Mobile roaming charges in Europe after Brexit

Roaming charges for using a UK mobile phone in Europe ended in June 2017, when the EU's "Roam Like at Home" rules took effect across the EU's Digital Single Market¹. For as long as the UK was a member, that meant a person with a UK contract could send a text, make a call or download data in another EU country and be charged the same rate as at home¹. That guarantee ended on 1 January 2021: since then, the free roaming arrangement that covered UK mobile users in 47 destinations in the EU, including Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, no longer applies².

The practical result is a split market. Some networks, including O2, Tesco Mobile, Giffgaff and BT Mobile, still include EU roaming in customers' normal allowances at no extra cost². Others charge for it. EE customers who joined or upgraded from 7 July 2021 pay £2.59 a day to use their usual allowances while roaming in the EU, and Vodafone charges £2.57 a day to customers who joined or upgraded from 11 August 2021². No law prevents a network from charging, and no law requires it to stop¹.

Why Brexit took the UK out of the EU roaming rules

The EU's roaming rules were part of the EU's Digital Single Market, a wider programme of rules covering digital trade and services across member states. Roam Like at Home, a Digital Single Market policy introduced in June 2017, brought an end to roaming charges for EU mobile users in other EU countries¹. In 2005, years before the rules arrived, the European Commission had been informed that roaming charges were "currently very high without clear justification"¹, which set the policy in motion.

The UK's position changed because the rules themselves are EU law, and EU law stopped applying to the UK when it left. In March 2018, the then Prime Minister announced that "the UK will not be part of the EU's Digital Single Market" after Brexit¹. The EU's roaming laws therefore ceased to apply in the UK when the UK left the EU¹, and the guarantee of free roaming for UK mobile users in those 47 destinations ended on 1 January 2021³.

Two further changes followed from the same break, and they shape the whole market. First, wholesale prices, the amounts networks pay each other to carry a roaming customer's traffic, were capped under EU law, but that cap no longer applied to the UK after Brexit¹. That removed a cost ceiling that had helped make free roaming affordable for UK networks. Second, UK network operators became able to reintroduce roaming charges if they wished, with no law to prevent it¹. At the time of the 2018 announcements, the UK government noted that only two operators "have committed publicly to continue surcharge-free roaming in the EU on UK exit"¹, and EE, O2 and Vodafone all said at that stage that they had no plans to change their offers¹. Those statements were intentions, not guarantees, and several networks did later introduce charges.

The pattern in that timeline matters for anyone checking their own position. The charges that arrived after 2021 were almost always applied to customers who joined or upgraded after a set date, not to existing customers mid-contract. That is why two people on the same network can face completely different costs for the same trip.

What UK networks say about using your phone in the EU

With no law setting the position, each network sets its own terms, and they differ widely. The Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, which has a particular interest in cross-border use, publishes the current position for each provider².

Several networks include EU roaming at no extra cost. BT Mobile customers can use their devices in the EU, including the Republic of Ireland, with no additional charge, and the same applies at Giffgaff and Tesco Mobile². O2 includes roaming charges in a customer's allowance, so normal data and texts can be used at no extra cost when travelling within the EU, including the Republic of Ireland².

Others charge, and the detail is in the dates:

One point of consistency is the Republic of Ireland. EE, Three, Vodafone and Sky Mobile have all stated that the Republic of Ireland is exempt from their cross-border roaming charges², and Vodafone states its daily charge does not apply if you travel there². For people in Northern Ireland in particular, whose phones can routinely connect to Irish networks simply because of where they are, that exemption is the difference between a normal bill and a run of daily charges. The Consumer Council for Northern Ireland covers this position in its guidance².

The number of countries covered also varies. UK network providers differ in the number of countries they apply their roaming terms to, with variations depending on whether a customer is on pay-as-you-go or on a contract². A destination included free by one network may be charged by another, so the only reliable check before a trip is the provider's own current country list.

EE roaming in the EU: £2.59 per day for newer customers

EE is the clearest example of how the post-Brexit market works, because its charge is tied to specific dates. Customers who joined EE or upgraded from 7 July 2021 pay £2.59 a day to use their usual allowances while roaming in the EU². EE changed its roaming charges on 3 March 2022², so the terms that apply depend on both when the contract started and when the terms were last revised.

The daily charge is not a per-use fee. It unlocks the plan's normal minutes, texts and data for each day of roaming, so a week's holiday means seven daily charges, charged only on days the phone is actually used abroad. For a customer on a contract taken out before 7 July 2021, the position has generally been different, because the charge was introduced for new and upgrading customers rather than applied retrospectively. The exact position depends on the individual contract, and EE's own terms are the authority on it.

EE also offers a way to buy roaming in advance rather than daily. A £25 Monthly Roam Abroad Pass allows access to the plan's minutes, text and data allowances as at home². For a longer trip, a monthly pass can cost less than a run of daily charges, though for a short break the daily charge may be the smaller total. Which suits a particular traveller depends on the length of the trip and how much they use their phone, and the figures above are the ones to work it out from.

How other networks charge: daily fees, passes and limits

The other charging networks have followed the same broad model as EE, with a daily fee that unlocks the UK allowance, but the amounts and the conditions differ.

Vodafone charges £2.57 a day to customers who joined or upgraded from 11 August 2021 to use their usual allowances when roaming in EU countries, and this charge does not apply if you travel to the Republic of Ireland². Vodafone also sells European roaming passes, which can cost £10 for 8 days or £15 for 15 days². A pass of that kind covers a set period rather than charging by the day, which is why the length of the trip decides which works out cheaper.

Three charges £2 for each day you roam, to unlock the UK call, text and data allowance up to 12GB per day, and this applies to customers who joined or upgraded after October 2021, after any included passes are used². The daily data cap is the notable feature: the allowance unlocked each day is limited, so heavy data use can run up against it even on an unlimited UK plan.

Sky Mobile customers pay £2 a day to access their UK data plan². O2 takes a different approach to data: if a UK monthly data allowance is over 25GB, the customer has a roaming limit of 25GB when using the device in Europe, and data used above that 25GB limit is charged at £3.50 per GB². Customers with a UK allowance of 25GB or less can use their full allowance.

The EU rules that used to apply to UK customers covered things like data roaming spending limits and automatically receiving a welcome message when entering a different country². Those protections were part of what went when the guarantee ended, so a traveller now depends on their network's own alerts and caps rather than a legal requirement.

Is data charged differently from calls and texts?

Under the EU rules, the answer was no: since 2017, if you sent a text, made a call or downloaded data in another EU country, you were charged the same rate as if you were at home¹. Network providers charged the same rates for calls, texts and data in the EU as they would in the UK⁵. Calls, texts and data were treated as one bundle, and the domestic price was the only price.

That principle still shapes how the charging networks structure their post-Brexit fees. EE's £2.59, Vodafone's £2.57 and Three's £2 are each a single daily charge that unlocks the whole allowance, minutes, texts and data together, rather than three separate charges². So for most current arrangements, data is not charged differently from calls and texts: either the whole allowance is included free, or the whole allowance is unlocked by one daily fee.

The exceptions are the caps within the allowance. Three's daily charge unlocks data only up to 12GB per day², and O2 applies a 25GB roaming limit with a charge of £3.50 per GB above it for customers whose UK allowance is larger². In both cases data, not calls or texts, is where the extra cost sits, because data is where the wholesale cost of carrying a roaming customer is concentrated.

One rule that never changed, even under the EU system, is that exceeding your allowance costs money. Exceeding text, minute and data allowances remained chargeable while roaming in the EU⁶. A traveller who uses more than their plan allows pays the network's out-of-allowance rates, and those rates are set by the network, so they are worth checking before a trip rather than after the bill arrives.

Where home rates do not apply

The free roaming guarantee covered 47 destinations in the EU, including Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein². That is a wider list than the EU member states alone, but it is still a defined list, and the rest of the world was never part of it. Outside those destinations, a UK network has always been free to set its own roaming rates, which are typically far above domestic prices.

Even within Europe, the edges of the list catch people out. The guarantee's 47 destinations included the non-EU countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein², but other European countries outside the EU, and popular holiday destinations beyond it, were never covered by Roam Like at Home. Before travelling, the check that matters is whether the specific country is on the network's own included or charged list, because UK network providers differ in the number of countries they apply their terms to⁴.

The Republic of Ireland is the main exception within the charging networks. EE, Three, Vodafone and Sky Mobile have stated that the Republic of Ireland is exempt from cross-border roaming charges², and Vodafone confirms its daily charge does not apply there². For travel to the Republic of Ireland, then, several networks that charge elsewhere in the EU do not charge at all.

The position can also change over time. When the guarantee ended, EE said it had no plans to change its inclusive roaming offers in Europe and beyond, and O2 and Vodafone both said they had no plans to change their roaming services or charges¹. Those statements were made in 2018, and the daily charges that followed show that a statement of no current plans is not a promise about the future. A network's current published terms are the only reliable source.

Can networks bring charges back, and what protects you

The legal position is straightforward: UK network operators are able to reintroduce roaming charges if they wish, and no law will prevent it¹. The EU rules that once capped both retail roaming prices and the wholesale prices networks pay each other ceased to apply in the UK¹. A network that today includes EU roaming free can change that for new customers, and the history since 2021 shows several did exactly that.

What a customer is left with is the contract. Charges introduced since 2021 have been applied by join date or upgrade date, which reflects the ordinary rule that a network cannot change the price of a fixed-term contract mid-term without the customer's agreement. When a customer upgrades or starts a new contract, the terms on offer at that moment apply, and those terms include the roaming position. That is why the dates in this article, 7 July 2021 for EE, 11 August 2021 for Vodafone, October 2021 for Three, matter so much².

The protections that used to come from the EU rules, such as data roaming spending limits and the automatic welcome message on entering a different country², are no longer guaranteed by law for UK customers. What remains is whatever cap or alert the network operates itself, plus the general consumer protection framework for mobile phone contracts. If a bill is wrong, or a charge appears that the contract does not allow, the complaint goes first to the network and then, if unresolved, to the relevant ombudsman scheme. The consumer protection pages cover how that process works.

For spending abroad generally, the same post-Brexit shift has affected cards. The UK's version of the Interchange Fee Regulation, retained UK law as amended by the Interchange Fee (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, applies only within the UK's jurisdiction⁷, and consumer cross-border card payments between the UK and the EU, where either the acquirer or the issuer is based outside the UK, are no longer subject to the interchange fee caps⁹. The Payment Systems Regulator has found that Visa and Mastercard have increased these fees five-fold since the UK left the EU¹⁰, and has examined the impact of those increases on consumers¹¹. Those costs sit behind card use abroad rather than on the face of a phone bill, but they are part of the same story.

Other costs of using money abroad since Brexit

Roaming is one of several costs that changed when the UK left the EU. Buying goods from the EU can now involve customs duties, VAT and handling fees¹³, and the range of services UK providers must offer across borders narrowed in places: the regulations that followed exit removed the requirement on the nine designated providers of basic bank accounts to offer these products to customers resident in the EU, or to offer EU currency services on any basic bank account as standard¹⁴.

Card fees abroad vary by provider and by currency. MoneyHelper notes that using a debit card abroad can involve a spending or cash machine charge, typically between £1 and £3 each time you use your card¹⁵. TSB's charges guide sets its international payment fees at £10 for all payments up to £5,000, and £17.50 for payments over £5,000¹⁶. Nationwide lists a £15 fee for international payments to EEA countries in sterling¹⁷. Some providers price for cross-border use differently: Monese's Everyday plan carries a monthly fee of £2.95¹⁸, and TSB's EU cash account has no charges for everyday transactions in the UK or EU¹⁹.

Healthcare cover changed too. The UK left the EU in January 2021 and EHIC cards were replaced with the GHIC, the UK Global Health Insurance Card, which is free of charge and accepted in all 27 EU countries as well as Switzerland, Montenegro and the Channel Islands²⁰. The GHIC and EHIC page covers what that card does and does not pay for.

For the wider picture of managing money on a trip, the guides to travel money, using a debit card abroad, prepaid travel money cards and withdrawing cash from machines abroad cover the options side by side, and the money abroad section brings them together.