Vodafone Global Roaming Review: Roam Free & Roam Further Countries

On Vodafone plans with 4 Xtra Benefits, you can use your mobile phone at no extra cost in either 51 European destinations or 83 worldwide destinations.

Vodafone offers an international roaming service known as Vodafone Global Roaming for their UK-based customers (excluding on Vodafone Basics plans).

For customers on a Vodafone Pay Monthly plan with 4 Xtra Benefits, this allows you to use your mobile phone at no extra cost in either 51 European destinations or 83 worldwide destinations.

Other Vodafone Pay Monthly customers will pay £2/day to use their mobile phone in Europe or £6/day to use their mobile phone elsewhere.

In this article, we’ll review Vodafone’s Global Roaming service, including all of the countries it’s available in. We’ll also discuss download speeds whilst roaming and the fair usage policy before comparing it to alternative offers that are available for roaming on other networks.

Check Vodafone Global Roaming Charges →

What is Vodafone Global Roaming?

On most Vodafone price plans, it’ll be possible to use your mobile phone abroad through Vodafone’s Global Roaming service.

The following table shows an overview of the roaming service that’s available on each type of plan:

Vodafone Price Plan	Roam-Free	Roam-Further
Pay Monthly (Unlimited with 4 Xtra Benefits)	83 worldwide destinations	73 worldwide destinations (£6 per day)
Pay Monthly (other plans with 4 Xtra Benefits)	51 European destinations	105 worldwide destinations (£6 per day)
Pay Monthly (Vodafone Basics)	No international roaming service available
Pay Monthly (all other plans)	Ireland & Isle of Man	49 European destinations (£2 per day) 105 worldwide destinations (£6 per day)
Pay As You Go	51 European destinations	Standard roaming rates apply
VOXI	51 European destinations	Standard roaming rates apply
Vodafone Business	Check Vodafone website

In the rest of this section, we’ll discuss the Roam-Free destinations, Vodafone’s Global Roaming Plus and the Roam-Further offering in more detail.

European Destinations

On all Vodafone price plans with the exception of Vodafone Basics, you can use your mobile phone at no extra charge in the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man.

In addition, you’ll have another 49 European roam-free destinations (giving a total of 51 roam-free destinations) if any of the following apply:

• You have a Vodafone Pay Monthly plan taken out before the 11th August 2021.
• You have a Vodafone Pay Monthly plan with 4 Xtra benefits.
• You have a Vodafone Pay As You Go plan.

The following countries are included within Vodafone’s 51 European roam-free destinations:

• Aland Islands
• Austria
• Azores
• Balearic Islands
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Canary Islands
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Faroe Islands
• Finland
• France (inc Corsica)
• French Guiana
• Germany
• Gibraltar
• Greece
• Guadeloupe
• Guernsey
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Italy
• Jersey
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Madeira
• Malta
• Martinique
• Mayotte
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Reunion
• Romania
• Saint Barthelemy
• Saint Martin
• San Marino
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Vatican City

If your plan doesn’t qualify for the 51 European roam-free destinations, you’ll need to pay an extra £2/day to use your mobile phone in those places (with the exception of Ireland and the Isle of Man).

Global Roaming Plus

If you choose an unlimited data plan with 4 Xtra Benefits, you’ll get access to Vodafone’s Global Roaming Plus. This gives you a further 32 roam-free destinations where you’ll be able to use your mobile phone at no extra charge. Additional destinations covered by Global Roaming Plus include the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey.

On plans with Global Roaming Plus, you’ll be able to use your normal UK allowances at no extra charge when travelling abroad in a total of 83 destinations. Phone calls can be made using your inclusive allowance both to local phone numbers and UK phone numbers whilst travelling. You’ll also be able to use your inclusive texts and data allowance whilst travelling abroad (up to a maximum of 25GB per month).

The following 32 destinations are included in Global Roaming Plus, in addition to the 51 Roam-free destinations already listed above:

• Albania
• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Aruba
• Australia
• Barbados
• Bermuda
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• British Virgin Islands
• Canada
• Cayman Islands
• Dominica
• Ghana
• Grenada
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Lesotho
• Mexico
• Montserrat
• Mozambique
• New Zealand
• Saba
• Sint Eustatius
• Sint Maarten
• South Africa
• St Kitts and Nevis
• St Lucia
• St Vincent
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turkey
• Turks and Caicos
• United States of America

Vodafone Global Roaming Plus is available on all Vodafone Unlimited plans with 4 Xtra benefits. It’s also available on all Unlimited Max price plans sold between the 12th July 2019 and the 14th June 2021. You may also have Global Roaming Plus on older Red Entertainment plans that were taken between the 4th September 2018 and the 11th July 2019.

Roam Further Countries

In 105 Roam-further destinations, you can pay an extra £6/day to use your normal UK allowances. This is only available on Vodafone Pay Monthly plans (excluding Vodafone Basics) and isn’t available on Vodafone Pay As You Go or on VOXI price plans.

The following destinations are classed as Roam-further destinations on Vodafone:

• Afghanistan
• Albania*
• Andorra
• Anguilla*
• Antigua and Barbuda*
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Aruba*
• Australia*
• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Barbados*
• Bermuda*
• Bonaire
• Bosnia and Herzegovina*
• Brazil
• British Virgin Islands
• Cambodia
• Canada*
• Cayman Islands*
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Congo, Democratic Republic of
• Costa Rica
• Curacao
• Dominica*
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• Fiji
• Georgia
• Ghana*
• Grenada*
• Guatemala
• Guyana
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Hong Kong
• India
• Indonesia
• Israel
• Jamaica*
• Japan
• Jordan
• Kazakhstan
• Kenya*
• Kuwait
• Laos
• Lesotho*
• Macau
• Macedonia
• Malaysia
• Mexico*
• Moldova
• Mongolia
• Montenegro
• Montserrat*
• Morocco
• Mozambique*
• Myanmar
• Netherlands Antilles*
• New Zealand*
• Nicaragua
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Papua New Guinea
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Philippines
• Puerto Rico
• Qatar
• Russia
• Saba*
• Samoa
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Singapore
• Sint Eustatius*
• Sint Maarten*
• South Africa*
• South Korea
• South Sudan
• Sri Lanka
• St Kitts and Nevis*
• St Lucia*
• St Vincent*
• Suriname
• Swaziland
• Taiwan
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Tonga
• Trinidad and Tobago*
• Turkey*†
• Turks and Caicos*
• Ukraine
• United Arab Emirates
• United States of America*
• Uruguay
• Uzbekistan
• Vanuatu
• Vietnam

* This is a Roam-free destination if you’re on a plan with Global Roaming Plus. The £6/day Roam-further charge only applies on Pay Monthly plans without Global Roaming Plus.
† Turkey became a Roam-further destination on the 6th May 2020. Prior to that, it was a Roam-free destination.

You’ll be charged £6/day as soon as you make an outgoing phone call, send a text message or access mobile data on your phone. Each day is considered to run from midnight to 23:59, based on the time zone in the capital city of the country you’re visiting. Simply receiving a standard-rate phone call or an incoming text message is free and will not trigger the £6/day charge.

Roaming on Pay As You Go & VOXI

If you’re a customer on Vodafone Pay As You Go or Vodafone’s low-cost VOXI sub-brand, you’ll be able to use your mobile phone at no extra charge in Vodafone’s 51 Roam-free destinations. This includes other EU & EEA destinations.

Outside of the 51 Roam-free destinations, you’ll need to pay for your usage on a per-minute, per-text and per-megabyte basis. This is because the £6 Roam-further package is not available to Pay As You Go or VOXI customers. To give an example, customers visiting a Rest of World Zone 1 destination will pay 60p/minute to make an outgoing phone call, 36p/minute to receive a phone call, 8p to send a text message and 12p/MB to use mobile data. You can check the charges for your destination of the Vodafone or VOXI websites.

Vodafone Basics

Unfortunately, international roaming is not available on Vodafone Basics price plans. This is because Basics price plans are only designed to be used in the UK.

Sadly, it isn’t possible to get around the limitation to enable roaming on a Vodafone Basics SIM card. You could however decide to upgrade to a Vodafone Red or Vodafone Unlimited plan before departing on your trip abroad. Alternatively, get a SIM card from VOXI for your trip abroad, setting up call forwarding from your Vodafone Basics phone number so people will still be able to reach you whilst you’re away.

Roaming Speeds

3G & 4G Roaming

On Vodafone, you can access international roaming with 4G download speeds in 137 destinations. This is significantly more than on other UK networks. You’ll also get “full speed roaming on 4G” without any throttling or restrictions on download speed (except from on the Unlimited Lite and Unlimited plans, which have a 2Mbit/s and 10Mbit/s download speed limit).

In most other destinations without access to 4G roaming, you’ll still have access to international roaming at 3G speeds.

You can enter the destination you’re travelling to on the Vodafone website to see whether 4G roaming is available in that country.

5G Roaming

If you’re using a Vodafone price plan with access to 5G, you’ll be able to roam on 5G when travelling to 193 towns and cities across Europe.

5G roaming is currently available in a number of major towns and cities across Spain, Italy and Germany (including Milan, Rome, Naples, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich).

Please see the Vodafone website for more information about 5G roaming.

Fair Usage Policy

There are three key limits worth being aware of when using Vodafone’s Global Roaming service:

1. You can use up to 25GB of data abroad each month on unlimited plans. If you have an unlimited data plan from Vodafone, you’ll be able to use up to 25GB of data abroad each month. On all other plans, it’s possible to use up to the entirety of your allowance when abroad.
2. Vodafone’s Global Roaming service isn’t designed for people living outside the UK. According to Vodafone, the Roam-free and Roam-further offers are “intended for temporary, period travel such as holidays and short breaks” abroad. This generally means spending at least half of your time in the UK, when measured over any 4-month period.
3. Roaming data charges are capped at £39.33 (€50) per month by default. To prevent you from accidentally running up a large unexpected phone bill, roaming data charges are capped by default at £39.33 (€50) per month. To remove the cap, you can text UNCAP to 40209. Alternatively, to re-instate the cap, text CAP to 40209.

On Vodafone Pay Monthly plans, it isn’t possible to opt-out of the £6/day Roam-further offer.

Alternative Roaming Offers

As an alternative to Vodafone’s Global Roaming service, you could also consider the following roaming offers from other mobile networks:

• Three: Go Roam
  On Three, you can use your mobile phone abroad in 71 destinations for a fixed daily cost of £2/day in Europe and £5/day elsewhere. This includes in destinations like the USA, Australia, Brazil, Singapore and more. Compared to Vodafone Global Roaming, the advantage of Go Roam is that it’s also available on Pay As You Go. However, a number of key limits apply such as restricted download speeds whilst you’re travelling abroad, tethering being chargeable outside Europe and phone calls being included only to the UK when you’re travelling outside Europe.
• Three: Data Passport
  With Three’s £5/day Data Passport, you’ll get unlimited data for use in 89 worldwide destinations. This includes all of Three’s Go Roam destinations, with the addition of Azerbaijan, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
• EE: Roam Further Pass
  On EE Smart Pay Monthly plans, you can use your mobile phone at no extra charge in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. To benefit, you’ll need to choose the Roam Further Pass as your Swappable Benefit. Alternatively, you can pay £10/month to add it to your plan.
• O2: O2 Travel
  On O2 Pay Monthly plans, it’ll cost £4.99/day to use your phone in selected destinations outside of Europe like the USA, Australia and New Zealand. You’ll get 120 minutes, 120 texts and unlimited data (though “data speeds may vary”).

In addition to the above, most UK mobile networks continue to offer international roaming in EU countries at no extra cost.

Keeping Your Phone Number

If you’re switching from another mobile network to Vodafone so you can take advantage of their Global Roaming service, it’s a straightforward process to keep your current phone number.

To do so, you’ll need to request a PAC Code from your current network. You can normally get one straight away through your mobile network’s website or app. Alternatively, text PAC to 65075 and you’ll get a PAC Code sent back to you via text message.

Once you’ve gotten the PAC Code from your current network, order your new phone or SIM card from the Vodafone website. Once it arrives, enter your PAC Code through Vodafone’s online form. Your phone number transfer will then normally take place on the next working day.

For a step-by-step guide on how to move your phone number to Vodafone, please select your current mobile network from the drop-down menu below:

More Information

For more information on Vodafone Global Roaming, please see Vodafone’s official website.