The European Union has today announced that it will be abolishing roaming charges across all member states. This means that from June 2017 you won't pay a penny extra to make calls, send texts or use the internet in any of the member states. The change will be brought in slowly, with an initial price drop in April of next year.
It's well overdue, as we all know from having to switch off our phones, or at least the data connection on our phones, whenever we go abroad. By removing roaming charges we'll all be able to carry on as we do at home, which will make finding your hotel, that perfect tapas bar, or hard-to-locate chateau all the easier in the future.
The move should improve trade and will save companies operating across Europe huge sums, as it's businesses that are actually the big losers when it comes to roaming fees - if they only banned hotel minibars too then we'd see a real rise in business efficency savings.
Remember that the new rules don't come into effect until summer 2017. This summer you'll still be roaming under the current EU restrictions, which are pretty expensive; see our Cut roaming charges - save money abroad with our guide for more details.
Next year's holiday will be a bit more bearable with prices capped at 5c per minute, 2c per text and 5c per megabyte, so you'll be able to call and text largely without worry, but use up 1GB of data on your monthly plan while overseas and you'll still get a hefty EUR50 bill.
There will be fair usage restrictions in place to prevent everyone from buying a SIM card from the cheapest possiblee provider in Europe. After all your contract here supports the largely excellent mobile coverage we enjoy, and such investment has to protected. Try and use an overseas SIM here in the UK for too long and we imagine you'll find yourelf cut off, although there are no details about how this will work yet.
It's good news for consumers for a change, and so we applaud the EU on this one.
