12% reduction in roaming price caps from 1st July 2015

NFH

The European Commission's roaming price caps specified in EUR without VAT in Articles 8(2), 10(2) and 13(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 are not subject to any reduction on 1st July 2015. However, in accordance with Article 1(7) the EUR/GBP rate is recalculated each year by taking the average of the rates published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 1st March 2015, 1st April 2015 and 1st May 2015, which is 0.72727, some 12% lower than the average of 0.82581 for the same dates in 2014. Consequently the price caps from 1st July 2015 in GBP will be £0.1382/min (£0.1658/min incl VAT) for outgoing calls, £0.0364/min (£0.0436/min incl VAT) for incoming calls, £0.0436 (£0.0524 incl VAT) for outgoing SMS and £0.1455/MB (£0.1745/MB incl VAT) for data.

Given that most UK mobile networks set their EEA roaming prices at almost the maximum allowed by the price caps, they will all have to reduce their charges by at least 12% on 1st July 2015. Keep an eye out to make sure that your network complies.

UK VAT of 20% is added only when roaming inside the EU VAT area, but not when roaming in parts of the European Union and wider European Economic Area that are outside the EU VAT area, specifically Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Gibraltar, the Åland Islands, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, in accordance with Article 19 of the Value Added Tax (Place of Supply of Services) Order 1992. This is because the United Kingdom opted to exempt non-EU VAT area roaming from UK VAT under Article 9(3)(a) of Council Directive 77/388 ("the Sixth VAT Directive") so that it could charge UK VAT on services used in the UK but billed outside the EU (e.g. US-based services marketed to UK residents).

Roger1

How is roaming in Switzerland affected, Switzerland being a member of neither the EU nor the EEA but a member of the single market?
https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea

At Swiss rates, at UK rates or at 0%?

Thanks.

NFH

Roger1 wrote: »

How is roaming in Switzerland affected, Switzerland being a member of neither the EU nor the EEA but a member of the single market?

As you correctly perceive, Switzerland is not a member of either the EU or the EEA. Therefore networks can set their charges at whatever they like for roaming in Switzerland.

For the sake of simplicity, many UK networks apply their capped prices for roaming in non-EEA countries that are surrounded by the EEA or closely connected with EEA countries, for example Switzerland, Andorra and San Marino, as well as in places closely connected with EEA countries, e.g. Monaco, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Monaco and the Isle of Man are both part of the EU VAT area but not the EU or EEA so the price caps don't apply but UK VAT does.