US phone plans in Texas for international students and new arrivals

US phone plans in Texas come with a 30.83% combined wireless tax, and the state is growing faster than either of the two larger student destinations. Its students also come from somewhere different, and that second fact changes how a plan should be chosen.

Up 8.4% in a single year

97,043 international students were enrolled in Texas in 2024/25, an 8.4% increase and third in the country behind California and New York, per the state's Open Doors fact sheet. Over the same period California declined 1.1% and New York grew 1.5%.

Growth that fast has an edge to it: demand is rising while the institutions that absorb it stay the size they are. The largest enrollments are in the Dallas area, at the University of North Texas (12,982 international students), UT Dallas (10,280) and UT Arlington (7,864).

Where Texas students come from, and why it matters

India supplies 43.9% of Texas's international students, more than four times China's 9.1%, with Nepal (5.5%), Mexico (5.2%) and Vietnam (3.8%) behind. That is a different mix from California and New York, where China leads.

The mix has a practical consequence. What a new arrival wants from a plan depends on who they are calling: a student whose family is in India is buying international minutes as much as local data, and the prepaid carriers that bundle calling to specific countries are a different shortlist from the ones that do not. It is worth reading what a plan includes for international calls before comparing headline prices, because the cheapest per gigabyte is often the wrong plan for this.

Tax, and what it does not decide

The combined wireless rate in Texas is 30.83%, made up of 17.48% state and local plus the 13.36% federal figure, per the Tax Foundation. That lands between California's 26.21% and New York's 33.96%.

What the rate does not settle is whether you can buy a line at all, which is a separate question with its own answer: getting a US phone plan without an SSN. Nor does it settle whether you need a US number on day one or can start with data alone, which is compared on SIM card, eSIM or US prepaid plan.