The MTN Zambia Guide

We are currently working on thisguide to help you know what is the good and the bad about you carrier and how you can get the most out of our kwacha, and make those GB last longer. So this is very much a work in process.

USSD Short Codes

Recommended USSD codes

Main Menu

*111# + 📞
Here you can do most of what you need. Many for the following codes are more just direct access to specific features.

Check Balance

*114# + 📞
This will show you your current account balance of airtime, followed my a SMS if you have any current active Bundles.

Recharge Airtime

*113*THE-PIN-CODE# + 📞
When you buy more Airtime from a shop or vendor, you sometimes get these scratch cards or slips with a 13 digit pin. To get the Airtime on you phone dial eg. *113*PHONE-NUMBER# and then 📞

Special Offers

*777# + 📞
This is where you find the best bundles for MTN at the moment. Here you can get Sparka Bundles and Data bundles. The 4G Data bundles are the best values for money from MTN at the moment.

Mobile Money

*303# + 📞
Here is the place where you can manage all MoMo (Mobile Money) like, buy, send, check balance ect.
Download our MTN USSD (vCard)

Other USSD codes

Data bundles

*335# + 📞
Here you can by Data Bundles, but these are usually not the best place.

Spaka bundles

*211# + 📞
...

Roaming bundles

*339# + 📞
...

Subscribe to Spaka Life

*222# + 📞
...

Borrow Airtime

*326# + 📞
...

Recharge another number with Airtime

*224*THE–13–PIN–CODE*PHONE–NUMBER# + 📞
This one is a but fancy, but you can actually recharge another number that your own, by entering *224*THE–PIN–CODE*PHONE–NUMBER# and then 📞

Check your own number

*123# + 📞
...

Check IMEI phone number

*#06# + 📞
...

Check how SIM is registered to

*101# + 📞
...

Where to buy Airtime online

We are not affiliated to any of the services we mentions on this page. But here is the services we like to use our selfs.

Service
Price
Pros
Cons
Payment options
Platform

Paybills Zambia

0
Works most of the times
Works most of the times
Website

Instant Bills Pay

0
Works most of the times
Works most of the times
Website

Xoom

$
Low fees
Not local. Requirers PayPal or Xoom account.
Website
App

Ding

$$$
Easy to recharge
Expensive, not local, ...
Website
App

Recharge

$$$
...
Expensive, not local, ...
Website
App

WorldRemit

$$$
Reliable and nice user expericens.
Not local, complicated registration.
Website
App

Liquid Telecom

No fees
Can save you CreditCard info for next time.
Slow, and if you click twice you can easily send multiple of orders.
Website
App

Know of any other good services we should recommend? Contact us

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Review

In general MTN Zambia delivers a very reliable service in terms of telecom and data. Then it comes to coverage it very much decent on your location. They are good most places but we have also heard of reports where they are not. Pricing in general is not the best, but if you use more than 1 GB per week and do not care to buy bundles every month, then they are the cheapest at the moment.

Pros

Many users, and there for cheaper to call same network.
👎👍
The MTN App have many good features.
👎👍

Cons

Unreliable usage notification. Notifications sometimes comes 24 hours late.
👎👍
Difficult to find the best deal.
👎👍
Even with an active Data Bundle MTN, will still use a bit of your Airtime for Data. So if your account is K0.0 and you top-up K10 you can't buy a bundle for K10. Even with data turns off.
👎👍
The MTN App is very buggy and difficult to use.
👎👍

We are constantly looking to improve our guides, so if you have any contributions please fell free to Contact us!