Roaming: use a mobile phone in the EU

Last verification: 04/15/2021

When you travel from your country of origin to another EU country, you must not pay additional fees to use your mobile phone.This is called "roaming" or "roaming at national prices".Your calls (to fixed and mobile phones), texts (SMS) and data services are billed at national prices, that is to say at the same prices as calls, SMS and data within your country of origin.

The same rule applies to calls or SMS that you receive abroad: no additional fees is billed to you to receive calls or SMS in homelessness, even if the person who calls you goes through another service provider.

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Pas de frais supplémentaires pour passer ou recevoir des appels en itinérance

Michael lives in Ireland and concluded a contract with an Irish provider of mobile services as part of which he pays 0.10 euros per minute of appeal and 0.05 euros per SMS within Ireland.On a business trip to Spain, Michael must not fear paying additional costs for the calls he makes or receives in the EU.

People who call Michael of Ireland will pay the Irish national rate.If Michael calls a Spanish number, his family in Ireland or another person in another EU country, he will pay the price of an Irish inner call, or 0.10 euros per minute.Its SMS in Spain, to Ireland or any other EU country will cost 0.05 euros, as in Ireland.

What is homelessness?

We speak of homelessness when a person uses his mobile phone during his occasional trips outside the country (where) in which he lives or has stable links (employment or studies, for example).As soon as you spend more time in your country than abroad, or use your laptop more in your country than abroad, you are considered to be roaming.You will therefore pay your calls, SMS and data services at national prices.This is what we consider to be "reasonable use of roaming services".

When you cross a border within the EU, you must receive a message from your operator informing you that you are roaming and reminding you of its reasonable use policy.

Avertissement

If you use your mobile phone abroad permanently, for example if you move abroad and continue to use the SIM card in your country of origin, your mobile operator can charge you roaming costs.However, these costs are capped under the reasonable use policy.

Reasonable use policy: is my data volume limited?

Operators can apply a "reasonable use policy" to ensure that all customers in homelessness have access to roaming at national prices and benefit from it when they travel to the EU.This means that they can apply fair, reasonable and proportionate fair control mechanisms to avoid abusive use of these rules.

When you are roaming, no volume restriction applies to vocal and SMS calls.Calls and SMS not included in your contract will be billed at the same rates as those that apply in your country of origin.However, there are rules and limits for the use of data at national prices, which are determined by the type of contract you have signed.

In some specific cases (see below), you may have to pay an additional supplement that will be equal to the ceilings of the wholesale prices of roaming on a European scale (3 euros/GB of data in 2021, excluding VAT).

I have a prepaid card

If you have a prepaid card (in other words, you pay in advance to use your mobile phone), you can use your phone in the other EU countries without paying any supplement.Your mobile telephony operator can however apply a volume limit for homelessness data if you pay per unit and if the national data price of the data is less than 3 euros/GB.

If your operator limits the volume of data, this limit must be at least equivalent to the volume obtained by dividing the credit remaining on your prepaid card by 3 euros as soon as you start to use the homeless data services.You will receive the same volume of roaming data as the one you paid in advance.You can of course add credit when you are roaming.

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Itinérance avec une carte prépayée: limites de données

Jana lives in Slovakia and has a prepaid card with a credit of 15 euros (including VAT), which covers calls, SMS and data services.When she goes on vacation in Spain, she has 12 euros (excluding VAT) on credit on her card.This means that during her vacation in Spain, Jana can benefit from a data volume equal to the value of the credit remaining on her prepaid card, that is at least 4 GB of homelessness (12 euros/3 euros = 4).

Contract with limited data

If your contract provides for a limited volume of data, you can use this volume when you travel in the EU, at no additional cost.This means that this volume is your limit when you are roaming.

However, if you benefit from a very low unit mobile data price (less than 1.50 euros/GB in 2021), your operator may apply a "reasonable use" limit of data below the national limit when you arein roaming.

The limit is calculated on the basis of the price of your national mobile contract.Your operator must inform you in advance of this limit and warn you when you reach it.You can continue to use homelessness data services, but your operator will charge you additional costs.These costs will correspond to the large price ceiling = 3 euros/GB of more VAT data in 2021.

Unlimited data contract

If your contract includes grouped services with unlimited data for which you pay a fixed monthly fee, your operator must provide you with a large volume of roaming data.The exact amount will depend on the price you pay for your contract.The volume of roaming data must correspond at least to the double of the volume obtained by dividing the price of your mobile contract (excluding VAT) by the cost ceiling of the data services in homelessness (3 euros in 2021).

Your operator must inform you of your data volume authorized in roaming.If you exceed this volume, you will pay additional costs.These costs will correspond to the large price ceiling = 3 euros/GB of more VAT data in 2021.

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Unlimited data contract: volume autorisé en itinérance

In Luxembourg, Paulina pays 40 euros (excluding VAT) for a mobile phone contract with unlimited calls, SMS and data.When she uses her mobile phone during her vacation in Italy, she benefits from unlimited calls and SMS, and at least 26.6 GB of data (2x (40 euros/3 euros) = 26.6).

Other contracts

Operators can also offer contracts without roaming services, or specific homeless contracts, with prices that are not covered by EU regulations, for example in the event of roaming outside the EU.However, you must specifically choose these options.

Having the use of roaming

As part of the reasonable use policy, your operator can check the use of homelessness over a period of 4 months.If, during this period, you spent more time abroad than in your country and your use of roaming exceeds your national use, your operator can contact you and ask you to clarify your situation.You will have 14 days to do so.

If you continue to spend more time abroad than in your country and your homelessness consumption continues to exceed your national consumption, your operator can start applying additional roaming costs.These costs (excluding VAT) are capped as follows:

Homelessness

If you work in an EU country and live in another, you can choose a mobile operator in one of the two countries and benefit from roaming with a SIM card from your country of residence or your country of employment.The principle of reasonable use is as follows: as long as you connect at least once a day to the network of your national operator, this day will be counted as a day of presence in the country where you signed the contract (even ifYou go abroad that day).

Boat or plane roaming

When you travel by boat or plane, you can use your mobile phone at no additional cost as long as you are connected to a land mobile network.If the mobile services are provided through satellite systems, EU regulations no longer apply and unregulated roaming services (without price cap) will be invoiced to you.

Roaming outside the EU

The cost of roaming (in particular data) outside the EU can be high.Check prices with your operator before leaving to avoid heavy invoices.

In the event of a problem - your rights as a consumer

If you believe that your supplier has not respected your rights, contact it and use the planned complaint procedure.

If you are not satisfied with its response, contact the national regulatory authorities competent in your country - in general the national telecommunications regulatory authority - which will deal with your complaint.