How to Fix "No SIM card installed"

The phone is telling you it cannot find a usable subscriber identity — not necessarily that a card is absent. That distinction matters, because on a phone with no tray at all the same message appears, and every piece of standard advice about reseating the card is useless.

So start by working out which situation you are in. If your phone has a tray and a card in it, the physical checks apply. If it is eSIM-only, or the line in question is an eSIM, skip straight past them. A phone showing No Service or SOS rather than No SIM has a different problem — Apple’s checklist for SOS, No Service or Searching is the one to follow for that.

Work through these in order — the first two resolve most cases. The paths below are Apple’s; Google’s guide to fixing mobile connectivity on a Pixel gives the Android equivalents, starting with checking that Use SIM is on for the line.

1. 1Restart the phone. A card can be read correctly and still be reported missing after a failed attach.
2. 2Check for a carrier settings update: Settings → General → About, and tap Update if one is offered. Apple lists this among the first steps and it is easy to miss, because the prompt appears only while you are on that screen.
3. 3Open the tray, reseat the card, and make sure it is flat and the right way round. A card sitting a fraction proud reads as absent.
4. 4Look at the gold contacts. Dust or a fingerprint is enough; a dry cloth is the correct tool, not alcohol or an eraser.
5. 5Try the card in another phone. If it fails there too, the card has died — carriers replace them, usually free.
6. 6Try a different card in your phone. If that also fails, the reader is the problem and it is a repair.

Nothing is loose and nothing needs cleaning. The message means the profile is not being accepted, and there are three realistic reasons:

• The profile is switched off. Check the line is enabled in the SIM settings rather than merely present — confirming an eSIM is actually live takes about thirty seconds.
• The install never completed. A profile that failed part-way can appear in the list and carry no working credentials — delete it only if the provider will reissue.
• The plan expired, in which case the profile is inert. Nothing on the phone will change that; a top-up or a new plan will.

On an eSIM-only phone with no profiles installed at all, the message is simply accurate and the fix is to add one.

Two things produce this message with a perfectly good card or profile:

• The account is suspended or the line cancelled. The phone reports what the network tells it, which can be that this identity is no longer valid.
• A software fault after an OS update. Resetting network settings clears it — though it also erases every saved wifi password, so it is not a first move.

A travel eSIM showing this on arrival is almost never a missing SIM. It is usually the line switched off, data roaming off on the wrong line, or a plan whose validity had already started. Buying a second plan before checking is the expensive mistake — plans by destination, with top-up support shown alongside price per GB.