The shock of discovering a surprisingly inflated mobile phone bill after travelling abroad within the EU should be a thing of the past from now on.

Dramatic reductions in controversial roaming charges imposed by operators came into effect on Saturday.

It follows a nine-year campaign by the European Commission to tackle excessive charges and should bring large savings for consumers.

The new rules cap the extra charges that operators can impose on travellers from other EU countries.
Roaming surcharges are now limited to:


0.05€ extra per minute for outgoing calls
0.0114€ extra per minute for incoming calls
0.02€ extra per text message sent


0.05€ extra per Megabyte of data downloaded


The changes are expected to bring roaming charges down by at least a third. The biggest reductions are expected to be for consumers downloading data – photos, emails and social media.

These are just interim measures: the surcharges are due to be abolished altogether from June next year.