topic Roaming not working in Roaming

Roaming not working

LucyEE — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 16:26:30 GMT

Hi,

I bought a roaming pass today and I'm still unable to take or make calls to UK numbers. I'm currently in Montenegro and bought the roaming service so I can make a call for work.

On the app, tells me conflicting informaiton as the AI bot on the help service, tells me I don't have a roaming pass, but the app tells me I do. I have tried removing my spend cap and putting a £50 cap.

I can't ring EE to get help as no calls are going through and there is no one available to talk to via the app.

Please can someone assist? I've been struggling with this for about 5 hours

Re: Roaming not working

Northerner — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 16:31:03 GMT

Hi @LucyEE

Are you on EE PAYG or pay monthly contract.

If pay monthly contract did you activate roaming before leaving the UK.
Can you use the internet
Have you tried restarting your device.

Thanks

Re: Roaming not working

bristolian — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 19:18:36 GMT

Regardless of any billing add-on, your ability to get coverage abroad (which calls, texts & mobile data rely on) is dependent on roaming being activated - which allows your phone to connect to foreign networks.

Have you used your phone abroad previously, did you receive a welcome text message on first arrival abroad? These are good evidence of roaming being enabled if so. In these cases, manually cycling through all available local networks often resolves issues - toggling flight mode can have the same effect.

If not...On PAYG, roaming is auto-enabled once your phone is used in the UK first. On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this?

If you are on pay-monthly and now find yourself abroad without having enabled roaming, your only recourse will be to contact CS to request it activated. You can either contact +44 7953 966150 from another working phone, or +44 800 9566000 using a web-calling app over WiFi.

Re: Roaming not working

XRaySpeX — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 21:07:58 GMT

Did you receive a Welcome text upon arrival?

As you are on contract, did you activate roaming on your EE a/c before leaving UK by texting ROAMING to 150? Having a roaming billing add-on doesn't of itself activate roaming on your a/c. Having roaming activated on your EE a/c, not just on your device, is crucial to using your contract SIM abroad.

Often just rebooting the phone is the simple remedy. Also try selecting a network manually rather than auto.

Otherwise as you are on contract you need to call CS to get your roaming activated. Try calling CS on the Freephone no. in my sig. using a web-calling app over WiFi.