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Using mobiles abroadWhat you'll pay

It's not always easy to find out from companies how much you'll pay when you use your phone abroad.

The figures below show the cost pay-monthly customers can expect to pay on their standard tariff with the UK's six biggest providers for making calls to UK landlines and receiving calls in some popular holiday destinations (correct as of September 2008). 

Depending on your provider, calls to other countries and to UK mobiles may be higher. So may calls to and from pay as you go handsets. For example, Virgin charges £1.00 a minute for its pay monthly customers to make calls from the USA to the UK, but £1.40p for its pay as you go customers. And 3's 'Like Home' rates don't apply for PAYG in Australia.

Cost of using your mobile abroad
Country 3 Orange O2 T-Mobile Virgin Vodafone
Cost of calls made (pence)
Republic of Ireland -a 38 35 38 38 38
France & Spain 25 38 35 38 38 38
Croatia 120 130 137 140 60 38
United States 120 110 137 55 100 125
Canada 120 110 137 55 100 149
Australia -a 85 85 75 60 79
Cost of calls received (pence)
Republic of Ireland -a 19 18 19 19 19
France & Spain 10 19 18 19 19 19
Croatia 50 70 99 130 30 19
United States 80 70 120 55 80 99
Canada 80 70 120 55 80 99
Australia -a 70 130 70 30 75
Table notes
a
With 3 Like Home, you can use your inclusive minutes and text messages to call or text standard UK numbers when you are roaming on the 3 network in Austria, Australia, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Hong Kong and Sweden. Calls received using these networks are free. 

The figures in the table indicate costs in pence per minute and assume you use your phone company's preferred overseas network where available. They also assume you don't have any international roaming add-ons applied to your tariff.

Some companies charge in per-minute rather than per-second blocks, so even if your call lasts less than a minute you may still have to pay the cost of a full minute. 

Many providers offer roaming deals (which are cheaper than using your standard tariff), but they often require you to pay an extra fee up front to benefit from the lower costs.

Even if the schemes are free, almost all require you to let your provider know that you want to take advantage of the tariff, rather than applying the lower costs automatically. If you don't make use of these deals, costs can add up rapidly.

For example, Vodafone customers can apply for a 'Passport', offering discount call rates in certain countries. This is available to all pay-monthly and PAYG customers.

Texts

It's free to receive texts abroad, but you'll pay more to send them than in the UK regardless of what network you're on. As an example, O2's pay monthly charges for each text range from 20-25p in Europe and the USA, to 40p in some further flung countries. For its PAYG customers, texts can cost as much as 49p each. 

Mobile internet

Using your mobile to surf the internet costs a lot more abroad than it does within the UK, and overseas surfing won't be included in any inclusive deals you have with your provider. Costs are too complicated to go into here, but it's possible to run up bills of hundreds, or even thousands, of pounds. 

If you want to surf the mobile internet while you're abroad, ask your provider how much it will cost before you leave.

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