Roaming – how does it work?

Making calls abroad

In relation to smartphones, roaming simply means using your own mobile phone contract abroad. In the EU in particular, users have benefited from a regulation that came into force on 15 June 2017, which reformed usage outside the home country. This means you can leave your SIM card in your phone and use the contractually agreed allowances, whether for calls or data, in other countries – at least to a large extent. Before this regulation came into force, roaming was usually associated with high costs and mobile phone providers charged a lot for using your own smartphone abroad. But thanks to the EU-wide regulation, this is now a thing of the past.

What is free? And where?

Put simply, you can use your mobile phone tariff throughout the EU as if you were in your home country. All allowances relating to telephony, text messaging and data services are also available to you outside the country's borders. The regulation also applies to the European Economic Area, which includes Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway. Switzerland, on the other hand, is not part of this regulation and therefore its own tariff agreements usually apply to Swiss citizens.

Where are the pitfalls?

Despite the existing EU regulation, mobile phone providers have the option of limiting the allowances for certain tariffs and only allowing a portion of the data volume (around 10 GB) to be used abroad. If you are unsure about the scope of your allowances, please check with your provider before travelling abroad. Please also note that your free allowances do not usually apply when you make calls from Germany or Austria to other EU countries!

What should I do outside the EU?

The same agreements apply to countries in the EEA (European Economic Area) as to the EU – i.e. Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland. Contrary to popular belief, Switzerland is not covered by the existing EU regulation. This means that mobile phone providers are able to charge high prices for call minutes or gigabytes used in Switzerland. The same applies to all other countries that are not part of the EU or EEA. These include the USA, Turkey and some Balkan countries.

Tip: When travelling to countries outside the EU, deactivate your mobile data. In this case, only use Wi-Fi connections, e.g. in your hotel.