International calls within the EU are cheaper from this month.

May 8, 2019

Brussels regulates for the first time the price of international calls between the member states and thus, The Official Gazette of the European Union published on 17 December 2018 the new regulations regarding retail rates for regulated intra-community communications.

These new regulations on the price of international calls will come into force on 15 May. For this reason, many operators have already announced their new rates.

Roaming is not the same than international calls

You must not confuse international calls with Roaming, they are totally different.

The end of Roaming within the countries of the European Union came into force on 15 June 2017. It implied the end of surcharges on mobile fees for the use of voice and data when travelling abroad.

How much will international calls cost?

New regulations, particularly article 5 Bis, establish that, from 15 May, calls between countries of the EU must not exceed 19 cents per minute and SMS must not exceed 6 cents.

For the first time, the retail price for international calls and SMS within the EU will be regulated and operators cannot fix the price they want, as they used to do.

International calls in figures

International calls from landlines have greatly decreased since 2008 due to the widening use of mobile phones.

There was a peak of millions of minutes in 2015, and between 2015 and 2018 there was a notable drop, but still, this figure duplicates the one of 10 years ago, and it is similar to figures from 2012.

Trends

It is clear that the use of new technologies caused the traffic of international calls from Spain significantly felt in the last year, but this measure may make trends change.