No More Roaming Charges in the EU as of June 15

As the last step towards the end of roaming charges in the EU by June 15, representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed on how to regulate wholesale roaming markets. The regulation concerns the prices operators charge each other when their customers use other networks when roaming in the EU.

According to an announcement by the European Commission, EU negotiators agreed on the following wholesale caps: 3.2 cents per minute of voice call, as of June 15; 1 cent per SMS, as of June 15; a step by step reduction over five years for data caps decreasing from 7.7 euros per GB (as of June 15) to 6 euros per GB (as of January 1, 2018), 4.5 euros per GB (as of January 1, 2019), 3.5 euros per GB (as of January 1, 2020), 3 euros per GB (as of January 1, 2021) and 2.5 euros per GB (as of January 1, 2022).

“This was the last piece of the puzzle. As of June 15, Europeans will be able to travel in the EU without roaming charges. We have also made sure that operators can continue competing to provide the most attractive offers to their home markets”, Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, said.

The new wholesale roaming prices will become applicable on June 15, in time for operators to take all the necessary preparatory steps for the introduction of “roam-like -at-home” by then.