Why does my travel eSIM show a different country?

Two locations that are measured differently

Your phone works out its own position from satellites and radio signals. Apple says Location Services uses information from cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS networks and Bluetooth, which is why Google Maps or Apple Maps put the blue dot on the right street even when a website thinks you are elsewhere.

A website has none of that unless you share your location. What it gets is your IP address. Google explains that IP addresses are roughly based on geography, similar to phone area codes, so any app or site can estimate your general area from one. It also says that the location it estimates can be wrong, and that this usually happens when you use your account on a mobile network.

So the two answers come from different places. The blue dot is your phone; the country on the website is your connection.

Where your data leaves for the internet

On a mobile network, the IP address is handed out by a gateway in the operator's core network. The GSMA's roaming guidelines for 4G describe several ways of building roaming around that gateway: the traffic can be home routed, travelling back to the network that issued the SIM, or broken out from the visited network, leaving for the internet from the local operator you are connected to.

Home routing is common. Researchers from several European universities who measured roaming on 16 networks in 6 countries found that operators commonly use it, and that with it the roaming user's exit point to the internet is always in the home country.

A travel eSIM is a roaming line almost by definition: it connects to local networks as a visitor. If its operator routes traffic home, your IP address comes from that operator's country, which may not be your country or the one you are visiting. Which model a given plan uses depends on the operator behind it, not on anything in your settings.

What it can change on a trip

• Search and maps on the web: results, language or currency suited to another country.
• Streaming: a different catalogue, or titles that do not play.
• Accounts: a sign-in shown as coming from another country.
• Shops and ticket sites: a version of the site for another market.

Netflix is open about the streaming case. It says its library varies by country, and that missing titles can mean it thinks you are in a different country from where you are. Google's account page warns of the sign-in case: you may see activity from locations that are not your actual location. If you get a security alert naming a country you have not visited, check whether it matches the country your connection shows before assuming the worst.

How to see which country you appear in

Netflix suggests a quick test in its help pages: open fast.com and look at the country shown next to Client. That is the country your connection appears to come from. Do it once on mobile data and once on the hotel Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi leaves for the internet through a local provider, so if the two answers differ, the routing of your mobile data is the reason.

That comparison is also the most practical workaround. When a local site, a booking or a streaming service misbehaves on mobile data, try the same thing on Wi-Fi. If it works there, the problem is the apparent country, not your account or the app.

A VPN changes the apparent country too, in whichever direction you set it, and our guide to using a VPN while travelling covers what it does and does not do. Check the terms of any service you use it with.

What it does not affect

Your phone number and SMS. A data eSIM has no number, and your home line keeps receiving texts on the mobile network, so bank codes keep arriving by SMS whatever country your data appears in. Our guide on getting bank SMS codes abroad covers that side.

Navigation. GPS and the other location sources do not depend on the IP address, so directions, ride-hailing pick-ups and the location you share with family stay accurate.

Which networks you can use. The apparent country is about where your traffic exits, not about where the plan works. A Snoozim pack for one country works only in that country, and the Europe pack works in 33, whatever country a website shows.