With the Brexit transition period having ended on 31st December 2020, will UK travellers to the EU see a change in their mobile phone costs? Is there a risk of incurring high charges for data roaming, as was the case a few years ago?
Up to 2017, if UK travellers used data roaming services whilst in other EU countries, these did not fall within their UK mobile phone tariff and it was common for people to be hit with significant charges, after the event. There were many accounts of a traveller’s mobile phone costs being higher than the cost of their flights!
Since EU legislation banning additional charges came into effect in 2017, UK travellers have, within reason, been able to use the minutes, texts and data included on their UK mobile phone tariffs when travelling in the EU – with the same rules applying to people from EU countries visiting the UK.
Now that Brexit has completed, although the UK has a trade deal with the EU, that deal does not rule out the possibility of roaming charges being re-introduced. The decision about whether to implement such fees is left up to the mobile networks, but the trade deal says that if operators do impose them, they must have “transparent and reasonable rates”.
At the moment, it is generally good news for people travelling from the UK to the EU, as the largest UK operators (Vodafone, Three, EE and O2) have all said they do not have any current plans to reintroduce roaming charges. That may vary in the future, though, depending on what agreements may (or may not) be in place between UK operators and their EU counterparts.
However, you need to be careful if you spend extended periods of time in an EU country. A “fair use” policy applies, which means that if someone from the UK spends more than 62 days in a four month period in the EU, then it is likely that their network won’t allow the UK tariff to cover the use abroad. Therefore, if you spend a lot of time in the EU for work, or choose to live there for part of the year, it is advisable to take out a mobile contract in that country for use whilst you’re there.
Our advice for anyone planning to use their mobile phone outside of the UK is to check before leaving home, what your network’s latest charging policy is, for the country you are visiting. In some cases it may be possible to buy a “bolt-on” to your normal tariff, to cover use abroad.
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