For a few years now, traveling in Europe has become easier thanks to the roaming zero o al roaming like at home whatever you want to say, the system whereby the minutes and SMS of each European telephone plan can be spent without extra costs in the countries of the Union and a part of the so-called GB available each month can be used elsewhere as if you were in the own country, like at home precisely.
The legislation aims to progressively reduce wholesale costs for operators through a series of annual steps (and in some cases half-yearly) until they are flattened, an objective which according to plans will be achieved in 2027. After the “breakeven” nothing will change either for operators or users until 2032, when zero roaming and its benefits need to be extended. From yesterday, 1 January 2024, the regulation imposes a new reduction in wholesale costs, which go from 1.8 euros per gigabyte of data connection in 2023 to 1.55 euros in 2024.
Many Italian operators – we have documented it on these pages in recent weeks – have brought forward the deadline (among the first for example was Tim, which did so more than a month in advance), from yesterday, however, everyone must apply the wholesale cost expected for 2024 thus increasing the Gigabytes that can be spent in Europe and reducing the cost per consumption if the limit is exceeded, the so-called extra-threshold cost.
Given that through the apps and tools present in the portals, many operators allow you to check at any time the EU data bundle included in your plan depending on the amount you pay each month, the calculation of the bundle is quite simple. For 2023 the formula was:
data bundle in Europe = (monthly cost of the package excl. VAT / 1.80) x 2
for 2024 it becomes:
data bundle in Europe = (monthly cost of the package excl. VAT / 1.55) x 2
Therefore for 2024 the ceiling of wholesale cost for each gigabyte of data traffic it is 1.55 euros (excluding VAT), then it will progressively decrease from year to year until reaching stability at 1 euro from 2027 to 2032:
January 1st – December 31, 2024: 1.55 euros per gigabyte of data traffic 1 January – December 31, 2025: 1.30 euros January 1st – December 31, 2026: 1.10 euros 1 January 2027 – June 30, 2032 (i.e. until the regulation expires): 1 euro.
As we said, the cost of exceeding “European” gigabytes included in the offers, from 0.00219 euros per megabyte of data traffic in 2023 to 0.00189 euros per megabyte in 2024.
Il zero roaming is valid within the countries that are part of the European Union and in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA):
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, (including Guadeloupe, French Guiana, La Reunion, Mayotte, Martinique) Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Holland, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Hungary.
There is no more United Kingdom due to Brexit, but although operators are technically not obliged to apply the conditions and advantages for EU countries to England and company, none of the Italian ones, as far as we know, have changed the conditions applied in the United Kingdom at the moment equal to other EU countries. However, it is important to underline that things could change at any time, and operators could quite legitimately apply different (and certainly worse) conditions for those traveling to the UK: it is always better to check before leaving.