Can I hotspot and tether with a travel eSIM?
With most data-bundle eSIMs (Airalo, Saily, Nomad): yes, tethering works normally and just consumes your gigabytes faster. Unlimited plans are the ones to check: some, like Holafly in certain regions, cap hotspot use per day or historically excluded it. If tethering a laptop is essential, verify the hotspot policy for your exact plan and destination before buying.
For fixed-data bundles the answer is simple: a gigabyte is a gigabyte, and providers do not care whether your phone or your laptop consumes it. Airalo, Saily, Nomad, and the other bundle sellers allow tethering as standard. The only physics to respect: laptops drink data at desktop rates, with OS updates and cloud sync that assume home broadband, so turn those off before sharing your 5 GB with a MacBook.
Unlimited plans are where hotspot policies bite, because unlimited pricing depends on people not feeding three devices all day. Holafly historically blocked or capped hotspot use and now allows it in most regions with daily caps (commonly around 500 MB to 1 GB of sharing per day, varying by destination). Maya Mobile and other unlimited sellers apply their fair-use thresholds across all use, tethered or not. These policies change and differ per destination, which is why we keep saying: read the plan page’s fine print, not the homepage promise.
If your trip depends on working from a laptop, two safer patterns exist. Either buy a large fixed bundle (10 or 20 GB) where tethering is unrestricted and the math is transparent, or carry a dedicated plan: some travelers install one eSIM for the phone and a second profile purely as the laptop’s lifeline. For teams or families sharing one connection all day, a local physical SIM with a true unlimited plan, bought in-country, still sometimes beats every travel eSIM.