Roaming Charges: The EU Cap That Does Not Apply to You

Sponsored by FlyraGo, a flight, hotel, eSIM and car rental comparison service. FlyraGo supported the research and had no role in the findings; every source and number below is checked to the publication's own standard.

The most repeated piece of travel misinformation in the United Kingdom is a true fact attached to the wrong person. Roaming is genuinely free inside the European Union for most people in Europe, and it has been since June 2017. It is not free for a British traveller with a British number, and it has not been by law since the transition period ended in December 2020.

The distinction sounds pedantic until you read what the regime actually contains. The European Commission's consumer guidance, last checked on 7 January 2026, sets a wholesale data cap of 1.30 euro per gigabyte plus VAT in 2025, falling to a maximum of 1 euro per gigabyte plus VAT from 2027, a mandatory cut-off once additional consumption reaches 50 euro, and fixed surcharges for sustained roaming of 0.019 euro per minute for outgoing calls and 0.003 euro per text. These are precise, enforceable numbers. Outside the covered area, none of them exists.

What the European regime covers

The regime applies where a customer holds a subscription in an EU member state and travels to another member state. Calls, texts and data are charged at the domestic rate of the home subscription, and incoming calls and texts cost nothing. Beyond the bloc it extends to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the European Economic Area, and to Moldova and Ukraine.

The consumer guidance also explains who is treated as a roamer rather than a permanent resident abroad: you qualify as long as you spend more time at home than abroad, or use your phone more at home than abroad. If you move abroad and keep the home SIM, your provider may charge extra, though those surcharges are themselves capped.

The three cases where the cap does not apply

The first is the one that catches most British travellers. A UK subscription is not an EU subscription. The regime does not travel with you and does not apply to the number in your pocket.

The second is satellite service. The guidance is explicit that EU rules no longer apply when mobile services are provided over satellite, and that such services carry no price caps. On a ship or a plane, an activated data connection can therefore be billed at whatever the satellite operator's tariff says, and the EU protection does not reach it. Flight mode is the answer, and the guidance gives it.

The third is everything outside the covered area. The guidance notes plainly that the cost of roaming outside the EU and the European Economic Area can be expensive, and directs travellers to check with their provider first. There is no regulated cap there, no automatic 50 euro cut-off, and no 1.30 euro per gigabyte ceiling.

That absence is the finding. The reason a roaming bill can reach hundreds of pounds is not that the caps are high, but that outside a narrow legal area there are no caps at all.

The fair use arithmetic, which is where the fine print lives

Even inside the bloc, providers may apply a fair use policy that limits how much data you get at your domestic price before surcharges begin. The guidance sets out how each kind of contract is treated, and the formulas are worth knowing because they determine what you actually receive.

For a prepaid card, the minimum roaming data is the value of your remaining credit divided by 1.30 euro, so 26 euro of credit gives at least 20 GB. For a contract with a limited data allowance, your domestic allowance is your roaming limit, but a provider may impose a lower fair use limit if your domestic unit price is under 1.30 euro per gigabyte. For an unlimited data contract, the guaranteed roaming allowance is at least twice the monthly price excluding VAT divided by the wholesale cap, so a 13 euro plan gives at least 20 GB.

None of those formulas apply to a UK subscription in the EU, which is worth stating plainly because the numbers circulate widely as though they did.

What your UK provider is required to do

Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, took a different approach after the statutory protections that had applied to roaming fell away at the end of June 2022. It consulted in 2023 and issued new rules and guidance that came into force on 1 October 2024. The obligations that matter to a traveller are also set out in Ofcom's consumer guidance, last updated on 6 July 2026.

Mobile providers must publish their roaming charges on their own website, so the tariff is available before you travel rather than on arrival. When you enter another country, they must send an automatic message explaining the roaming charges and any usage limits that apply, unless you have opted out of receiving those messages. You can set a monthly spend limit on your bill, the provider must notify you when that limit is likely to be reached, and they cannot charge beyond it without your agreement.

Ofcom also rules on inadvertent roaming, which is the case where your handset attaches to a network in a neighbouring country because the signal there is stronger while you are physically in another one. The regulator names Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and Turkey and Greece, as the cases it has in mind, requires providers to tell customers how to prevent it, and requires them to help customers reduce or limit costs where a UK handset attaches to a foreign network. Some providers do not charge customers in Northern Ireland when the handset roams onto an Irish network at all.

Two further points from the same guidance catch people out. A ferry or cruise can be routed over satellite rather than a land network, in which case the charge will be higher than ordinary roaming, and a manual network selection trades that risk against losing coverage. And the worldwide retirement of 2G and 3G networks means a phone that depends on those standards may not connect at all in a country where they are already switched off.

Choosing how you will be connected

Inside the EU, with an EU subscription, the comparison stops mattering: your domestic rate applies and the caps above bound the downside.

Outside it, the decision is between three arrangements. Keeping your UK SIM means no cap and an unknown bill, which Ofcom's spend limit only partially contains. Buying a local SIM or an eSIM replaces your home network with a domestic one, so the tariff you see is the tariff you pay. Ofcom's guidance names both options, describing an eSIM as a virtual SIM that lets a handset use a different local network, which is why it is worth comparing plans rather than assuming the cheapest looking option is the cheapest at the point of use.

FlyraGo, which supported the research behind this guide, compares eSIM and travel data plans across more than 200 countries alongside its flight and hotel search, and passes you to the provider you choose. The same comparison is worth making on whichever marketplace you prefer.

What none of this settles

Prices move. The 1.30 euro figure is the 2025 cap and is scheduled to change, and provider tariffs outside the covered area are set commercially and revised whenever the provider wants. The guidance itself instructs travellers to check with their provider rather than rely on a published figure.

The caps also say nothing about speed. A capped tariff can be a good price and a poor experience, and the domestic network you would have used at home may not exist on a local SIM, which matters if you need video calls or live navigation rather than occasional messages. And a traveller who spends more time abroad than at home is outside the fair use assumptions the European regime is built on, so the rules that seem reassuring on paper may not describe the trip you are actually taking.