The US is actually the only exception I am aware of world wide which gives us a distorted view of this problem.

Unless things have changed in the last few years, there are apparently countries in Europe that don't require registration: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/9ziqfi/european_cou...

And that's a quite high regulation part of the world, I'd be surprised if South American or African countries were stricter.

Requiring SIM registration is nearly universal outside of Europe and NA.

https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...

Great link, thanks. Interesting that my intuition was off, although I suppose it makes sense that regulations are loosest in countries with the strongest speech and privacy protections. Although I'm skeptical of how well the rules on paper are enforced in some of the countries listed as requiring registration. I have seen SIMs for sale at roadside stalls in a couple countries listed as requiring registration, and I don't think they were checking ID...

But it looks like the official answer is 36:

> Those without any SIM-card registration requirements are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cabo Verde, Comoros, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Kiribati, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Moldova, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vanuatu.

In some places, the sale itself doesn't require anything, but you need to go to the provider and show an ID to activate.