Vodafone to Bring Back EU Roaming Charges for UK Customers Abroad

Vodafone is bringing back roaming charges for U.K. users traveling in Europe, the second mobile operator do so post-Brexit after originally saying they had no plans to re-introduce them.

New and upgrading customers on "selected plans" will be charged at least £1 per day to use their mobile phone in EU destinations.

The rules will change for new and upgrading customers from Wednesday, August 11, though the charges will not apply until January, BBC News reports.

"Existing customers will not be impacted by these changes while they remain on their current price plan, and roaming in the Republic of Ireland will still be included for all customers," Vodafone said.

After January, affected customers will pay £2 a day to use their allowance in Europe, or £1 if bought in an eight or 15-day bundle. Fair-usage limits of 25GB of roaming data a month apply.

Before the U.K. formally exited the European Union, mobile customers generally didn't have to worry about roaming charges when using their phone in the EU, with most phone tariffs counting calls, texts, and data used in EU countries as equivalent to domestic use since 2017.

However, when the EU trade deal was signed in December 2020, mobile operators were once again able to charge customers when traveling in Europe with "transparent and reasonable rates."

EE was the first operator to announce new roaming charges in June. EE's charges go into effect in January 2022, and at first, only apply to new EE customers or customers upgrading their plan and contract from July 7, 2021.

Originally, EE, O2, Three, and Vodafone, representing the largest mobile operators in the U.K., stated they had no plans to reintroduce roaming charges after Brexit, but all have since announced changes, some under a "fair use" clause. O2 allows a roaming limit of 25GB, with any data used over that charged at £3.50 per gigabyte, while Three has cut its data limit from 20GB a month to 12GB.