
• What does getting sick in Poland cost a visitor?Poland's medical money culture is pay-as-you-go: cash before treatment is normal, and private hospitals want payment or proof before admitting. The reassurance comes from the US government's own phrasing about what those payments amount to.