The UK→USA Roaming Rip-Off Index

Q3 2026 edition · published 6 September 2026 · updated quarterly · free for journalists and bloggers to cite with a link to this page. Press enquiries: hello@esimflorida.com — we can supply the underlying table, charts and UK-specific angles same-day.

The headline numbers, Q3 2026

A family of four keeping their phones on for a two-week Florida holiday pays £280–£413.84 in UK-network roaming passes (Three cheapest, Vodafone dearest).
The same family on prepaid US travel eSIMs pays £51.96 (£12.99 per phone, unlimited data) — 87% less than the dearest network route.
Per phone, a fortnight of US roaming costs £70–£103.46; a fortnight of unlimited eSIM data costs £12.99.
Roaming passes mostly unlock your UK allowance rather than add data, with fair-use caps abroad — Three's "unlimited" tariffs cap at roughly 12GB in the USA.
If each of Orlando's ~933,500 annual UK visitors roamed one phone for a fortnight at even the cheapest network rate, UK travellers would hand the networks ≈£65m a year for data that costs a fraction of that prepaid.

The index: a fortnight in the USA, network by network

Network	Product	Per day	Fortnight, 1 phone	Fortnight, family of 4	The catch
Three	Go Roam Around the World	£5.00	£70	£280	~12GB fair-use cap even on unlimited plans
EE	Travel Data Pass	£6.00	£84	£336	UK-midnight billing days; Roam Abroad £25/month per line
O2	O2 Travel Bolt On	£6.00	£84	£336	Background data triggers the 24h charge
Vodafone	Global Roaming Plus	£7.39	£103.46	£413.84	Priciest daily rate; multi-day passes bought before travel
Travel eSIM (ours)	Unlimited 14 days, prepaid	—	£12.99	£51.96	1GB/day full speed then 1 Mbps — never cut off; data-only

Quotable version: "UK networks charge a family of four up to £413.84 to use their phones on a two-week Florida holiday — the same fortnight costs about £51.96 on travel eSIMs."

Why the gap exists

Daily roaming passes are billed per calendar day, per line, whether you use 50MB or 5GB — and the calendar day is often the UK day, so an evening in Orlando can straddle two charges. Travel eSIMs are prepaid wholesale US data resold at flat rates; there's no meter and no per-line multiplication beyond buying one per phone. Full per-network small print lives in our carrier-by-carrier guide, and the honest comparison of eSIM brands (including where we're not the cheapest) is in the eSIM USA guide.

Methodology & sources

Carrier rates: each network's published US roaming pricing, checked July 2026 (EE Travel Data Pass, O2 Travel Bolt On, Three Go Roam, Vodafone Global Roaming Plus). eSIM price: our live us-daily-1gb-14d plan (£12.99, unlimited with a stated 1 Mbps fair-use speed after 1GB/day — we publish the cap because "unlimited" without one is marketing). Visitor figure: Visit Orlando, 2025 (933,500 UK visitors). The family-of-four figure assumes one line per person and no pass-sharing via hotspot; the aggregate figure deliberately uses the cheapest network rate, so it understates rather than overstates. This index re-runs quarterly; rates shown update automatically when the source table is refreshed. First edition: Q3 2026.

See the eSIM plans — unlimited from £6.99/week