EU roaming is still bad if you live outside the EU

"Roam like at home" (RLAH) is an EU regulation that lets EU residents use their home mobile plan across other EU/EEA countries at domestic prices. It's genuinely great - if your SIM was issued by an EU carrier.

Non-EU travelers hit the wall

If your plan is US, Canadian, UK, Australian, or basically anywhere else, the moment you land in Paris or Rome your carrier switches you to day-pass roaming: typically $10–$15/day, capped at maybe 500 MB, and then throttled to unusable speeds.

On a two-week trip through five countries, that's $140–$210 per person for a limited data allowance that stops working the second you try to stream anything.

Do the math

At Anon eSIM's typical European rate (~$1.20/GB), 15 GB - enough for two weeks of maps, messaging, and moderate video - is $18. That is roughly one day of your carrier's roaming pass.

You keep your primary SIM active for calls and 2FA, and the eSIM handles data. No new SIM per country, no juggling profiles, no scanning QR codes at every border.

Why RLAH doesn't extend to visitors

RLAH exists because the EU forced wholesale roaming fees down between member carriers. Non-EU carriers negotiate their wholesale rates individually with each EU network, and those rates are the day-pass prices you see. There is no political mechanism that makes T-Mobile USA "roam like at home" in Portugal - and there won't be.

What each of the big non-EU carriers actually charges

The numbers below are current at time of writing; carriers change them without much notice, always upward. Verify before you fly if the delta matters to you.

• Verizon TravelPass. $12/day in most of Europe. Metered against your domestic plan, throttled after your monthly high-speed cap. A two-week Europe trip: $168.
• AT&T International Day Pass. $12/day for the first line, $6/day for additional lines on a family plan. Same throttle mechanics as Verizon.
• T-Mobile Magenta / Go5G. "Free" in-plan international data - the trap is that it's throttled to 128–256 kbps unless you buy the International Pass ($5/day for 512 MB, $35 for 15 GB / 30 days). The free tier is technically usable for iMessage; anything else is a slideshow.
• Rogers Roam Like Home (Canada). CAD $16/day in Europe. Bill shocks of CAD $200+ on two-week trips are the norm.
• Telstra International Day Pass (Australia). AUD $10/day for 1 GB in "Zone 1", which covers most of Europe. Anything above 1 GB downshifts to throttled speeds until the next day rolls over.
• Three Go Roam (UK, post-Brexit). Even the UK - which used to have RLAH parity - now imposes fair-use caps and daily fees in most EU countries. £6/day in the EU beyond 12 GB/month on most plans.

What the day pass actually costs per gigabyte

Reframe the price as $/GB and the picture gets worse. A $12 day pass at Verizon's typical 512 MB high-speed cap is $24/GB before the throttle kicks in. On a two-week trip that lands somewhere between the price of a plane ticket and a nice hotel night. Meanwhile a European PAYG eSIM sits at $0.80–$1.50/GB for the same weeks, on the same towers.

The one case where day-pass actually wins

If your trip is 24-48 hours and your phone is your primary phone, day-pass roaming can be simpler than adding a second line - you keep your number, iMessage stays on the same profile, and the total charge is small enough to not care. For anything longer than three days, or any trip where you'll use more than 1 GB/day, the math flips and doesn't flip back.

The eSIM workaround, structurally

You don't cancel your primary line. You add a second line - the eSIM - and set it as the mobile-data source only. Voice, SMS, iMessage, 2FA all continue to route to your primary. The eSIM handles maps, browsing, video, tethering. When you come home you disable the eSIM's data role and forget it exists until the next trip; the balance sits there until you need it.

Why RLAH doesn't extend to visitors

The workaround is not to wait for a treaty. It's to use an eSIM built for travel and stop paying carrier roaming markups. If a US-to-EU roaming compact appeared tomorrow it would still take years to be operator-friendly enough that it beat a $15 top-up on a global eSIM.