Permanent roaming is basically leaving a device connected indefinitely to a foreign network without ever registering on the local one. It does not exist in consumer: if you move country, you change carrier. In IoT it is the norm — a car built in Germany can live 15 years in any market, and the SIMs inside are not swapped.
For years carriers tolerated permanent roaming because it was marginal. Today, with hundreds of millions of IoT devices roaming, regulators in several countries have turned it into a formal issue. These are the main rules to know as of April 2026.
Countries with explicit regulatory restriction
- Brazil (Anatel). A device must register with a Brazilian SIM to operate permanently. Rough tolerance is 90 continuous days; beyond that, traffic may be cut by the visited operator. Local SIM or eUICC with a profile downloaded in-country is required.
- Türkiye. The IMEI of a device operating on a Turkish network must be registered in the TRA database within 120 days. No registration means the phone/module is blocked. Applies to IoT as well.
- India (TRAI / DoT). Permanent roaming not allowed for IoT. A DoT-licensed M2M provider with KYC is required for permanent operation. Foreign SIM only valid for transit or short pilots.
- China. Permanent roaming technically unsupported for M2M: MIIT requires a local carrier (China Telecom, Mobile or Unicom) for productive IoT connectivity. Pilots are tolerated, production is not.
- Saudi Arabia (CST / formerly CITC). Permanent roaming banned since 2020; local partner required.
- United Arab Emirates (TDRA). Same principle; devices must operate with a registered local SIM.
Countries with formal tolerance or open market
- European Economic Area. Since Regulation (EU) 531/2012 and successors, roaming inside the EEA is harmonised and permanent use of an EEA SIM in another EEA country is tolerated for IoT subject to fair-use policy. No hard deadline.
- United Kingdom. Post-Brexit operationally similar to EEA for IoT, but commercial agreements between carriers rule.
- United States and Canada. No explicit federal ban, but North American carriers cap foreign-SIM traffic by contract. AT&T and T-Mobile US monitor permanent use and may steer foreign SIMs out after weeks.
- Australia. No regulatory restriction for IoT; operators (Telstra, Optus) tolerate it commercially.
- Rest of Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia). No specific regulation; depends on the carrier agreement.
How to comply without fragmenting your SKU
The modern answer is eUICC + RSP: the device ships with a global bootstrap profile and, on arrival in the destination country, downloads a local profile from an approved carrier. No physical handling. This gets you:
- A single hardware SKU worldwide.
- Country-by-country regulatory compliance without shipping different cards.
- Carrier change if one stops complying, without recovering the device.
For already-deployed fleets without eUICC, the practical option is Multi-IMSI with profiles whose HPLMN lies in the restricted country — not a real local profile, but it gives you an IMSI the visited network does not treat as roaming.
Checklist before shipping
- Who is the destination-country regulator? What does it say explicitly about permanent roaming for IoT?
- How long does the visited operator tolerate in practice (days/weeks)?
- Does your provider have an agreement with an approved local operator?
- Is the hardware eUICC-capable or not? If not, is there a Multi-IMSI applet with a local IMSI?
- Is the profile/IMSI rotation cycle shorter than the tolerance?