O2 Travel Inclusive Zone: Countries, Eligible Plans and Roaming Costs

Without Volt, the USA costs extra on O2's Classic Plans and 30-day SIM Only, and it always does on Pay As You Go. That's where a HelloRoam USA eSIM can carry your data in the States while your usual SIM stays on for calls and texts, and HelloRoam sells plans for other destinations too.

We read every O2 price, list and rule in this guide on O2's own pages on 31 October 2026. O2 can change them, so put your destination into O2's roaming search before you fly.

O2 Travel Inclusive Zone countries: the 27 destinations outside Europe

O2 lists the same 27 destinations on its Travel Inclusive Zone page and in its roaming help, where it also calls them roaming Zone 1. Grouped by region, they are:

Several long-haul favourites are missing. Brazil, Japan, Thailand, India, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are in O2's Zone 2, and so are Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. Only the Ultimate version of the zone covers those.

Cruise passengers should look twice at the Caribbean. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are on O2's Zone 3 list, not with the United States in Zone 1, so the zone doesn't cover a cruise stop there.

What the O2 Travel Inclusive Zone includes, and its 2Mbps data cap

Inside the zone, O2 says there's no upper usage limit on data, but speeds are capped at 2Mbps, which it describes as fast enough to stream on your phone without buffering.

Calls are unlimited back to the UK and within the country you're visiting. Calls to any other country aren't included and cost standard roaming rates, so ringing a Mexican hotel from New York is charged. Calls to premium rate numbers are charged too.

The zone, like O2's Europe Zone, is for trips, not for living abroad. O2's roaming fair usage policy treats more than 63 days of inclusive roaming outside the UK in any four-month period as unfair use. After a warning text, O2 adds surcharges of £3.50 per GB, 3.3p a minute and 1p a text, and stops once most of your use over the previous four months is back in the UK.

O2 Plus Plans and Volt include the Travel Inclusive Zone

O2 includes the zone with selected Plus Plans. On phones, O2 sells Plus Plans on 12GB, 30GB, 60GB, 150GB and Unlimited tariffs, and on 12-month and 24-month SIM Only plans with 30GB, 60GB, 150GB or Unlimited data. Not every tariff at those sizes is a Plus Plan, so look for the Plus Plan banner in O2's shop. Classic Plans don't include the zone.

Volt customers get it too. Volt is O2's name for an eligible O2 Pay Monthly plan plus Virgin Media broadband registered at the same address, and its benefits include the Travel Inclusive Zone at no extra cost if your plan doesn't already have it. When the two addresses match, O2 adds Volt benefits automatically within 14 days, unless you were with both before 18 October 2021, when you activate them in My O2 or My Virgin Media. Tablets are excluded from Volt's roaming benefits.

Older SIM Only deals follow their own rules. A 12-month SIM Only tariff of 100GB or more bought on or after 3 September 2020 is eligible, and upgrades to a 30GB to 99GB SIM Only tariff from 5 November 2020 could choose the zone as an Extra. Other SIM Only tariffs, including 30-day SIM Only, aren't eligible, even after a move to a higher tariff, and nor is Pay As You Go.

Timing matters if you change tariff for a trip. O2 applies flexible tariff changes from your next bill date, so moving up to an eligible tariff adds the zone from that date, not from the day you switch. Moving down to a tariff without it removes the zone from your next bill date. On Volt, an upgrade or tariff change drops your Volt benefits for a while, and O2 says they come back within 14 days.

Sign in to My O2 to check what your own plan includes. If you're choosing a plan partly for travel, our guide to O2 SIM only plans sets Classic, Plus and Ultimate side by side.

O2 roaming in 75 countries means one thing on Plus and another on Ultimate

The number 75 causes most of the confusion. On its Plus Plans page, O2 says Plus Plans roam at no extra cost in "75 destinations worldwide, including the EU". That figure counts Europe. O2's EU roaming page lists 48 Europe Zone destinations, and 48 plus the zone's 27 makes 75.

Ultimate Plans quote 75 as well, but those are 75 destinations outside Europe, on top of the Europe Zone. That's why O2's Ultimate Plan page says 123 destinations worldwide. A Plus Plan covers the USA but not Thailand or Turkey, while an Ultimate Plan covers all three.

Weighing O2 against another network before you pick a plan? Our explainer on what UK networks charge for roaming sets O2 beside EE, Vodafone and Three, and our guide to EE roaming charges goes through EE's zones one by one.

O2 Travel Inclusive Zone Ultimate adds 48 Zone 2 destinations

Ultimate Plans come with O2 Travel Inclusive Zone Ultimate, which adds O2's 48 Zone 2 destinations to the 27 in Zone 1. The terms match the standard zone, 2Mbps data cap included. You only get it on an Ultimate Plan, which O2 sells with phones and on SIM Only to over-18s, but not with tablets or on 30-day SIM Only.

Already have the standard zone and heading to a Zone 2 country? O2 says you can add its O2 Travel Zone 2 Bolt On there, for a fixed £7 a day, which gives you "all the data you need" plus unlimited minutes and texts.

O2 Travel costs £7 a day where your plan has no inclusive zone

O2 Travel is the Pay Monthly bolt-on for Zones 1 and 2 when your plan doesn't include them. It costs £7 a day, only on days you use it, and gives unlimited minutes, texts and data, again capped at 2Mbps. It comes with a separate allowance, so your UK data isn't touched. Add it by texting TRAVEL to 23336 or in My O2, and remove it by texting NOTRAVEL to 23336 or in My O2.

A day is charged when you make a call, send a text or use data. Receiving calls or texts doesn't trigger it, so a bank code arriving by text won't start a £7 day on its own.

O2 describes the day in two ways. Its O2 Travel page says the charge covers 24 hours from first use, while its O2 Travel help page says it runs from midnight to midnight local time, based on the capital city of the country you're in. If a late call home might start a second day, ask O2 which rule your bill uses.

Premium rate numbers, picture messages (MMS) and non-standard texts sit outside the £7 and are billed at standard roaming rates, as are calls to countries other than the UK and the one you're in. If you have a Spend Cap, O2 says the O2 Travel price isn't included in it, so the cap won't hold those daily charges back.

Here's how the sums run for a fortnight in Florida on a Classic Plan, using your phone on all 14 days:

If 5GB covers your fortnight and you rarely call, the bolt-on costs less. If you call home most days, O2 Travel's flat £98 is easier to plan around. Before you choose a size, estimate your trip's data needs.

O2 Data Roaming Bolt Ons cover every zone, and Zone 3 costs the most

Outside the Europe Zone, a Pay Monthly plan with no inclusive zone and no O2 Travel stops your data abroad, so nothing is charged until you buy a Data Roaming Bolt On. O2 texts you a link to them when you land, or you can add one in My O2 before you go. Bolt-on data you haven't used by your bill date rolls over to the end of your next billing month.

The bolt-ons cover data only. On Pay Monthly, calls outside Europe cost £3 a minute to make or to receive and texts cost £1 each. Chargeable calls have a one-minute minimum and are then rounded up to the nearest 15 seconds.

Zone 3 is where O2 roaming gets expensive. O2 Travel doesn't work there, and 1GB costs £65. Morocco, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, Georgia, Jordan and the Maldives are all Zone 3. For a week in Marrakech, it's worth pricing up data plans for Morocco on a travel eSIM first.

O2's Europe Zone covers 48 destinations up to a 25GB limit

Every O2 phone plan, Pay As You Go included, lets you use your UK minutes, texts and data in O2's Europe Zone at no extra cost. O2's EU roaming page lists 48 destinations, including Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Portugal, plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Monaco, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores. Cyprus is in the zone, but Northern Cyprus isn't.

If your UK allowance is over 25GB, you can use up to 25GB of it in the zone. O2 texts you as you get close and again when you reach it, and at 25GB your data stops until you buy a Data Bolt On. O2's Data Bolt Ons run from 100MB for £5.50 to 12GB for £32.50. On a plan with 25GB or less, your normal allowance applies until it runs out.

Two smaller catches. Data you roll over from last month can only be used in the UK, under O2's data rollover terms. And calls from the Europe Zone to a country outside it cost £4.10 a minute on Pay Monthly, so ringing a US number from Spain isn't covered.

O2's International Bolt On, at £3 a month, is a different product. It gives cheaper rates on calls and texts from the UK to other countries, not on using your phone abroad.

Taking an O2 tablet? Ask O2 first. Its Plus Plans page lists roaming for tablet plans, but its EU roaming page says a Pay Monthly tablet SIM works only in the UK. And if you expect to pass 25GB, say on a month of remote work in Lisbon, a Europe-wide eSIM data plan can carry the extra data while your O2 allowance keeps covering calls and texts.

Turkey, Albania and the Balkans sit outside O2's Europe Zone

O2 warns that parts of Europe aren't in its Europe Zone. Albania, Montenegro, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia are all outside it, and so is Greenland.

Turkey, Albania and Montenegro are in Zone 2. On any plan except Ultimate, they cost extra: O2 Travel at £7 a day, so a week in Antalya using your phone every day comes to £49, or O2's Zone 2 Data Roaming Bolt On at £9 for 1GB, its smallest size on Pay Monthly. Ultimate Plans cover all three at no extra cost. If you're on Plus and staying a fortnight, compare those figures with mobile data for Turkey on a travel eSIM.

Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, which O2 lists as Macedonia, are in Zone 3, along with Andorra and Kosovo. O2 Travel doesn't cover them, so on Pay Monthly your data comes from O2's Zone 3 Data Roaming Bolt Ons, which start at £26 for 100MB.

Watch the borders, too. Ofcom names Greece and Turkey as an example of where a phone can pick up the network across a border and roam by accident. If your phone joins a Turkish network while you're in Greece, O2 can charge you as if you were roaming in Turkey. O2's fix for accidental roaming is manual, rather than automatic, network selection, so your phone won't hop to another network. In Greece, pick a Greek network by hand.

O2 Pay As You Go can't use the Travel Inclusive Zone or O2 Travel

O2 Pay As You Go works in the Europe Zone. Big Bundle and Rolling plan allowances apply there up to 25GB, and Classic Pay As You Go is charged as it would be at home. If you run out of data in the zone, O2 charges its Web Daily rate up to a 100MB fair usage limit, then offers a Web Daily Bolt On with 50MB more.

Beyond Europe it's a different story. Pay As You Go can't use the Travel Inclusive Zone, O2 Travel or Data Roaming Bolt Ons, so standard rates apply. For the USA, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco, O2's roaming search shows £2 a minute to make or to receive calls, 50p a text and £7.20 per MB of data. At that rate, 10MB costs £72. You can top up abroad in My O2 or by calling 4444 from your phone.

Check My O2, your Spend Cap and your phone settings before you fly

Check your plan. If My O2 shows no inclusive zone for your destination, add O2 Travel or a data bolt-on before you go.

Know what your Spend Cap leaves out. O2 says the prices of its bolt-ons, O2 Travel included, aren't counted within a Spend Cap.

Read the texts. Ofcom requires networks to send an automatic message about roaming charges when you arrive in another country, unless you've opted out, and O2 also texts you a link to its bolt-ons when you land.

Set up calls. Some networks abroad have switched off 2G and 3G, so O2 says you need 4G Calling switched on and WiFi Calling switched off, and its USA page says calls there need a phone that supports 4G Calling Abroad. O2 says 4G Calling works automatically on phones newer than an iPhone 7 or a Samsung Galaxy S20.

Sort voicemail. Listening to voicemail abroad costs the same as a call to the UK, while a message left for you costs nothing until you listen to it. Learn your voicemail PIN before you leave.

Then set your phone's roaming switch. If O2 roaming will carry your data, leave data roaming on. If a travel eSIM will carry it, change the O2 line only:

iPhone: open Settings, then Mobile Data, tap your O2 number, then Mobile Data Options, and turn Data Roaming off for that line. Leave it on for the travel eSIM, as Apple's guide to data roaming describes for phones with two lines. To make the travel eSIM your data line, open Settings, tap Mobile Data, then Mobile Data again, and select it, as Apple's guide to using eSIM abroad shows.

Samsung Galaxy: Samsung's guide shows one Data Roaming switch for the whole phone, under Settings, Connections, Mobile Networks, so leave it on. Then go to Settings, Connections, SIM card manager, and choose the travel eSIM for Mobile data, as Samsung's dual SIM guide shows.

If a roaming charge looks wrong

Roaming charges can show in My O2 while you're inside your zone. O2 says they correct themselves within three hours and won't reach your bill, as long as the use is within your allowance. If a fair usage charge looks like a mistake, O2 says to call 202 from your O2 mobile or 0344 809 0202 from any other phone.

A travel eSIM covers the gaps in O2's roaming zones

For many O2 trips, O2 alone does the job. The Europe Zone covers Spain, Greece and the rest of the EU, and a Plus Plan, Volt or Ultimate covers the USA. A travel eSIM earns its place in the gaps: Zone 3 countries with no O2 Travel, long trips where £7 a day adds up, Pay As You Go trips beyond Europe and anyone heading past the 25GB Europe limit.

HelloRoam sells one. When we checked our USA plan page on 31 October 2026, it listed Verizon and AT&T as the networks; networks can change, and the plan page shows the current ones. A plan starts when it first connects to a local network, so you can install it at home, and your O2 SIM stays switched on beside it for calls and texts. Calls on the O2 line still cost O2's roaming rates where your plan doesn't cover the country. First, check your phone supports eSIM.

We sell travel eSIMs, so weigh our view with that in mind; our editorial policy on conflicts of interest explains how we handle it. For the wider picture, our guide weighs a travel eSIM against roaming.