We traveled a bit around the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in February 2025. To work remotely and stay online while traveling, we got local SIMs. Here’s the process to get your own SIM card in Mauritania.

Which SIM Card in Mauritania is the Best?

First things first: you might not get a choice in SIM card, even if you try really hard. Mauritania is a country where one might have to lower one’s expectations a few times a day. Also, the rules for everything in Mauritania change very quickly for some reason.

If you can, buy Moov by Mauritel. Even if you’re not planning to do any remote traveling, this one is simply the best for long travel days.

If you’re planning to take the iron ore train or do some serious remote traveling, the biggest carrier in Mauritania (owned by Maroc Telecom) has the best coverage. Along all main roads from Nouakchott to Zouérat or Néma, they have at least 3G coverage and usually 4G or 4G+ coverage. Though your coverage along the iron ore train will still be spotty (please don’t fall off the train!), Mauritel is still the best.

The other two providers, Mattel and Chinguitel have significantly less coverage. Especially outside the cities and major towns. Mattel is still better than Chinguitel as you can see from these maps:

eSIM for (West) Africa: 36 Countries Including Mauritania

Edit: I wasn’t going to originally recommend this eSIM, but our experiences trying to buy a SIM card in Mauritania (see below) tipped the scales a little. So hear me out:

Very few travelers make it all the way to West Africa to only visit Mauritania. Usually, people will visit at least one of its neighbors (Morocco including Morocco-controlled Western Sahara, Polisario-controlled Western Sahara, Algeria, Mali, Senegal, and Spain’s Canary Islands) as well. So if you’re not feeling like getting a SIM card for each individual country you blaze through, but would like to stay online, it might be relevant to look into eSIMs. Most newer phones (since roughly 2023) support eSIMs.

Though there’s no specific Mauritania eSIM (yet), there are two Airalo eSIM packages that include Mauritania along most of its neighbors. With Hello Africa, you can get 30 days of internet for 1GB (€27 or US$27) or 3GB (€58.50 or US$59). This eSIM connects to the “MTEL 4G” network in Mauritania. What does that mean? I’ve gone off the deep end of Airalo chatbot support, and it means Mauritel, the good one.

Oof! That’s quite pricey! But once activated, you can also use that eSIM in other West African countries and beyond. Specifically in West Africa: Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Cabo Verde. Not Niger and not Morocco! Literally all of these countries also have their own eSIMs available on Airalo with much better rates. Here’s to hoping Mauritania will soon have its own eSIM at a much better rate 🤞

Unvetted: Kolet eSIM

In the WhatsApp group of Mauritania travel, the admin recommended a different eSIM called Kolet. We didn’t get this one, so we don’t know how good it is. But the price is better: 30 days of 1GB for US$12 or 3GB for US$30 for only Mauritania. They also connect to the good Mauritel 4G network.

Moov by Mauritel at the Guerguerat Border Crossing

When we entered Mauritania from Morcoccan-controlled Western Sahara, there were money exchangers and SIM card vendors. The exchange rate for Dirhams to Ouguiyas was fine, so we got some Mauritanian currency immediately. Our bit of research before taking the bus from Dakhla told us that a basic Moov by Mauritel SIM card should cost about €5 or 200 MRU. Note that Mauritania switched from the First Ouguiya (MRO) to the Second Ouguiya (MRU) in 2018 and the difference is one zero less on the MRU. So when people mention a price in thousands, they are usually speaking in the old currency.

The SIM card vendors at the border offered us Moov by Mauritel SIM cards for €25 with about 5GB of data for one month already on there. People tried negotiating, which we followed closely. The vendors never mentioned the price in Ouguiya and only spoke in Euros. That was way more expensive than anticipated and would have depleted our precious Euros very quickly, so we decided we can get a Mauritel SIM card in Nouadhibou for much cheaper.

Little did we know… that was the best offer out there. Hindsight is 20/20. If I’d known this, we would’ve gone to Al Barid bank in Guerguerat to withdraw more Dirhams instead of just waiting for the Moroccan side to reopen. Then on the Mauritanian side of the border, I’d exchange those at this fair exchange rate of xx?? for xx?? in early February 2025 and immediately buy a Mauritanian SIM card.

The people we spoke to who did buy a SIM card at the border for this price reported no issues or scams with it. However, always immediately test your SIM card if you’re buying it off of someone.

For other borders, such as the Diama and Rosso borders with Senegal or the Gogui border with Mali, we’ve heard from people that it’s similar to Guerguerat. Except that at the Senegal and Mali borders, you’ll likely be exchanging XOF to MRU. There’s no functional land border crossing between Algeria and Mauritania at the moment.

Trying to buy Moov by Mauritel, Settling for Mattel

Buying a SIM card at an official shop is basically impossible on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. We entered Mauritania on a Thursday and arrived in Nouadhibou very late, so everything was closed.

We still tried on Friday with two other people we’d crossed the border with, but to no avail. Although there were black market vendors who sold just a SIM card without data for 600 MRU or about €15. When we walked around looking for a better rate and to check out the official shop, everything was more expensive and the official agency closed. Jonas and I returned to the shop of the €15 man, but he had closed up…

A taxi driver confident he could help the four of us offered to drive us to a black market telecom zone for free. Skeptically, we got in. In this other area, there were lots of people with Mauritel SIM cards for sale, but the price. All without data, they offered prices between 650 and 800 MRU. We decided to go back to our hotel and do our trips in Nouadhibou without data and try again on Monday.

When we visited two Moov by Mauritel agencies in Nouadhibou on Monday, one of them didn’t have SIM cards and the second one didn’t want to sell them to us. The man at the second office had stacks of Mauritel SIM cards lying around. I decided to ask in my best Arabic why can’t I buy a SIM card from him. He reluctantly showed another customer’s Mauritanian ID card. He put this person’s national ID card into the machine, chip side up, and then pointed at the blinking fingerprint scanner.

Ah, okay, so we literally can’t get a Mauritel SIM card without a Mauritanian ID card. Oh okay, so all those black market Mauritel SIM cards are pre-registered in some local’s name… Completely defeated, we settled for a Mattel SIM card in Mauritania for the rest of our short stay. We just needes something, anything at this point. Luckily, there’s always an intense local vendor nearby to get your hopes up.

Jonas started the process of buying a no-data Mattel SIM card for 300 Ouguiyas (€7.50) from a man in this office area. For Mattel, you just need a passport, no Mauritanian a national ID. The man took pictures of Jonas’ passport and stamped Mauritanian eVisa with his smartphone and made sure everything in the picture was legible. He forwarded it to someone and said the SIM card would be activated two hours later at around 14:00 on the same day. A little weird and dodgy, but okay. Jonas received a text to call the number 140 when the time was ready.

Outside this area, we bought a Mattel SIM card 3GB data top-up scratch card for 100 Ouguiyas €2.50 valid for 7 days. But let’s first see if the SIM card gets activated.

Meanwhile, we moved from our hotel in downtown Nouadhibou to a kitesurfing resort without WiFi north of town. Around 14:00, Jonas tried the number to activate to no avail. Some 40 minutes later, it worked. He topped up the SIM card with the scratch code and booked an internet package. We are online! However, the connection wasn’t great and Mattel doesn’t allow tethering from Apple devices. So we had to put the Mattel SIM card in my Android phone to share the internet to Jonas. But it did the trick for our short time at the lagoon and our hitchhiking/shared taxi trip from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott.

During those few days having a Mattel SIM card in Mauritania with spotty reception outside the cities, we did notice that every local has a Mauritel SIM card with nearly frictionless connectivity. But we were happy enough with Mattel since we weren’t going to stay long in Mauritania anyway. Things are simply a bit too much a pain in the ass to stay longer or explore deeper.

The One Odd Way You Can Get A Mauritel SIM Card

There’s one last way you can try to get a Moov by Mauritel SIM card: getting a local friend with a Mauritanian ID to buy it for you. It would then be registered in their name, which is maybe a little illegal? Anyway, this is the only way I’ve heard people buy the good SIM card for the real price of €5 or 200 MRU for just the SIM card. If you then buy an internet package, you’ll be set up completely for under €10.

You just need to make a Mauritanian friend.

SIM Card Exchange Offer at the Senegalese Border

When we left Nouakchott to go to Saint-Louis in Senegal, we had spotty reception with our Mattel SIM. The one-week internet package also happened to expire at the end of the day.

On the Senegalese side of the Diama border, there are many Senegalese SIM card vendors. While they are generally trying to sell you Orange SIM cards, one lady also offered to take our Mauritanian SIM card of any kind and exchange it for an Orange Senegal SIM without data. For free. While it was an interesting offer, there were several issues, the way we saw it:

1. The Mauritanian SIM is registered in Jonas’ name. The most paranoid interpretation of this is that the next person uses the SIM card to blaspheme and suddenly there’s a target on Jonas’ back
2. It’s unclear whether Senegalese SIM still needs to be registered and activated
3. SIMs registered to tourists in Mauritania supposedly expire when their eVisa expires (see FAQ below)

We ended up not taking the deal and hauled our Mauritanian Mattel SIM card to Senegal. A souvenir.

Mauritanian SIM Card FAQ + Internet Freedom

Should I buy a Mauritanian SIM card at the airport?

If you can, yes. The earlier you get it, the better. Once you’re on the streets in Nouakchott, Nouadhibou, or Atar, things don’t exactly get better.

Should I download the app of my Mauritanian provider?

It’s not necessary if you’re staying 30 days or less. We downloaded the app from Mattel (Google + Apple), which seems focused on mobile data and is easier than memorizing USSD codes. It’s all in French or Arabic. However, we found the menus in the app quite vague and preferred to just use USSD codes.

The internet packages seem better in the app. When we checked the app, the same 100 MRU got you 6GB of internet instead of 3GB. But like anything and everything in this country, it also seems to change on the daily. Getting more or less data wasn’t relevant for us at this point in our trip to Mauritania as we were headed for the exit.

If you’re loving Mauritania and want to stay the full 30 or 90 days and maybe participate in their mobile banking schemes (i.e. Bankily) as well, it’s a good idea to download it. The app of Moov by Mauritel (Google + Apple) seems very money-focused and not for checking internet balance and topping up. The Chinguitel app (Google + not on Apple, yet) also seems focused on the mobile data part of life.

How can I top-up my Mauritanian SIM card?

Buy a top-up scratch card from your provider from literally any dude on the street. The scratch thing has a USSD code to dial. In the case of Mattel enter the 15-digit recharge code as follows:

*133*RECHARGECODE#

Then you still have to book an internet package, which Jonas did with a code called *600*4*1# after which you can choose a package.

How can I check my balance and remaining data?

For Mattel, either with the code *130# or in the app, see above.

How can I keep my Mauritanian SIM card between visits?

I don’t know why you would, since people with a non-African or non-Arab nationality pay €55 or more to enter Mauritania each time, but okay. From what we understood, your Mauritanian SIM card becomes invalid once your visa becomes invalid. So you generally can’t keep your Mauritanian SIM card between visits, unfortunately.

Of course, the loophole to this is to buy a black market Mauritel SIM card that’s registered in a local’s name ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chinguitel head office + Mauritel billboard in Nouakchott. All companies offer their own “eSIM”, but you can only get it at their office, which defeats the purpose. It’s probably also not for foreigners.

Is the internet blocked or monitored in Mauritania?

Generally, the internet is not blocked or monitored in Mauritania. You can freely access social media websites such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Whether this is a lack of government resources to surveil or a genuine lack of caring what you do online is unclear to me.

However, a domestic political news website has been temporarily blocked over 10 years ago. As long as you – a tourist and a guest – don’t engage in Mauritanian political affairs or post anti-Islamic things, there is no reason for concern.

Should I download a VPN before going to Mauritania?

Yes, you should have a VPN while traveling in Mauritania. While the internet in Mauritania might not be surveilled or filtered, it’s still a good idea to turn it on for privacy reasons. Just in case. Also, non-Mauritanian websites might block access when you try to visit them from unknown countries, such as Mauritania. This might be the website of your bank in your time of need, so it’s really important to be able to pretend you’re in e.g. your home country. VPNs are completely legal in Mauritania. Netflix didn’t work without one.

I have used different VPNs over my 10+ years of traveling that are very similar. However, NordVPN is much more affordable than the other providers—especially if you get the yearly or two-year plan. I have the Basic two-year plan which comes down to €4/month. If you want to try NordVPN, you can sign up via this link and get 3 months for free. It’s a referral link, so if you sign up I might, might, receive a commission from NordVPN for pointing you in their direction.

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