Travelling abroad with Pay As You Go

How to avoid accidental roaming

If you live or travel near an international border, like the Republic of Ireland or the north of Cyprus, you could be at risk from accidental roaming and incur additional costs when you pick up the signal from a network in another country. To avoid this, you can either switch off roaming or change the ‘network selection’ option in your device’s network settings from automatic to manual. You’ll need to change this setting back to automatic when you’re back in the UK. Use our interactive guide if you’d like help to change your phone’s settings.

Permanent or long-term roaming

Our inclusive roaming service is only intended for occasional temporary travel such as holidays and short breaks. Using this service for more than 63 days in any four-month period is what we consider to be unfair use. If you do this, we’ll send you a fair usage notification by text. If you continue to use these services after we’ve notified you, we’ll apply surcharges for your ongoing usage. These surcharges are £3.50 per GB for data, 3.3p per minute for calls and 1p per text.

Our 25GB Roaming Limit

If the data allowance of your Big Bundles or Rolling Plan is over 25GB, you’ll have a roaming limit of 25GB when roaming in our Europe Zone. This means you can use up to 25GB of your allowance at no extra cost – we’ll text you if you’re getting close to the limit, and again if you reach it. You can still use data if you reach our roaming limit, but you’ll be charged at our standard web daily rates. Terms and conditions.

Auto top-up

Auto top-up makes sure you never run out of credit by automatically topping up with money from your credit or debit card – so you may want to change or cancel this while you’re roaming to avoid spending more than intended. You can do this at any time in My O2 or by calling us for free on 202.

Opting out of roaming messages

If you no longer want to receive roaming messages when you arrive abroad, you can opt out of these alerts by texting STOP to 880022, and the change will be completed within 24 hours. Alternatively, you can call us on 202, and the change will take place within eight working days. Both options are free.

If you do choose to stop receiving roaming messages, you could be at risk of incurring unexpected charges.

We’ll send a reminder that you’ve opted out once a year and give you the option to opt back in. You can do this at any time by texting START to 880022 or calling 202.

You can check if you’re opted-out to these messages by texting STATUS to 880022 at any time.