Vodafone follows EE in bringing back roaming charges post-Brexit after phone networks said they wouldn’t

Many carriers said they would not reintroduce roaming charges post-Brexit, but have done so anyway

Mobile network follows EE in bringing back charges that were initially scrapped when the UK was still part of the EU in June 2017 (Dominic Lipinski/PA) (PA Wire)

Vodafone has reintroduced roaming charges for UK citizens who travel to the European Union.

The post-Brexit blow means new and upgrading customers will have to pay up to £2 per day to use their monthly allowance of data, calls and texts.

The mobile phone networkhad said that it would not introduce roaming charges in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but has now followed other carriers such as EE.

“We’ve had some good news from businesses, like Vodafone and Three, they’ve publicly said they won’t introduce roaming fees for UK consumers travelling on the continent,” the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said at the time.

However, he did not say that ministers would push for an outright ban on the reintroduction of extra costs.

Holidaymakers using Vodafone will be able to reduce the cost to £1 per day by purchasing a multi-day pass for 8 or 15 days.

Those on the firm’s more expensive Xtra plans will still have roaming included, while Republic of Ireland will be exempt for all customers.

Vodafone said fewer than half of its customers roamed beyond the Republic of Ireland in 2019.

“Rather than have all of our customers affected by including the additional costs of roaming into all of our tariffs, customers will be able to choose a plan that comes with roaming included, or purchase an additional roaming pass,” a spokesperson said.

“Our ambition is to ensure customers don’t ever experience ‘bill shock’ when roaming with Vodafone, because all of our plans and passes will have clear usage caps, and customers will also be able to set their own limits via Vodafone Spend Manager, which is free to set up via the My Vodafone App.”

Those who remain on their existing price plan will not be affected until they make changes.

Paolo Pescatore, an analyst from PP Foresight, said consumers should fully expect others to follow suit.

“Phone users will now need to be savvier when travelling aboard,” he said. “Some will have roaming included on higher priced plans and premium devices, while others will be forced to look at switching to wifi and take out local e-sim options.”

Roaming fees when travelling across Europe ended in June 2017, allowing consumers to continue using their mobile plan in other EU nations at no additional cost, with a fair use limit.

Under the UK’s Brexit trade agreement, both sides should “co-operate on promoting transparent and reasonable rates” for mobile charges but a guarantee on free roaming was not carried forward.

BT-owned EE was the first announce the reintroduction of roaming charges in June.

Ernest Doku, from comparison site Uswitch, had previously said that it was “hugely disappointing” that the situation after Brexit had changed.

“In the aftermath of Brexit, the UK’s biggest mobile providers all said that they had no immediate plans to change their charging models for consumers roaming within the EU. It’s hugely disappointing for consumers to see that situation change so quickly.”

O2 said that it will add a “fair use” restriction so that customers who use over 25 gigabytes of data while in Europe will pay £3.50 for each additional gigabyte.

However, this is a separate policy to roaming charges, and such limits were an option for carriers before Britain left the union.

Additional reporting by Press Association