🇵🇪Peru wrote down the exemption every other country makes you infer

11 plans for Peru, from 1 GB at $4.49 to 10 GB at $21.99, plus 6 unlimited-data tiers. 5 GB for 30 days costs $13.99 — 12th cheapest of 54 in the Americas, against a $22.99 median. Our retail prices from the operator catalogue, checked 28 September 2026.

Peru wrote the exemption down, and almost nobody does

Most countries leave a traveller to work out whether a device rule reaches them. Peru answered it in the text. Article 5.4 of the Reglamento of Decreto Legislativo 1338 says that mobile terminal equipment «que se encuentran temporalmente en el país no requieren ser incorporados en la Lista Blanca para operar en la red del servicio público móvil y, con ello, acceder al servicio de roaming internacional». Equipment temporarily in the country need not be entered in the White List. It works on the network and reaches international roaming regardless.

The sentence ends with a caveat worth carrying: «salvo excepciones dispuestas por el OSIPTEL», save exceptions the regulator may set. We looked for such an exception and did not find one published. The clause sits in the regulation approved by Decreto Supremo 007-2019-IN. We read it on the regulator's own server on 8 September 2026.

The registry it exempts you from is a serious one

That exemption matters because of what it exempts you from. Decreto Legislativo 1338 created the Registro Nacional de Equipos Terminales Móviles para la Seguridad, or RENTESEG. OSIPTEL runs it, and it holds a White List, a Black List and related information. Article 5.1 defines the White List as the subscriber registry operators supply. It holds the IMEI of each handset, tied to the IMSI or MSISDN of lines activated nationwide.

What the register holds about a person is not small. Article 6.1 lists the IMEI, the brand and model by TAC, the IMSI and the phone number. Then it lists you: natural or legal person, contract type, full name, identity document type and number, activation date and time, and service status. For foreign subscribers it adds nationality. That is the file a local line opens, and a roaming profile opens none of it.

Residents bringing a phone home do have to register it

The contrast in the same article is what gives 5.4 its meaning. Article 5.3(c) covers handsets «adquiridos en el exterior», bought abroad and arriving outside a commercial import. Before using one, it says, «los abonados deben acudir a los puntos de atención o venta autorizados por las empresas operadoras para su registro». Subscribers must present themselves at an operator's authorised point so the device can be entered in the White List.

Read the two paragraphs together and the line falls where you would hope. A phone that comes to stay goes through a counter. A phone that is here temporarily does not. Peru drew that distinction on purpose, one paragraph apart.

Where the regulation pulls against itself

One clause elsewhere in the text points the other way, and skipping it would be dishonest. Article 7.1(c) puts on the Black List «los equipos terminales móviles no registrados en la Lista Blanca que sean detectados operando en la red del servicio público móvil». Devices not on the White List, detected operating on the network. Taken alone, that describes exactly the handset Article 5.4 has just excused.

Our reading is that the specific rule governs the general one. Article 5.4 speaks directly about equipment temporarily in the country. If 7.1(c) swallowed it, the exemption would have been a dead letter the day it was written. We could not find an OSIPTEL procedure resolving the two in words. The Exception List of Article 13 does not do it either, because that list is for duplicated or cloned IMEIs. So this is a reading, and we are labelling it as one.

A phone reported stolen abroad can be blocked here

One Black List entry does reach across borders, and it is the reason to care about a second-hand handset. Article 7.1(b) covers devices «que se encuentren en alguna Lista Negra de otros países con los cuales el Estado Peruano suscriba acuerdos internacionales», or which Peru must act on as a member of an international organisation. Article 8.1.3 shows what travels with such an entry. The IMEI, the reporting country, the date and time of the report, and whether the state is block or unblock.

The rest of the Black List is domestic and predictable. Article 7.1 also covers handsets reported stolen, lost or inoperative in Peru. It adds IMEIs detected as altered, and devices blocked at a competent authority's request. **If you are travelling on a used phone, its history is what this system reads, and no SIM changes that.**

Buying a local SIM in Peru means a fingerprint

The subscriber side is one of the strictest in this catalogue. Worth knowing before you queue for a local line. Article 38.1 requires operators to verify a subscriber's identity when contracting mobile service «utilizando, sin efectuar cobro alguno al abonado, el sistema de verificación biométrica de huella dactilar». Fingerprint biometric verification, at no charge, checked against the RENIEC database. Operators are forbidden from storing that query without express consent.

Foreigners get a different route rather than an easier one. Article 41 says that for foreign persons not registered with RENIEC, to whom Article 38 does not apply, contracting happens «previa presentación del original de su documento legal de identidad», on presentation of the original identity document, which the operator records and copies. The definition of that document names a Carné de Extranjería, a passport, or a document required by Migraciones.

What the Peru profile actually is

You get data on Movistar and nothing else. Our Peru catalogue record names the seller Habla Telefon. It puts your profile on Movistar at 4G, checked 8 September 2026. No minutes come with it, no texts, and no Peruvian number in your name. The identity-check field sits empty, which is what Article 5.4 and Article 41 together would predict.

Two clocks run apart. You get a year from purchase to install, and the days you paid for begin at the first connection. Nothing needs typing: the APN sets itself on both platforms. The profile takes top-ups.

Both ladders, and the altitude problem

Metered sizes run 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 GB (our Peru catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026). The windows are 7 days on the smallest, 15 on the next, and 30 from 3 GB upward. Unlimited windows run 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 30 days on the same record. Ten gigabytes is the metered ceiling.

Peru spreads a trip over distances that punish a thin plan. Lima to Cusco to the Sacred Valley is flights and long transfers. Inca Trail and Colca days run on offline maps rather than live ones. Your data goes in the evenings instead: photographs uploading from a hostel, and the rebooking that Andean weather produces. Set the window past your return flight.

Before you fly

Install at home on your own Wi-Fi, days ahead. Scan the QR from your order page and label the line so you can find it fast. Then leave it switched off until you land, because buying early costs you nothing on a year-long install window (our Peru catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026).

Split the work between your two lines before you go. Your home line keeps voice and bank messages, with its data roaming off. The Peruvian line takes data once you switch it on. **Enable data roaming for the travel line and for nothing else.**

Your first day

Switch the line on, pick it for mobile data, and open a web page. You type no APN on either platform (our Peru catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026), so silence means the roaming switch or a line you did not pick. Skip the call test; this profile answers none. Emergency dialling stays with your home line or the handset itself.

Do not read a weak signal as a legal problem. Peru is mountains and jungle, and a bar that disappears in the Sacred Valley is terrain. We have measured no coverage there and will not describe any. What we can say is that nothing in RENTESEG switches off a visitor's phone for arriving.

Topping up

Recharge on the order page you already have open. The record marks the profile rechargeable, checked 8 September 2026, and no Peruvian rule reaches that payment. Top up while data remains, or the hostel password comes first.

Watch the gigabytes rather than the date on the metered ladder. A 30-day window outlives 3 or 5 GB on any photograph-heavy week. Check the counter before a travel day rather than during one. A bus to Arequipa is a poor place to run dry.

FAQ

Before you fly: the checklist

Sources and freshness

Reglamento del Decreto Legislativo 1338, approved by Decreto Supremo 007-2019-IN, Articles 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 38 and 41, as amended by Decreto Supremo 008-2021-IN (used in every legal section, the FAQ and the checklist) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

Decreto Legislativo 1338, which creates the Registro Nacional de Equipos Terminales Móviles para la Seguridad (used in section 2) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

Our Peru catalogue record: seller, network, plan type, identity check, install window, activation, APN, recharge and both package ladders, read 8 September 2026.

What we did not check: Nothing below is settled, and none of it is presented as settled. The tension between Article 5.4 and Article 7.1(c) is resolved here by reading the specific rule over the general one, and we found no OSIPTEL procedure that resolves it in words; a published procedure could contradict us. We searched for the exceptions Article 5.4 reserves to OSIPTEL and found none, which is an absence in what we could reach rather than proof that none exists. We did not enumerate the international agreements that make Article 7.1(b) operative, so we cannot say which countries' black lists Peru currently honours. We read the consolidated regulation as published by OSIPTEL, including the Article 5.2 amendment made by Decreto Supremo 008-2021-IN, but we did not separately verify every later modification in the official gazette. We found no published enforcement case applying any of these articles to a visitor. Whether Movistar applies a check of its own to an inbound roaming handset is not something we could verify. On the product side the record carries no coverage caveat, no Wi-Fi sharing field and no fair-use condition on the unlimited tiers, and it does not say whether a top-up extends the running window or opens a new one. We measured no speeds and tested no coverage in the Andes or the Amazon, and silence in a record is not a measurement.