There’s another hidden holiday cost to think about as Britons go abroad this summer.
Before Brexit, mobile phone providers did not charge British customers extra fees to use roaming in Europe. However, these rules no longer apply.
This is Money did some digging into the EU roaming charges of major mobile networks to see how much you will have to pay this summer to use your phone abroad.
Goodbye roaming: Some mobile phone providers now charge British customers extra fees when turning on data in Europe
O2
Looking at the T&Cs of O2’s Europe Zone data roaming, there is a cap on free roaming at 25GB per month, so customers can roam like they would at home up to this amount of data.
If you go through the 25GB of data, you’ll have to pay £3.50 per GB.
As a rough guide, 1GB is enough for five hours of mobile web browsing, or to send or receive about 1000 emails.
EE
Roaming in the EU is no longer included in the plan allowance with EE.
Pay monthly handset and sim customers can use their calls, texts and data allowances in EE’s European roaming zone for £2.29 a day.
If you have a plan with inclusive extras, you can choose EE’s ‘roam abroad’ pass as an inclusive extra and you won’t have to pay the £2.29 daily charge in the EU.
Three
For pay monthly customers, roaming costs £2 a day in Europe with Three.
However if you’re on pay as you go, or your pay monthly plan started before 1 October 2021, these charges won’t apply This means customers won’t have to pay anything extra outside their plan to use roaming in the EU.
Vodafone
If a plan doesn’t have inclusive roaming in Vodafone’s Europe Zone, which includes 49 European countries, it will cost £2.25 a day to roam in European destinations.
If you need to use roaming in Europe with Vodafone for more than four days, it might work out cheaper to get one of Vodafone’s European roaming passes, which are £10 for 8 days or £15 for 15 days. Each of these are subject to a 25GB limit.
Giffgaff
Giffgaff customers have a 5GB EU roaming allowance at no extra cost. Unlimited calls and texts are also available to them while they’re in the EU.
If you opt to pay as you go and use credit instead, data, calls and texts will be charged at Giffgaff’s pay as you go UK rates while roaming in the EU.
If you run out of your 5GB of data while in the EU, you can purchase a new plan that’ll reset your EU roaming and allow you to access another 5GB while away.
If you use up all of your plan data, or go over the 5GB EU roaming cap, you’ll be charged 10p per MB for data usage.
Plans start from £8 to access the additional 5GB of data while away.
BT
BT Mobile has a ‘roam like home’ facility which lets customers use their mobile abroad in 47 destinations without paying extra roaming charges. This includes data.
Once the allowance is used up, BT will charge UK out of plan rates.
BT will charge 45.72p per minute or 38p per minute depending on the country you are in, and 14p per message or 11p per message.
If you go over your plan’s data allowance while in European countries, you will have to pay UK out of bundle rates at 13.06p per MB or 10.83p per MB depending on the country – so make sure to check how much data your plan gives you.
To stop you racking up a huge bill, BT caps the amount of data you can use when abroad to £35.
Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile also allows you to roam like at home so you can use your calls, texts and data in the EU as you would in the UK with their contract and sim only plans.
If you go over your plan’s data allowance you will be charged the same rate as you woild while at home which is £3 per GB per day for the data you use.
Virgin Mobile said they have no plans to reintroduce EU roaming charges.
Talkmobile
Depending on when you joined Talkmobile, you might be able to use your UK monthly allowance for calls, texts and data or you may need to buy a Euro holiday booster to use data.
If you joined before 14 March 2023, you can use your UK minutes, texts and data allowance at no extra cost when roaming in Europe.
But if you joined after this date you will need to buy a Euro Holiday Booster which will give you 15 GB of data a day. You can get a one day Euro Holiday Booster for £2.25, an eight day Euro Holiday Booster £10 or a 15 day Euro Holiday Booster £15.
iD Mobile
All iD Mobile plans come with inclusive EU roaming.
You can roam like at home in 50 EU and EEA destinations. Your calls, texts and the data you use will come out of your remaining monthly allowances subject to iD Mobile’s fair usage policy.
If you run out of your allowance, you will be charged 40p per minute for calls, 14p for texts and 10p per MB for data.
