What roaming in Tunisia costs on EE, O2, Vodafone, Three and US plans, and when an eSIM wins

Part of our Tunisia eSIM guide: all articles and key facts →

Roaming in Tunisia costs more than most travellers expect, because Tunisia sits outside the Europe zone of every UK carrier and, for O2 and Vodafone UK, outside their worldwide day passes too. We read the roaming pages of EE, O2, Vodafone UK, Three, giffgaff, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile on 13 October 2026 to set out what a holiday in Hammamet, Djerba or Tunis really costs on your own number, and when a Tunisia travel eSIM is cheaper.

Is roaming in Tunisia expensive?

It depends heavily on your carrier: EE and Three sell a daily pass at £7 to £8, but O2 and Vodafone UK only sell small data bundles at £60 to £65 per gigabyte. In the US, AT&T and Verizon charge $12 a day, and T-Mobile includes Tunisia in its plans' roaming.

That is why "O2" is the first carrier Google suggests after "roaming in Tunisia". An O2 or Vodafone customer who uses a normal amount of data on holiday will almost always pay less with a travel eSIM. An EE or Three customer has a real choice, depending on how long the trip is.

If you want the whole picture, including local SIMs from Tunisian operators and Wi-Fi, read our guide to every way to get internet in Tunisia.

Why is Tunisia not covered by your UK plan?

Because no UK carrier puts Tunisia in its Europe zone, and two of the four big networks also leave it out of their worldwide passes. On the carriers' own pages, Tunisia is in EE's "Zone 2", in O2's Zone 3, in Vodafone UK's Rest of the World zones, and in Three's "Go Roam Around the World Extra" band.

The zone decides what you can buy. O2 Travel, the £7-a-day bolt-on that works in 75 destinations outside Europe, does not list Tunisia. Vodafone's Global Roam plans cover 84 destinations and its Zone D 73 more, but Tunisia is in neither, and Vodafone's pay as you go zones list it among 39 "additional destinations".

In the US the logic is simpler: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile each publish one list of more than 210 countries and destinations, and Tunisia is on all three. Our general guide to roaming charges and what to check before you travel explains the terms used below.

What does each carrier charge in Tunisia?

Among the four big UK networks, EE's £40 week and Three's £7 or £8 day are the only passes that use your normal allowance in Tunisia. The table sums up each carrier's page, checked on 13 October 2026. Prices are as published; US prices are plus taxes and fees.

The prices for O2 and Vodafone are for data only: calls and texts are charged on top. Three's price also depends on your contract date, and its customers who joined before October 2021 are sent to the price guide.

EE: £8 a day or £40 a week, with your UK allowance

EE puts Tunisia in Zone 2, with a 24-Hour Pass at £8 and a 7-Day Pass at £40, and both use your UK calls, texts and data. EE's roaming packages page lists Tunisia in the same Zone 2 as Egypt and Morocco. Zone 2 is not available as an Inclusive Extra, so a Smart or Full Works plan does not cover it for free.

You get a welcome text on landing with a link to your pass options, and you can also buy one at add-on.ee.co.uk once abroad, EE says. Without a pass, its calculator behind the roaming costs page shows data as "Buy data add-on when you land" and calls at £2.46 a minute on a standard pay monthly plan.

EE pay as you go is far more expensive in Tunisia than in Egypt. The calculator lists 5MB for £5 or 10MB for £10, each for 24 hours, and 20MB for £20 over 7 days, plus calls at £3 a minute and texts at £1.20. EE adds that the internet does not work abroad on pay as you go until you buy an add-on.

Is O2 roaming in Tunisia covered by O2 Travel?

No: Tunisia is not one of the 75 O2 Travel destinations, so O2 customers can only buy data bolt-ons there, at £26 for 100MB, £45 for 500MB or £65 for 1GB. The O2 Travel page lists 75 destinations outside Europe, including Egypt and Turkey, but not Tunisia. Tunisia is not in O2's Inclusive Zone or Inclusive Zone Ultimate either.

O2's Data Roaming Bolt Ons page puts Tunisia in Zone 3, the most expensive of its three zones. Unused bolt-on data rolls over to the end of your next billing month, and you can add the bolt-on before you go in My O2. The bolt-ons are for pay monthly customers only.

Calls and texts are extra: O2 charges £3 a minute to make or receive calls outside Europe, and £1 a text. If you buy no bolt-on, O2 says it will "stop your data abroad to ensure there are no unexpected charges", so an O2 phone will not run up a data bill by accident. It simply has no data.

Vodafone UK: £1.20 per MB, or a data pass

Vodafone UK charges £1.20 per MB in Tunisia, and customers who joined or upgraded since 21 February 2024 must buy a pass to use data at all. Its roaming charge checker gives, for a pay monthly plan in Tunisia, £2.57 a minute to make calls, £1.56 to receive them, 60p a text and £1.20 per MB of data.

The passes it offers for Tunisia are the "Zones 3 and 4" 8-day Rest of the World data passes: 50MB for £15, 250MB for £30, 500MB for £45 and 1GB for £60. They cover data only, start when you arrive, and are added by sending a text code to 40506.

Pay as you go customers pay £1.20 per MB, £2.40 a minute for outgoing calls and £1.56 for incoming ones, and the checker showed no roaming Extra for Tunisia. At £1.20 per MB, Vodafone's default data spending cap of £39.33 excluding VAT a month, which its data cap terms apply in Europe and the Rest of the World, is reached after about 33 MB, and data then stops unless you opt out.

Three: £7 or £8 a day on pay monthly

Along with EE, Three is the only big UK network whose pass lets you use your normal allowance in Tunisia, for £7 or £8 a day with up to 12GB of data. Three's destination list places Tunisia in "Go Roam Around the World Extra" for pay monthly customers.

The Go Roam page sets the daily charge at £7 if you joined or upgraded between 1 October 2021 and 17 December 2025, and at £8 if you joined on or after 18 December 2025, from 1 April 2026. Lite plans and older Advanced plans do not include daily Go Roam passes, and Three says buying a pass "can give you up to 2 days roaming free". Its Worldwide Data Travel Passes do not include Tunisia, according to the pass destination list.

On Three pay as you go, Tunisia is outside Go Roam. The pay as you go price guide puts it in data band 3, at £6 per MB taken from your credit, with calls at £3 a minute, and data packs cannot be used there.

giffgaff and Lebara: no price we could read

giffgaff lists Tunisia in its "Rest of the world", where your UK plan does not work and you pay from credit; neither giffgaff nor Lebara gave us a readable Tunisia price. giffgaff's help article says that outside the EU and selected destinations "your UK plan won't work" and that you need credit to call, text and use data. Its travel data add-ons cover only EU and selected destinations.

The country rates are on giffgaff's roaming page, which returned a security block on 13 October 2026, and Lebara's UK roaming pages refused our requests the same day. We quote no figure for either. giffgaff's own help article suggests "using a local SIM" when travelling out of the EU.

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in Tunisia

AT&T and Verizon both charge $12 a day in Tunisia, and T-Mobile includes Tunisia in the roaming of most of its plans. AT&T's International Day Pass lists Tunisia among its covered destinations, at $12 a day and $6 for each additional line used the same day. Without it, AT&T's pay-per-use rates are $4 a minute and $2.05 per MB.

Verizon's TravelPass country list shows "Tunisia $12 per day". The pass includes unlimited talk, text and data, but only the first 5GB at high speed, then 3G speeds for the rest of the session. Verizon's International Monthly Plan, at $100 a month with 20GB of high-speed data, is aimed at trips of 9 days or more.

T-Mobile's list of included countries contains Tunisia. Its international plans page gives 5GB of high-speed data abroad on Experience More, Go5G Plus and Magenta MAX, and 15GB on Experience Beyond and Go5G Next, then up to 256 Kbps. Essentials plans get free texting but no included data: Essentials customers need a pass. Its International Passes add 2GB for $10, 15GB for $50 over 10 days or 30GB for $75 over 30 days.

What happens if you forget to turn off data roaming in Tunisia?

On EE and O2 data stays blocked until you buy something; on Vodafone UK and Three pay as you go, data is billed per megabyte, but a default monthly spending limit stops it after a few megabytes. UK law keeps a limit of £45 per monthly billing period on data roaming spend, which you have to opt out of to keep spending, according to the UK government.

Three sets this worldwide data roaming limit at £45 plus VAT a month and texts you at 80% and 95% of it, according to its page on roaming costs; at £6 per MB on pay as you go, that is about 7.5 MB. Vodafone's default cap is £39.33 excluding VAT, about 33 MB at £1.20 per MB, and Vodafone pay monthly customers who joined or upgraded since 21 February 2024 get no data in Tunisia without a pass. In the US there is no such limit: at AT&T's $2.05 per MB, 100 MB of background data costs $205. T-Mobile turns data off by default in destinations a plan does not include.

A spending limit is a safety net, not a plan: once it is reached, you have no data until you opt out or the month ends. The safest habit is the same for everyone: switch off data roaming on your home line before the plane lands, disable automatic photo backup and app updates over mobile data, and remember that a tablet or smartwatch with its own plan roams separately.

Roaming or a Tunisia eSIM: which costs less for a week?

For a week in Tunisia, a travel eSIM costs less than any UK roaming option, and for O2 and Vodafone customers the difference is large. On 13 October 2026, the median 7-day Tunisia-only plan on esimdb with at least 1 GB a day at full speed, or no cap, cost €19.44 across 73 providers.

The eSIMs are priced in euros, as their sellers sell them; we do not convert. Because a pound is worth more than a euro, every eSIM in the table costs less than O2's £65 or Vodafone's £60, which buy a single gigabyte.

The closest contest is EE. Its £40 week gives you your UK allowance and your number for calls, while the €19.44 median eSIM gives you data only. If you use more than a few hundred megabytes and make few calls, the eSIM still wins on price.

Is Orange Travel an option for Tunisia?

Yes: Orange's own travel eSIM, Orange Travel, sells Tunisia plans, and some cost less than a week of roaming. Its Tunisia page showed, on 13 October 2026, unlimited plans at €25.99 for 5 days and €38.99 for 10 days, marked "20% OFF", and 30-day plans with 20 GB for €19.99 or 50 GB for €36.99. Prices are shown in the currency of your region; these are the euro prices.

Orange Travel is a separate product from Orange Tunisie, the Tunisian operator. Its offers are discounted prices that can change, so check the page on the day you buy. For a month with moderate data use, 20 GB for €19.99 costs far less than the €60.99 median for a 30-day Tunisia plan on esimdb, although that median covers plans with at least 1 GB a day, more data than 20 GB a month.

Which Tunisian networks will you connect to?

Roaming phones and travel eSIMs both use Tunisia's three operators: Ooredoo Tunisie, Orange Tunisie and Tunisie Telecom. Travel eSIM sellers name their network: Airalo uses Ooredoo Tunisie, and eSIM Tunisie runs on Orange Tunisie.

Tunisie Telecom and the other two operators also sell lines to visitors. Our guide to Tunisie Telecom, Ooredoo and Orange eSIMs for visitors explains which ones you can get at the airport and what they cost in dinars.

Where does eSIM Tunisie fit?

eSIM Tunisie, a partner of this site, is not a cheap option: at €37 for 7 days it sits well above the €19.44 median. Yesim sells 7 days for €24.50 and Airalo for €32.50, so several providers undercut it. Holafly, at €37.90 for 7 days, costs slightly more.

What it offers is simplicity on one known network. It runs on Orange Tunisie on 4G, gives 1 GB a day at full speed and then 512 kbps with no total cap, includes hotspot sharing, and its validity starts at your first connection in Tunisia, not at purchase. Against roaming, it costs less than O2's £65 gigabyte or Vodafone's £60 one for a whole week of data.

If price is your first criterion, our page on the cheapest eSIMs for Tunisia ranks plans per day and per gigabyte, and our guide to unlimited Tunisia eSIMs explains the daily caps behind "unlimited".

Can you keep your UK number while using a Tunisia eSIM?

Yes, on a dual-SIM phone: leave your home SIM on for calls and texts with data roaming off, and put data on the eSIM. That way bank codes sent by text still reach you. Receiving calls is not free everywhere, though: Vodafone charges £1.56 a minute to receive a call in Tunisia, O2 £3, and Three pay as you go £1.25.

Reply to messages through an app over the eSIM's data rather than by text from your UK number. Our guide to running two lines at the same time shows how to set which line carries data on iPhone and Android.

Before you fly to Tunisia

• Check your phone supports eSIM and is unlocked: the list of compatible phones, the iPhone 16 and Galaxy S25 pages, and do you need an unlocked phone for a travel eSIM.
• Find your carrier's Tunisia line: EE and Three use your allowance; O2 and Vodafone sell data only.
• Install any eSIM at home on Wi-Fi with our Tunisia eSIM installation guide, and switch it on after landing.
• Turn off data roaming on your home line and on every tablet or watch with its own plan.

The free eSIM Check app on Android reads your device's real hardware capabilities in seconds. Our Tunisia eSIM guide gathers all our Tunisia articles, including Djerba and Hammamet, Sousse and Monastir.