Roaming prices in Europe
The EU roaming rules mean that roaming services are available at domestic prices or a small surcharge. There is a regulated price cap on the roaming surcharge.
Maximum roaming charges in 2024
Customers travelling in EU and EEA countries* can use mobile communication services either at the domestic price or against a small surcharge added to the domestic price. A surcharge may be applied if:
- your data consumption exceeds the fair use volume limit determined by the operator
- you use roaming services more than domestic services and spend more time travelling than in Finland
- you have not submitted evidence that you normally reside in Finland or have other stable links with Finland even though your operator has requested you to do so.
Maximum roaming surcharges in 2024 (excluding VAT):
| CALLS MADE | EUR 0.022 / call minute |
| CALLS RECEIVED | EUR 0.002 euros / received call minute |
| TEXT MESSAGES | EUR 0.004 / text message |
| MOBILE DATA | EUR 1.55 / gigabyte of data |
Many subscriptions have no surcharge for fair use. Your operator may also apply a surcharge that is lower than the maximum charge.
The domestic price, to which the roaming surcharge may be added, depends on your subscription. Domestic price refers to either the unit prices applied to your services in your country of residence (e.g., price per minute, message or megabyte) or, if unit prices are not used, to any other pricing scheme applied to your services when you use them where you live. For example, a fixed-cost domestic subscription package also includes the domestic price of roaming services.
Multimedia messages sent or received abroad can be charged on a per-kilobyte basis or on a per-unit basis. If per-unit charging is used, the charge shall not exceed the maximum retail charge for regulated data roaming services.
Receiving text messages is free of charge. Receiving voice mail within the EU is free of charge. However, listening to voice mail messages is subject to a charge.
Calls are charged per second, excluding outbound calls which are subject to the operator's initial charging period of no more than 30 seconds.
Mobile data is charged per kilobyte. The maximum charge for mobile data decreases year by year. This means a step-by-step reduction in the prices of using mobile data.
Roaming charges are applied automatically to all customers within the EU, unless they have knowingly selected different roaming tariffs or packages. Your operator may also offer you alternative roaming tariffs. Changing tariffs must be free of charge and it cannot include conditions or restrictions on concerning other parts of the contract, besides roaming.
Contact your operator's customer service for detailed price information. Operators send their customers a text message of the applicable rates when they arrive in a new country.
Roaming charges are not applied to calls made from Finland to abroad
As roaming means using your mobile phone abroad, these prices naturally only apply abroad and they do not apply to, for example, international calls made from the caller's home country. Moreover, the prices are in effect only within the EU* (and EEA), so it is advisable to check the roaming rates from your operator when travelling outside these countries.
Financial limit for mobile data protects against bill shocks
Operators are obliged to provide their customers with at least one financial limit which is not higher than roughly EUR 60 (including VAT). The financial limit guarantees that the consumption of mobile data (excluding multimedia messages) does not exceed the defined limit without the customer's consent. The service increases consumers' opportunities to control unexpected costs of mobile data usage when travelling abroad.
The financial limit must also include the consumption of mobile data services outside the EU if the network operator of the country that you visit allows the monitoring of real-time consumption. Operators must also inform their customers if it is not possible to obtain data on the consumption of mobile data services used outside the EU.
Automatic message notifies about roaming fees
When customers travel to foreign roaming areas, their own operator informs them of the rates of mobile communications services by sending automatic messages.
The price notice sent by a text message includes the basic price information on:
- making calls within the country you visit and from the country you visit to your homeland
- receiving phone calls
- sending text messages in the EU
- mobile data service prices
- prices of mobile communications services provided outside the EU.
In addition, the text message contains a free number for requesting additional information and a reminder of the free emergency number 112. The text message must also contain instructions on how customers can stop receiving the automatic price messages.
If necessary, operators must also inform their customers of how to avoid inadvertent roaming in border regions. Operators must also notify their customers about automatic roaming data connections and how they are disabled.
The customers' own operator must send them the basic price information on data services as soon as they connect to a data service in the network of another EU country. The basic price information may be sent to a mobile phone or other mobile device by text message, email or via a pop-up window on the customer's computer.
Fair use volume limit for mobile data
In some cases, operators can restrict the usage of data without surcharges in the EU and EEA countries to a fair volume. This means that the operator applies a surcharge only to the usage exceeding the fair use volume limit. The surcharge applied to the usage exceeding the fair use volume limit is capped to a regulated maximum charge currently in force.
Under EU regulation, the minimum fair use volume limit is normally determined based on the price of the subscription. Your operator may also set the fair use volume limit to be higher than the minimum limit.
The usage of mobile data at the domestic price may only be restricted to the fair use volume limit in cases of unlimited subscriptions or low-cost limited subscriptions.
The minimum fair use volume limit is normally calculated by dividing the price of the subscription (excluding VAT) by the regulated maximum wholesale charge and multiplying the result by two. The regulated maximum wholesale charge is the price which operators within the EU member states pay to each other for roaming services.
- For instance, the minimum fair use volume limit of a package costing EUR 30 per month (including VAT) is around 31 gigabytes per month if the valid maximum wholesale charge is EUR 1.55/gigabyte (excluding VAT).
Other restrictions for fair use
Your operator sends you a notification if:
- you have spent more time in other EU or EEA countries than Finland during the last four months, and
- you have used more roaming services than domestic services during this time.
If you do not change your usage pattern within two weeks, you may have to pay a surcharge. The operator can also send you notifications in some other exceptional cases.
You may also have to pay a surcharge if your operator has requested you to submit evidence that you normally reside in Finland or have other stable links with Finland and you have failed to do so. Such stable link may be, for example, a full-time employment relationship or full-time studying in Finland.
Links
Commission implementing regulation (EU) 2016/2286 on fair use policy (External link)
* Member countries of the EU: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
Besides the EU countries, the regulations on roaming tariffs apply to EEA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.