Sky Mobile Roaming Charges: the £2 Daily Pass and Rest of the World Rates

If mobile data is all you need abroad, a HelloRoam eSIM for your destination can sit beside your Sky SIM, so texts to your UK number still arrive while maps and messages run on a local network.

We read every Sky price and rule in this guide in Sky's tariff guide dated 14 October 2026 and on Sky's help pages on 31 October 2026. It covers Sky Mobile in the UK. Sky's Swiss mobile service, also called Sky Mobile, prices roaming in five zones for use outside Switzerland and Liechtenstein, so its tables don't apply here.

Sky's £2 Roaming Passport Plus covers 120 destinations

Sky calls the pass Roaming Passport Plus on its help pages and Global Roaming Passport on its shop page. It comes with every Sky Mobile plan, and you never buy or add it. Once it starts, your UK data, and your calls and texts to UK numbers, come out of your plan as they would at home.

The list covers the EU and EEA countries apart from Ireland, which costs nothing extra, plus Switzerland. It also takes in long-haul favourites such as the USA, Canada, Mexico, the UAE, Thailand, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Japan, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and Kenya are not on it.

More than half of the list arrived in 2026. Sky's press release of 20 July 2026 says the pass grew from 55 to 120 destinations earlier that year, so older guides that quote 55, or per-MB prices for Malaysia and Albania, are out of date. Europe itself was once free: from 1 June 2017 Sky let every customer use their plan in 36 European destinations at no extra cost. In the EU, only Ireland still is. BT Mobile customers can use their plan in Spain or France at no extra cost, as our guide to BT's Roam Like Home explains.

Our guide to data roaming explains how other UK networks charge abroad, if you're weighing Sky against another provider.

The Sky roaming pass runs for 24 hours on UK time

Each pass lasts 24 hours from the moment it starts, timed by the UK clock rather than midnight to midnight. Sky texts you when it starts and again as it nears its end. The 10MB trigger resets at midnight UK time. If you fly from New York to Los Angeles, the pass still ends 24 hours after it began, in UK time.

Borders work in two ways. Within the EU and EEA, Switzerland included, one pass covers every country you reach in its 24 hours, and the 10MB trigger is shared between them. Outside that group, each country has its own trigger, so using your phone in the USA and then in Canada within 24 hours costs two passes.

A day you don't use your phone abroad costs nothing. Receiving calls and texts doesn't start a pass, and neither does listening to voicemail, calling Sky's customer service or calling the emergency services. Sky adds the passes to your next bill. Here is how that works out on some common trips:

Local calls, texts and heavy data use cost extra on top of the £2

The pass covers your UK plan, not calls to the country you're in. Calling a number in an EU or EEA country costs £0.55 a minute, or £0.50 to an Irish number, and a text costs £0.10. Local numbers in every other pass destination, Switzerland and Turkey included, cost Sky's international rates. Calling a US number from the USA, say a hotel or a taxi firm, costs £3.50 a minute and a text £0.95, the same as a Swiss or Turkish number.

Sky's International Saver cuts those calls to 5p a minute, and texts sent from a pass destination to 10p, for over 60 destinations, including the USA, Canada and Australia but not Switzerland or Turkey. It costs £4 a month and stays on your plan until you remove it. Sky also asks you to dial UK numbers as +44, in place of the first 0, because 0044 and other prefixes can bring extra roaming charges.

Data on the pass comes from your UK allowance, up to 25GB per billing period while roaming. Beyond 25GB, Sky charges £2.50 per GB, pro-rated, for the rest of that billing period. If your UK data runs out abroad, you can use saved Piggybank data, change your data plan or buy Sky's 1GB Add On for £6.

Sky Mobile Rest of the World rates: Japan costs £2.16 per MB

In Rest of the World destinations, Sky bills every MB, every minute and every text, and receiving a call costs money too. Receiving texts stays free. These are the rates in Sky's tariff guide of 14 October 2026 for places UK travellers often visit:

Per-MB pricing adds up fast. Sky's own estimate puts map apps at 2 to 4MB a minute. At £2.16 per MB, Sky's default £45 data roaming cap runs out after about 20MB in Japan, which is roughly five to ten minutes of navigation.

Sky also blocks roaming in some countries. Since 2 September 2026 that includes Cuba, Russia, Uruguay, Myanmar and Mongolia. A place that appears on none of Sky's lists, such as Taiwan, has no Sky roaming at all.

Sky's £45 data roaming cap counts every £2 pass

Every Sky SIM has a data roaming spend cap of £45 a month, switched on by default. It limits out-of-plan data charges abroad, and Sky counts each £2 pass towards it. Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man sit outside it.

That matters on a long trip. Twenty-two passes come to £44, so roaming on more than 22 days in one month can reach the cap. At £45, Sky says you can't use any more out-of-plan data abroad until the next month, though calls and texts still work. You can switch the cap off or on at sky.com/roamingspendcap, but you can't change the amount.

Your own monthly spend cap matters too. You can set it anywhere from £0 to £100 per SIM at sky.com/spendcap, and the £2 passes count towards it. Set it too low, or at £0, and Sky blocks your phone abroad. For a week on the pass, Sky says to set at least £14.

Sky texts you at 80% and 100% of each cap. Charges from abroad can take up to 30 hours, sometimes longer, to show on your bill, so they can count towards the next month's cap. Sky also warns that while roaming you might still make chargeable calls after reaching a spend limit.

If a bill looks wrong, start with your Welcome texts, which show each country your phone joined a network in. If Sky hasn't resolved a Sky Mobile complaint within six weeks, or has told you it has reached deadlock, Sky's complaints code says you can take it to CISAS, an independent dispute scheme.

Sky VIP Diamond customers roam free in the same 120 destinations

Since 20 July 2026, Sky VIP Diamond customers with a Sky Mobile data plan pay no daily charge in the pass destinations. Sky's press release describes Diamond customers as those who have been with Sky for over 15 years. You can check your tier in the My Sky app.

Sky calls this Free Global Roaming. It covers data from your UK plan and calls and texts to UK numbers, and the same 25GB roaming limit per billing period applies.

Phone settings decide when Sky roaming charges start

Sky's roaming switches on by itself when you arrive, as long as roaming is allowed on your Sky account and data roaming and mobile data are on in your phone settings.

For calls and texts, your phone also needs VoLTE roaming, which Sky calls 4G Calling abroad. Sky lists the iPhone 7 and later on iOS 15 or higher, and the Samsung S10 and later and A series on Android 12 or higher, among compatible phones. Without it, using mobile data in a pass destination still starts the £2 pass, but calls, texts and emergency calls may not work, and Sky's roaming texts won't reach you.

If you'd rather not pay anything abroad, turn off data roaming and mobile data before you land, and don't make calls or send texts. Where Sky charges Rest of the World rates, don't answer calls either. Sky's Wi-Fi Calling works only in the UK, so abroad your phone uses the mobile signal and roaming charges apply. Sky's help notes that on some phones the data roaming option only appears once you're outside the UK. To bar roaming on the account itself, you need to contact Sky.

Ofcom requires UK providers to send you an automatic message about roaming charges when you enter another country, unless you've opted out. Sky sends this Welcome text when your phone first joins a network in a new country, so an unexpected one can also show that you've roamed by accident.

Borders, cruises and flights bring different Sky charges

Near some borders your phone can join a network in the next country. Sky names the usual holiday spots: Corfu can pick up Albania, Kos and Rhodes can pick up Turkey, Cyprus can pick up Northern Cyprus, and France can pick up Monaco or Andorra.

Each of those changes the bill. Albania, Turkey and Andorra are pass destinations outside Sky's EU and EEA group, so using your phone on their networks starts a separate £2 pass, and Sky charges Northern Cyprus as Turkey. Monaco isn't in the pass at all, so data there costs £0.36 per MB. Check the network name on your phone before you use it. If you cross over to Turkey itself, our guide to roaming in Turkey compares what EE, O2, Vodafone and Three charge there.

At sea, Sky has no mobile data. Calls and texts work only where the ship has a compatible satellite network, at Sky's Over the sea rates: £3.60 a minute to make a call, £1.80 a minute to receive one and £0.72 a text. Sky rounds every call up to the next whole minute, and a five-minute call home on a sea day costs £18. Sky suggests the ship's Wi-Fi instead. In the air, Sky Mobile data, calls and texts don't work at all.

Keep your Sky number and use a travel eSIM for data

On a dual-SIM phone you can keep your Sky line for calls and texts and run mobile data on a travel eSIM. Receiving texts on your Sky number, such as bank codes, is free wherever Sky roams. In the 120 pass destinations, receiving calls is free too and doesn't start a pass. Making a call or sending a text from the Sky line does start the £2 pass.

On an iPhone, go to Settings, then Mobile Data, and pick the travel eSIM as your mobile data line, with Data Roaming on for that line. Leave Allow Mobile Data Switching off, so the phone doesn't fall back to Sky data. On the iPhone you can also tap your Sky number, then Mobile Data Options, and turn off Data Roaming for that line only, as Apple's data roaming guide describes. If your phone has one data roaming switch for both lines, leave it on and choose the travel eSIM for mobile data.

HelloRoam's eSIM data plans include two destinations where Sky charges by the MB or has no data roaming. On 31 October 2026, our Japan eSIM plans listed NTT docomo, KDDI/au, SoftBank and Rakuten Mobile between them, and our plans for the Maldives used Dhiraagu. Each destination page shows the current networks.

Each of our plans starts when your phone first connects to a network at your destination, so you can set up a travel eSIM at home before you fly. To pick a plan size, estimate your trip's data first.

For a week in Spain on a large UK data plan, Sky's £2 a day is simple and keeps everything on one number. A travel eSIM is worth a look where Sky charges per MB or has no data roaming, and on trips long enough to meet the £45 cap. On a fortnight in Florida, set Sky's £28 in passes against a USA eSIM or, for a European tour, a data plan for Europe.

We sell travel eSIMs, so we have an interest in this choice. Our editorial policy on conflicts of interest explains how we handle that, and our page on travel eSIMs compared with roaming breaks down what each one costs.