Before you start

Your passport — identification is a condition of the subscription now
An unlocked handset; dual-SIM is close to standard practice here
A Lubumbashi address for the registration form

Step-by-step

1
Buy from an operator shop, on your own passport
With identification mandatory and systematic, a SIM registered against your own passport at an operator agency is the only version that will keep working. A pre-registered SIM from a street table is registered to someone else — which is exactly what the reform exists to stop, and exactly what you do not want your mobile money attached to.
In personWho: YouUnder an hour at an agencyThe SIM is a small fixed cost; bundles are the real spend
2
Carry two networks
Coverage varies by commune and by hour, and the mining corridors out toward Likasi and Kolwezi have long stretches where one operator works and another does not. Nearly every long-term resident carries two SIMs from different operators. It is cheap and it removes an entire category of bad day.
In personWho: YouSame visitA second SIM and a small standing bundle
3
Turn off data roaming before you go anywhere near Kasumbalesa
Zambian networks reach across the border and Congolese handsets pick them up well before the frontier. Left on automatic, a phone will happily roam onto a foreign network and bill international rates for a background sync. Set your network selection to manual and lock it to your Congolese operator on any trip south.
Mobile appWho: YouBefore every border-direction tripFree to prevent; expensive to discover
4
Set up mobile money and treat it as a bank account
M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Orange Money and Afrimoney handle salaries, rent, market payments and bills, and the BCC's prohibition on foreign-currency cash from 9 April 2027 explicitly contemplates mobile money as one of the replacement channels. Register the wallet in your own verified name — that is what makes it useful later.
Mobile appWho: YouMinutes at an agentFree to open; per-transaction fees
5
Sort home connectivity before you sign the lease
Data in the DRC is expensive relative to the region and mobile bundles will not carry a household that works from home. Fixed options run through the operators and CanalBox with monthly plans commonly between about USD 10 and USD 100. Ask what already reaches the building — retrofitting is slower than moving.
In personWho: YouDays to weeksRoughly USD 10–100 a month

Documents you’ll need

Passport, and your visa once you have one
A Lubumbashi address for the registration form
Your registration receipt — keep it

Things most newcomers don’t know

The border roams you before you reach it.

Zambian networks are strong enough near Kasumbalesa that a phone on automatic selection switches over well inside the DRC. Locking network selection to your Congolese operator on any southbound trip is a thirty-second habit that prevents the single most common avoidable bill in this province.

Source: Local practice on the Kasumbalesa corridor

The RAM levy is dead and has been since 1 March 2022.

The Registre des Appareils Mobiles was a per-device charge taken from airtime, abolished by the Council of Ministers after both chambers of parliament demanded it. Any guide still warning about mysterious airtime deductions is describing a tax that no longer exists — a fast test of whether a DRC guide has been updated this decade.

Source: Conseil des ministres, February 2022; abolition 1 March 2022

SIM anonymity ended by security decision, not consumer reform.

The identification requirement came from an urgent meeting between the security services, the PTNTIC ministry and ARPTC, with the explicit objective of ending anonymity in electronic communications. The check is not a formality and a SIM in someone else's name is a liability rather than a shortcut.

Source: Government SIM-identification measures, implemented by ARPTC

Mobile money is becoming infrastructure, not convenience.

When foreign-currency cash settlement is prohibited in April 2027 the named alternatives are transfers, cards and mobile money. In a province that moves large sums in physical dollars, the wallet is what carries the transition for everyone below the corporate-treasury level.

Source: BCC de-dollarisation package, April 2026