EE Roaming Charges in Europe, the USA and Every Other Zone

If you mostly need data, a HelloRoam travel eSIM can sit alongside your EE SIM: HelloRoam covers 185+ destinations, with 24/7 support.

Every EE price below comes from the network's Roaming Refresh page and its roaming calculator, checked on 30/09/2026. EE does change these figures, so run the calculator for your own number before you travel.

EE roaming charges by zone

EE roaming works on zones: the EE Europe Zone, four numbered zones and a maritime zone for ships and ferries. Europe runs on an automatic daily charge. Everywhere else runs on passes, and what a pass includes shrinks as the zone number rises.

Zone 4 also has a no-data group that includes Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay. There, EE offers calls at £2.46 a minute and texts at 98p, and no mobile data at all.

A few winter-sun favourites land higher up the scale than you might expect. Cape Verde is in Zone 3, so £8 buys 500MB for 24 hours. The Gambia and the Maldives are in Zone 4, where £16 gets you just 10MB. It's worth pricing up a Cape Verde eSIM or an eSIM for The Gambia before you fly.

EE's roaming tool also refers to 15-day passes for the EU, Zone 1 and Zone 2, but they weren't on the public zone page when we checked. Check your EE account if your trip runs past a week.

Europe costs £2.72 a day unless your plan already covers it

The EU daily charge applies to pay monthly plans that started on or after 7 July 2021. If your contract started before that date, EE says the charge won't affect you and you can roam in the EE Europe Zone at no extra cost. Some newer plans include EU roaming as well. EE's calculator lists All Rounder, Essentials Plus and Full Works plans, and the Roaming Inclusive Extra, as ways your allowance may already be covered. Check before you pay for something you already have.

The charge covers your UK data allowance, subject to fair use, plus calls and texts to UK and EE Europe Zone numbers. Calls or texts to numbers outside the zone, and picture messages, cost extra. It switches on by itself on any day you use your minutes, texts or data in the zone, and it lands on your next bill. It covers you until 11:59pm UK time and resets at midnight UK time. That's 1am in Spain, France and Italy, and 2am in Greece and Cyprus, so a message home just after local midnight still falls in the previous EE day. In the Canary Islands, Madeira and mainland Portugal, the clocks match the UK.

The 7-day EU pass costs £16.50 and the 12-day pass costs £27.50. Both start the moment you buy them. The maths is tighter than it looks. Seven days of daily charges come to £19.04, but six come to £16.32, so the 7-day pass only wins if you use your phone on all seven days. The 12-day pass beats daily charges once you roam on 11 or more of its days, when they would reach £29.92. On 11 days, though, a 7-day pass plus four daily charges costs £27.38. The 12-day pass only comes out cheapest when you roam on all 12 days.

If the daily charge kicks in before you buy a pass, EE refunds it automatically as long as you buy the pass within 24 hours. When a 7-day pass runs out, the daily charge starts again the next time you use your phone abroad.

Check your Spend Cap as well. The daily charge comes out of your Spend Cap, and with a £0 cap you can't use your services in the EU at all. EE recommends at least £20, but the cap needs to cover the daily charge for every day of your trip: ten days comes to £27.20. Passes work differently: buying one doesn't count towards the cap.

Some places near Europe sit outside the EE Europe Zone

Plenty of short-haul favourites are covered, including Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Monaco. EE's zone page leaves the Republic of Ireland off its Europe list, but EE's pay monthly roaming terms say calls, texts and data used in the Republic of Ireland are included in your allowance. Check the calculator before a trip to Ireland. A handful of others are not, and the difference shows on the bill.

Andorra matters for skiers: it sits between France and Spain, yet EE counts it as Zone 2. North Macedonia gets the worst deal in the Balkans. Albania and Serbia next door are Zone 1 and Kosovo is Zone 2, but North Macedonia is Zone 3, where £8 buys only 500MB. On a Balkan trip, compare data plans for North Macedonia before you cross the border.

Outside Europe, you buy a pass

Outside the EE Europe Zone, EE roaming has no automatic daily charge. Without a pass or a roaming extra on your plan, EE blocks mobile data so you can't run up a surprise bill. Calls and texts are charged at standard roaming rates.

In Zones 1 and 2, the 7-day pass pays for itself at five days. Five 24-hour passes in the USA cost £30, the same as the weekly pass, so for a week in Florida or New York the 7-day pass is the sensible pick. Zone 3 only has the 24-hour pass. A week in Japan costs £56 and gives you 500MB a day, 3.5GB in total at most.

When you land, EE sends a text with a link to your pass options, and opening that page doesn't use your data. EE's roaming calculator also says you can now pre-book some passes before you travel when you log in. EE's own guidance says you can't buy a pass over Wi-Fi or through a VPN, so switch both off first. EE texts you again when a pass is about to expire. Trouble with the link? Text ROAMING to 150, which is free.

EE's zone table shows a roaming Inclusive Extra can cover the EU or Zone 1, but not Zones 2 to 4. Its calculator lists separate roaming extras for the EU and for Zone 1, so check which one you've chosen as your Inclusive Extra before you travel.

Pay as you go customers use Roam like Home add-ons

EE roaming on pay as you go works differently, because the £2.72 daily charge doesn't apply. With an active 30-Day plan or Saver plan, EE texts you when you arrive in the EE Europe Zone so you can opt in to Roam like Home. It costs £2.50 for 24 hours or £10 for 7 days. Without one, you pay 70p a minute, 30p a text and £3 for a 500MB data add-on.

Buy a second 30-Day plan before you leave if the current one runs out mid-trip. Pay as you go Safer SIM plans can't roam at all and only work on Wi-Fi abroad.

Get your phone ready before you fly

Before any EE roaming trip, the network's own advice comes down to six steps. You can do the first five at home.

Save EE's help number before you go: +44 7953 966 250. EE says calling it is free while you roam in the EU. Elsewhere, it costs the standard roaming rate for where you are.

Some EE lines can't roam at all: Apple Watch, 4G Home plans, SIM Access plans, accounts on a collections or payment plan, and suspended accounts. Pay monthly Safer SIM plans can roam in the EU only, and the daily charge applies.

Borders, ferries and flights can add charges

Accidental EE roaming happens near borders, when your phone latches onto a network outside your zone. In Greece or Cyprus, it may connect to a Turkish network, and EE then charges you to make and receive calls and send texts. You can lock your phone to EU networks with a text to 150. EE's help pages give two versions of the code, EUROAM and ROAMEU, so confirm with EE which one your line accepts.

It happens at home too. On the coast, EE says your phone can pick up networks from France, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or ships at sea. A text welcoming you to another country while you're still in the UK is the warning sign. Don't make or answer calls until you're back on EE.

At sea, EE sells a 24-hour Maritime Pass with 500MB of data and unlimited calls and texts to the UK on ships that carry the service. EE's zone page lists it at £15 and its calculator at £16, so check the price in the text EE sends on board. On flights with the service, a 24-hour Zone 4 pass costs £16 and can only be bought in the air.

Ofcom rules set a floor for roaming protection

The legal protections written for roaming ended in June 2022. Ofcom's strengthened rules took effect on 1 October 2024, and Ofcom's advice on using your mobile abroad sums them up. Providers must publish their roaming charges and send you an automatic message when you arrive in another country, unless you've opted out. If you set a bill limit, your provider must warn you when you're close to it and can only charge more if you agree.

A travel eSIM makes more sense than EE roaming in Zones 3 and 4

Anyone whose EE contract started before 7 July 2021, or whose plan already includes EU roaming, needs nothing else for Europe. For a short break with a decent UK allowance, £2.72 a day for your normal minutes, texts and data is simple, and there's nothing to set up.

The sums change further afield. In Zone 3, £8 a day buys 500MB, and in Zone 4, £16 buys 10MB. A data-only eSIM makes more sense there, and on long trips where 24-hour passes stack up. Ofcom itself suggests a local SIM or an e-SIM as a way to cut costs abroad, and our guide to eSIM versus roaming sets out the trade-offs.

Keep one rule in mind if your EE line stays switched on. On a plan with the daily charge, any day you use EE minutes, texts or data in the EE Europe Zone costs £2.72, so one text sent from the EE line triggers the charge for that day. Switch off data roaming on the EE line, set the travel eSIM as your data line, and check your phone supports eSIM before you buy. To size a plan, our data usage calculator helps you estimate what your trip needs.