Roam, and you pay your network's daily rate whether you use it or not. Buy a travel eSIM, and you pay for data. Which one stings less depends on your plan, your trip and your habits — so this works it out with your numbers instead of a stranger's. Works for anywhere: Europe, the US, Asia, long-haul.
Most networks reintroduced European charges on a specific date and left older contracts alone. Two people on the same network and the same tariff can pay different amounts depending on when they signed.
Premium plans often bundle roaming that cheaper plans charge for. Pay-as-you-go is usually a separate scheme again, with its own daily and weekly rates.
Networks split the world into zones, and the same trip can cost nothing, a couple of pounds a day, or seven, depending which zone your destination sits in. Ireland is frequently free when the rest of Europe isn't.
| Network | Europe | Fair-use cap | Beyond Europe |
|---|---|---|---|
| EE | £2.72/day, or 7-day pass £16.50 / 12-day £27.50 | 50GB if your allowance exceeds 50GB | £6–16/day by zone |
| Vodafone | £2.75/day Zone B; Ireland, Isle of Man, Iceland, Norway free | 25GB | £6–8/day depending on plan date |
| O2 | Included on most plans | 25GB | Around £7/day |
| Three | Go Roam, varies by plan | 12GB | Varies by plan |
| Lebara | Included on SIM-only plans, plus India | 30GB | Add-on needed, bought in advance |
| giffgaff, SMARTY, iD, Tesco, VOXI | Generally included | 5–30GB | Usually not included |
Every figure here is a rough starting point, not a quote — networks price by plan and contract date. These are typical figures, not promises. Premium plans, older contracts and business tariffs all differ. Use the calculator's step-one check to get yours properly — it takes about two minutes and it's the difference between an estimate and an answer.
Your network's Europe zone is a list it chooses, not a map of the continent — and EU membership predicts it surprisingly badly. EE's European zone, for example, runs to 47 destinations and includes nine places that are in neither the EU nor the EEA, while leaving out sixteen European countries entirely.
| Group | Destinations | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| EU and EEA | The 27 member states, plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, plus overseas regions like the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores, Martinique and Réunion | Covered by every mainstream plan |
| Outside the EU, usually included anyway | Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man | All in EE's European zone despite being outside the EU and EEA. Not guaranteed on every network, but the news is usually good |
| European, but charged as rest-of-world | Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia | Outside EE's European zone, at anywhere from roughly twice to six times the European daily rate |
| Divided island | Northern Cyprus | Explicitly excluded, while the Republic of Cyprus is included. Your rate can change mid-island |
| At sea | Cruise ships and ferries | A separate maritime zone with its own charge, regardless of which country you're sailing past |
This uses EE's zones as a worked example because EE publishes its full list. Other networks draw the lines differently, so treat it as a guide to where the question arises rather than an answer for your own plan.
Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City all sit in EE's European zone, so it's tempting to assume the microstates are fine. Andorra doesn't — it's two zones out, at roughly three times the European rate. It catches drivers crossing between France and Spain.
Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo are all outside the European zone. A fortnight in Split costs European rates; a fortnight in Sarajevo does not.
Your phone can connect to a mast across a border without you leaving the country you're in. It can trigger a day's charge for somewhere you only drove past. Networks will often refund it if you ask, but setting your network manually avoids the argument.
This trips people up because networks present roaming as a single policy, then apply a different one to PAYG customers. If you're on pay as you go, the figures quoted in most articles — including the ones on this page — are usually the pay monthly ones.
Fair-use allowances are routinely smaller on PAYG. EE, for example, allows considerably less roaming data on pay as you go than on its pay monthly plans, and going past it means paying by the gigabyte.
Where a contract customer gets roaming folded into their plan, PAYG customers are often sold a daily or weekly pass. A weekly pass can work out cheaper than seven daily charges, so it's worth checking both before a longer trip.
The countries included can differ between the two schemes on the same network. Don't assume a destination list you read for contract customers applies to you.
Networks usually publish PAYG roaming on a separate page from their main roaming page. If you're on pay as you go, make sure that's the one you're reading.
On daily-charge networks the fee lands the moment your phone touches a foreign mast. One glance at a map counts as a full day, and a stopover can cost you a day in a country you never left the airport of.
Every inclusive deal carries a fair-use cap. Past it you pay by the gigabyte at rates that make the daily-fee networks look kind. Know your cap before you start streaming.
Travel eSIMs sell data, not a number. If you need to take a call on your UK mobile, keep roaming switched on for calls and let the eSIM carry the data. Both at once is often the cheapest setup.
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Only networks we've checked against their own published prices appear here. We add a column each time we publish a network guide, rather than filling the table with figures lifted from other comparison sites.
| EE | Vodafone | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily charge in Europe | £2.72 | £2.75 |
| Shortest pass | 7 days, £16.50 | 8 days, £16 |
| Longest pass | 12 days, £27.50 | 15 days, £21 |
| A week in Spain | £16.50 | £16.00 |
| A fortnight in Spain | £33.00 | £21.00 |
| A month in Spain | £66.00 | £42.00 |
| Roaming data cap | 50GB | 25GB |
| Cost over the cap | £3.69 per GB | £3.84 per GB |
| Switzerland | Included | Included |
| Turkey | £6 a day | £8 a day |
| Republic of Ireland | Free | Free |
| Max roaming per 4 months | 2 months | 62 days |
| WiFi calling abroad | No | Not checked |
| How to check your rate | Text ROAM to 150 | Roaming Charge Checker |
The long-trip gap is the striking one. Vodafone's 15-day pass has no equivalent at EE, whose longest is 12 days — so a month in Europe costs £42 on Vodafone against £66 on EE, even though their daily rates are within 3p of each other. On trips of three days or fewer, EE is marginally cheaper.
The fair-use rules differ in kind, not just in size. Vodafone applies a flat 25GB roaming cap to all Pay monthly plans. EE's 50GB applies only if your plan allowance is larger than 50GB. On a smaller EE plan there is no separate roaming limit at all — you use your normal allowance, then buy an add-on. So the headline numbers aren't comparable: a Vodafone customer on an unlimited plan is capped at 25GB abroad, while the equivalent EE customer gets 50GB.
Both networks limit how long you can roam, which almost nobody mentions. EE requires a stable link to the UK — two months here in any four-month period, or most of your usage at home. Vodafone charges extra past 62 days roaming in four months, or if your usage abroad exceeds your usage at home, with a text warning 14 days beforehand. If you spend winters abroad or work remotely from Europe, this matters far more than the daily rate does.
Two caveats. These figures assume you're paying to roam — plenty of plans on both networks include European roaming outright, in which case you pay nothing and none of this applies. And roaming charges are a poor reason on their own to change network: this is worth knowing at your next upgrade, not the week before you fly.