I am looking for suggestion of a swiss carrier with reasonable price of high speed data roaming in China. I need a swiss ip address during the roaming (not via VPN) and therefore I think swiss carriers are my only choice. Happy to be corrected.
Last year I was using swisscom which offers high speed 10GB at 69.9CHF, crazy expensive but works. Yallo for example is 2GB at 40CHF…crazier. This year I hope I can learn some alternatives. Thanks!
If you are in China, you will be assigned a Chinese IP address.
You can use eSIM providers, they are quite cheap compared to Swiss alternatives: Compare Travel eSIM for China - Search 90+ Providers [May 2025]
Thanks for the reply.
not true. When I was in China and with roaming from swisscom, my phone had an swiss ip address. This is definitely the case.
I have never tested it and I don’t know if Switzerland is available, but with the eSIM provider Saily you can choose the exit country (they call it “virtual location”).
https://support.saily.com/hc/en-us/articles/17464251910428-What-are-Saily-virtual-locations
Isnt this basically just like a VPN?
@Jamie, VPN does not work in your case because it could be blocked (by China, your employer, …)?
Yes, some are blocked by China, but others are not.
Yes. But since the routing to the exit server takes place at the eSIM provider this should work as long as the eSIM works within China (and I would at least assume that it does, otherwise the provider would not sell such an eSIM. But maybe I’m just too naive. I have never been to China).
interesting. The first time seeing an esim provider offernig virtual location. exactly what I need. Thanks for the tip. I am check deeper into it.
I don’t know for the swiss IP part, but I can say I’ve been there several times with eSim (Airalo/Chinacom) + VPN and it worked flawlessly. The VPN was even not necessary most of the time, as the connection through the eSim doesn’t have as many restrictions somehow (e.g. most western social media works out of the box with eSim).
Regarding VPN I’ve tried both Astrill and LetsVpn, both were generally quite good and reliable.
Of course it depends what kind of activity you want to do. For web browsing (incl Youtube), no issue whatsoever. I’ve tried a MMORPG hosted in Europe, that didn’t go too well. I’ve tried Teams videocalls and that was also not great.
yes, vpn doesn’t work. At least not easily. I want the esim roaming to have a swiss ip address and then sharing as a wifi hotspot. Then all other devices connecting to this wifi have swiss ip address as well.
I see that Nord is behind Saily so probably they are switching the traffic using the NordVPN-like technology. Not sure how the experience will be on my side. I would not want the ip address to swift widely here and there…
yes.. I would need teams call to work great. haha.
Some VPNs won’t work, but both Astrill and LetsVPN are known for working quite well over there.
If you need a reliable connection out, I recommend having an eSim + both VPNs configured before you even land in China. Once you’re there, if you have these things pre-configured, you should easily be able to benchmark, finetune, or download/try other solutions.
That’s really the most important, I think the rest you can always figure out later. But if you arrive there without a solution already set, you won’t be able to setup a new one and you’ll be stuck.
Regarding Teams I’m actually unable to tell where was the bottleneck. I was on my in-laws WiFi which maybe was not great. Also Maybe I wasn’t on the most ideal VPN configuration, maybe I even shouldn’t have tried VPN. It was for a job interview and needless to say it didn’t go well 
I suppose with more time to finetune things, I’d have ended up with a working solution.
Been there 2 months ago. Mullvad VPN worked on hotel wifi, others didn’t. Saily esim for mobile data worked (no vpn was needed so I guess I had a Non-chinese IP)
A bit of a nerdy question, but is Wireguard blocked in China?
Vpn in anyway not part of the question. Can someone share the price of high speed data roaming in China from their Swiss carrier, if it is cheaper than 10GB at 69.9CHF ?
When I was there last year I used a random eSIM provider with an Outline VPN back home to my apartment. That way you can also do a hotspot but Route all traffic thru the VPN. Outline is from Google and is not blocked/blockable (uses some steganography tech).
I’m often in China.
All that you need is an eSIM from a provider based in HK or Macau. Your end point will be outside of the Great Firewall and have access to the western Internet. You’ll also be able to use basically any VPN but it won’t be necessary for a standard use case unless you have a work computer that needs the VPN.
HK or Macau eSIMs always work, even when in mainland China and that will not change for the foreseeable future.
Where to find HK/Macau eSIM? Someone above posted a link to a search engine for such eSIMs. I’ve used Mobimatter, good enough.
PS. Using a Swiss SIM would achieve the same result but cost you much more. Since you can leave your Swiss SIM active while the eSIM takes over as the primary connection, you don’t miss your ‘Swiss’ telephone calls and SMS.
PPS. eSIM is rarely sold with Chinese number. Further configurations available with HK/Macau eSIM but require KYC. E.g. eSIM with Internet AND HK/Macau number. Maybe you need a Chinese number: An HK/Macau is a Chinese number except for some edge cases like an app requiring registration but restricted to mainland China (like Alipay mainland, I think).
thanks for the long reply, but not really to the point. Getting connected beyond the china firewall is never my concern. What I need is a swiss ip address.
oh nice. This looks cool. I would prefer to not using a vpn, but just roaming from a swiss carrier. But I would check this. thanks
Why not just use tailscale, to use your own swiss exit?
Tho I wonder what the motivation is, is that to satisfy some work requirements about remote work?