Long-Distance Travel: Which Data Roaming Bundles Are Best For Far Away Destinations

From beach holidays in Thailand to city trips to New York, safaris in southern Africa, cultural exploration in Vietnam, or a round-trip to Australia: Swiss love to travel. For most, having a phone and Internet access is a basic travel requirement.

The fees and rates charged for data roaming bundles are an absolute jungle. There are massive differences in fees between destinations and mobile carriers. Calculations by moneyland.ch shows that the cheapest data roaming bundles cost around 2 francs per gigabyte. The most expensive offers can, at least theoretically, cost several thousand francs per gigabyte.

This moneyland.ch guide explains how much data roaming in distant travel destinations costs.

What are my options for getting online in foreign countries?

There are a number of different ways to get online with your phone in foreign countries:

• Roaming data bundles: You can buy a roaming data bundle from your Swiss carrier. Depending on the service provider, this option can be relatively expensive.
• Travel eSIMs: There are many service providers that offer "travel" eSIMs. These are stand-alone mobile plans with a different phone number than your Swiss mobile plan. Many travel eSIM plans are relatively cheap. Travel eSIMs are offered by Swiss carriers Digital Republic, Galaxus Mobile, and Yallo, among others.
• Local prepaid SIM cards: In many countries, you can buy a local prepaid SIM when you arrive at your destination. Using a local SIM is typically cheap compared to the prices for roaming with your Swiss carrier.
• Wi-Fi: You can often get online for free by using complimentary local Wi-Fi hotspots at your destination. Using a VPN service for better security is advisable.

Many Swiss mobile plans include some roaming allowances. In many cases though, the roaming allowances are only for European countries, and in some cases also Canada, Turkey, and the US.

What you should generally avoid is roaming at standard rates, without a special roaming bundle or option. The standard rates are almost always very high. Only one carrier, Spusu, has low standard rates for roaming in some countries.

How much does data roaming outside of Europe cost?

There are big price differences between carriers and travel destinations. With an average price of 1.95 francs per gigabyte, Spusu is the cheapest carrier for roaming in the US and Turkey. The cost calculations are based on data use of 1 to 10 gigabytes, in 100 megabyte increments.

A number of carriers charge a maximum of 10 francs per gigabyte, on average. But prices can be much higher than that at other carriers. In some cases, the cost of 10 gigabytes would exceed 1000 francs, based on published prices.

Which country you travel to also determines which carrier is cheapest. Swisscom is the cheapest in 53 of the 99 countries included in the analysis. Spusu is the cheapest for 25 of the countries. M-Tel is the cheapest in 15 countries.

How much does data roaming in popular holiday destinations cost?

Although prices are very different from one carrier to another, there are general statements that apply to Australia, Bali, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, the US, and Vietnam:

• The cost of using roaming bundles from Swisscom averages between 5 and 7 francs per gigabyte, depending on the country.
• Sunrise typically charged around one franc more per gigabyte than Swisscom.
• Salt is more expensive, with an average cost of 13 francs per gigabyte. For Brazil, Singapore, South Africa, and Sri Lanka, the cost is more than 20 francs per gigabyte.
• CH Mobile, Coop Mobile, Lebara, Migros Mobile, Wingo, and Yallo have an average cost of around 11 francs per gigabyte. The exceptions: The cost of roaming in Costa Rica or Vietnam using offers from Coop Mobile, Migros Mobile, and Wingo is 31 francs per gigabyte. The cost of roaming in New Zealand with CH Mobile, Lebara, or Yallo is around 145 francs per gigabyte.

How can I find the best data bundle?

There are numerous different data roaming bundles available. The following tips can help you cut the costs of roaming:

• Get the data amount right: Many Swiss carriers have a selection of different data roaming bundles with varying amounts of data included. The rule of thumb is: The bigger the bundle, the lower the per-gigabyte cost is. If you end up having to buy many small bundles, you will pay more than if you got a large bundle to begin with. On the other hand, if you buy too big a bundle and do not end up needing a lot of the data allowance, then you will also be paying more than necessary.
• Check the country-specific bundles: Swisscom, in particular, lets you choose between bundles for just one country, and bundles for a whole region. If you will only be traveling to one country, then a bundle for just that country can be much cheaper. If, on the other hand, you will be visiting several countries in the same region, then using a bundle that covers the whole zone can sometimes be cheaper than getting several country-specific bundles.
• Check the expiry date: Most roaming data bundles remain valid for one year from the date of purchase. But there are also bundles that have much shorter validity periods. Salt, in particular, also offers weekly and monthly bundles. Make sure to get informed about how long a bundle will remain valid before you buy it.

The roaming prices for popular holiday destinations are often relatively affordable, if you use the right solution. But when you travel to more exotic destinations, carefully reviewing available options for roaming is all the more important.

How do roaming costs differ between Swiss mobile carriers?

Unless you are willing to change mobile plans, you can only use roaming bundles from the mobile carrier you already use. For that reason, moneyland.ch compiled all the most important information about data roaming outside of Europe. A total of 99 non-European countries were included in the analysis.

The following information applies to the three largest Swiss carriers:

• Swisscom's country-specific bundles are often the cheapest: The cost of country-specific bundles for around three-quarters of the countries is 10 francs per gigabyte, or less. For another one-fourth of the 99 countries, the cost is between 10 and 15 francs per gigabyte. The Maldives is the only country in which Swisscom's price per gigabyte is higher, at around 36 francs. Swisscom has the cheapest roaming offers for 53 of the 99 countries.
  Important: Swisscom's bundles that cover an entire region are massively more expensive than its country-specific bundles.
• Sunrise is the cheapest for many countries: Sunrise's average price for two-thirds of the 99 countries is eight francs per gigabyte. In the remaining countries, Sunrise is much more expensive, with costs between 144 and 499 francs per gigabyte. That is the case for 19 African countries.
• Salt, Gomo, Lidl Connect, and Post Mobile are relatively expensive: Salt offers country-specific bundles for some countries. For 44 countries, the price per gigabyte is less than 20 francs. In another 51 destinations, the cost is between 20 and 42 francs per gigabyte.

The prices charged by Swisscom and Sunrise subsidiaries are much higher:

• Coop Mobile, Migros Mobile, and Wingo are much more expensive than their parent-company Swisscom: For 42 countries, the cost of data roaming is around 11 francs per gigabyte. In another 56 countries, the cost is around 31 francs per gigabyte. For nearly all other countries, Swisscom's subsidiaries charge between 35 and 348 percent more for data roaming than Swisscom itself does.
• CH Mobile, Lebara, and Yallo have many costly exceptions: For 43 countries, the cost per gigabyte of roaming data is between 10 and 12 francs. In 36 countries, the cost is either 145 or even 500 francs per gigabyte. For most countries, Sunrise itself charges much less than its subsidiaries.

Some independent carriers have very attractive pricing for roaming in certain countries, but are fairly expensive for other countries:

• Digital Republic has cheap data roaming for a few countries: In four countries, Digital Republic is among the cheapest carriers, with an average price of five francs per gigabyte. But the cost is much higher in many of the remaining countries, at 50 francs per gigabyte.
• Galaxus Mobile is expensive for most countries: For five countries, the per-gigabyte price is between 8 and 17 francs. For all other countries, Galaxus Mobile is very expensive, with costs of between 160 and 279 francs per gigabyte.
• M-Tel is the cheapest in 17 countries: For those countries, the average cost per gigabyte is less than five francs. For the remaining countries, M-Tel is extremely expensive, with hypothetical costs of around 1000 francs per gigabyte.
• Quickline is relatively expensive: For three countries, the average cost per gigabyte is seven francs. For most other countries, Quickline charges between 23 and 183 francs per gigabyte.
• Spusu has the cheapest data roaming for 25 countries: For most countries, the cost is less than 15 francs per gigabyte. In some countries, the price is between just two and five francs per gigabyte. On the other hand, there are 11 countries for which Spusu charges more than 80 francs per gigabyte.

Some carriers do not even offer bundles for all countries. In some cases, roaming in uncovered countries is not even possible. Some service providers do allow roaming, but always use their expensive standard roaming fees.

If your carrier charges a lot for data roaming in a country you will travel to, then a travel eSIM or a local prepaid SIM can be a much cheaper alternative to roaming.

Methodology

moneyland.ch calculated the average price per gigabyte. The calculations are based on the costs of all data bundles between 1 and 10 gigabytes, in increments of 100 megabytes.

All calculations in this guide are based on the assumption that you will spend two full weeks in a single destination country.

For calculations, moneyland.ch uses the ISO definition of one gigabyte (1000 megabytes). For carriers that define one gigabyte as 1024 megabytes, this difference is accounted for the moneyland.ch calculations.