Are Mobile Plans With Roaming Included a Good Deal?

Swiss mobile service providers offer many different mobile plans that include roaming allowances. These plans can be convenient, because you can use your phone while traveling abroad without having to first buy a roaming bundle or activate a roaming option.

What are mobile roaming allowances?

A mobile plan with roaming allowances includes a certain amount of roaming data /and or a certain number of call minutes and SMS messages for getting online or making calls while traveling in other countries. These allowances only apply to specific countries. Typically, the countries included are primarily European countries, though Turkey, the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, and some other countries are sometimes included. There are big differences between the roaming allowances of different mobile plans.

Which Swiss carriers offer mobile plans with included roaming allowances? 

The three Swiss telecom network operators, Swisscom, Sunrise, and Salt, all offer mobile plans with roaming allowances. Additionally, nearly all other Swiss carriers have mobile plans with roaming allowances in their product lineups. You can find a detailed overview of these offers in the table further down.

For this article, moneyland.ch analyzed a total of 68 different mobile plans with roaming allowances from various Swiss carriers. The carriers Yallo and Wingo both have exceptionally-large selections, with Yallo offering 12 different plans with roaming allowances, and Wingo offering nine.

How big are the roaming allowances?

There are big differences between individual offers. There are offers that include just 100 megabytes of roaming data per calendar month, while the mobile plans with the highest roaming allowances include 40 or even 50 gigabytes of roaming data per calendar month. Some of these offers are advertised as having unlimited roaming data. However, in practice the Internet speed is heavily throttled once you reach a certain limit (typically to 128 or 256 Kbps).   

Data roaming allowances normally apply on a per-calendar-month basis. Digital Republic uses an annual allowance of either 24 or 144 gigabytes with its annual mobile plans, which are paid up front each year.

Mobile plans most commonly include data roaming allowances, but there are also offers that include allowances for a certain number of roaming call minutes, for receiving calls while roaming, for making calls within your travel country, and for making calls from your travel country to Switzerland.

In which countries can I use my roaming allowances?

The roaming allowances of all 68 mobile plans analyzed by moneyland.ch cover mobile roaming in Austria, Frances, Germany, and Italy.

Many mobile plan roaming allowances cover roaming in all EU countries, the United Kingdom, and Norway. That is the case with plans from Swisscom, Coop Mobile, M-Budget Mobile, Spusu, and Wingo. Spusu plans also include the French overseas territories French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Réunion, Martinique, and Mayotte.

Roaming allowances included in plans from Aldi Suisse Mobile, Digital Republic, Galaxus Mobile, Lebara, Quickline, and Yallo cover Turkey, the US, and Canada in addition to EU countries, the UK, and Norway. Surprisingly, Lebara and Yallo also include Puerto Rico in their roaming allowance travel destinations. 

Salt and its subsidiaries Gomo, Lidl Connect, and Post Mobile exclude many European countries from the Europe roaming zone. Sunrise uses separate lists of countries for each of its mobile plans. Depending on the Sunrise plan, the list may include just a few EU countries. 

Some more expensive mobile plans have several different roaming allowances, with large volumes of data for the most popular travel destinations, and smaller data allowances for certain other countries.

Which mobile plans have mobile roaming allowances?

The table below gives you an overview of Swiss mobile plans that have roaming allowances. The overview normally shows two plans per carrier, but there are many additional plans that also include roaming allowances.

What happens when I exhaust the included roaming?

What happens once your included allowance is used up depends on your mobile plan.

Some mobile plans throttle the Internet speed to 128 or 256 Kbps, but do not charge you additional fees. The slow speed is sufficient for texting, streaming music, and sending email, but is unsuitable for fast web browsing or streaming videos. You normally have the option of buying supplemental data bundles for higher-speed Internet.

Many mobile plans, and particularly those from Swisscom, Coop Mobile, Digital Republic, Galaxus Mobile, M-Budget Mobile, Lidl Connect, and Wingo, block your Internet connection once your allowance is used up. You have the option of reactivating the Internet connection by buying a data bundle.

Sunrise blocks Internet access once the included allowance is used up, unless you have activated mobile roaming at standard rates in your Sunrise preferences. Lebara and Yallo have a default limit of zero francs for roaming. If you leave the default setting in place, then extra roaming charges on top of what you pay for your plan or for roaming bundles are not possible. But it is possible to change the settings in the customer portal. It is beneficial to check your settings to find out whether or not additional roaming charges are possible.    

There are also carriers that do not block your Internet connection, but charge you standard roaming fees for any additional calls or data that exceed your allowances. That is particularly likely with plans from Salt and Post mobile.

Are mobile plans with roaming allowances a good deal?

For its analysis, moneyland.ch calculated how much data you would have to use in order for a mobile plan with roaming allowances to work out cheaper than using a plan without these allowances from the same carrier. The analysis compares the cost of the cheapest mobile plan with unlimited local calls and data within Switzerland with the mobile plan from the same carrier that includes roaming allowances. moneyland.ch then calculated the cost of using data roaming bundles from the same carrier to make up the difference.

The results show that there are huge differences between individual offers. In the best case, a mobile plan with mobile roaming already works out cheaper if you use more than 6 gigabytes or roaming data per year. But for the plan in question, that is only the case when you use less than 2 gigabytes in the same calendar month. Certain mobile plans with included roaming only work out cheaper than getting data bundles if you use more than 100 gigabytes of roaming data per year.

Salt offers many roaming data bundles that are only valid for one day, in addition to regular bundles that are valid for one year. The analysis reveals that customers who stay in foreign countries less than between 26 and 77 days (depending on the mobile plan) would spend less by using these daily roaming bundles, compared to using a mobile plan with included roaming allowances. However, that is only the case if you do not use more than one gigabyte of data per day, and only in countries included in Salt’s roaming zone (like France or Germany).

Four plans from Wingo and two from Yallo are so expensive that even if you actually used up the full roaming allowance every month, it would still be cheaper to use roaming bundles in combination with the cheapest available plan with unlimited local calls and data for Switzerland.  

There are differences between the different offers. Some mobile plans with roaming allowances cost just a few francs more than plans without roaming allowances from the same carrier. Some plans with unlimited calls and data within Switzerland include just a very small roaming allowance. There are also mobile plans with roaming allowances that cost massively more than equivalent plans without roaming. In some cases, a plan with roaming allowances can cost over 100 francs per month more than a plan with just local calls and data for Switzerland. 

Is a mobile plan with roaming included a good fit for me?

Mobile plans with roaming allowances may be expensive, but they are also practical. If you do prefer to avoid the hassle of buying roaming bundles before traveling, then you may appreciate the convenience of using a plan with included roaming.

If you only occasionally travel outside of Switzerland – for holidays or short trips, for example – then mobile plans with roaming allowances are not a good fit for you. The reason is that you are paying for roaming allowances every month, even in months when you do not leave Switzerland at all. Official statistics show that residents of Switzerland are far more likely to use mobile roaming during the summer months of June, July, and August than they are in the winter months of January, February, and March. In 2022, a high 42 percent of roaming took place in the summer months, compared to just 25 percent in winter.

Anders sieht es aus, wenn Kundinnen und Kunden zum Beispiel aus beruflichen Gründen oft im Ausland unterwegs sind.

But if, on the other hand, you frequently travel abroad – on business trips, for example – then using an affordable mobile plan with roaming included can save you money.

A cheap mobile plan with roaming allowances – one gigabyte of roaming data, for example – can also be a good deal if you live near the border. This is because your phone may occasionally connect to a foreign network from across the border.

Tip: If a mobile plan with roaming included is offered at a special promotional price, the lower price you pay can increase the likelihood of it paying off.

It can be very difficult to estimate how much data you actually need. If you avoid streaming music and (especially) video, and downloading or uploading large files, then you normally will not transfer a whole lot of mobile data. Typically, a person who does not use music or video streaming or make large downloads will not use more than between five and 10 gigabytes per week. In many cases, the amount of data needed is much lower than that.  

Are there alternatives to mobile plans with roaming allowances?

There are a number of alternatives for staying connected while traveling.

• Use a travel eSIM: Using special travel eSIMs can often save you a lot of money compared to using roaming offers from Swiss mobile carriers. You can find more information in the moneyland.ch travel eSIM study. 
• Buy a SIM card from your travel destination: Using a prepaid mobile offer from a local carrier in the country you are visiting is often much cheaper than using mobile roaming.
• Use free wi-fi hotspots: Using the complimentary Internet connections available in many cafés, restaurants, hotels, trains, buses, and public areas for data-intensive tasks lets you minimize mobile roaming costs.

More on this topic:
Compare Swiss mobile plans now
Data roaming: Useful tips for staying online while traveling