The Trade (Mobile Roaming) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 are due to take effect on 5 August 2026 and will reduce the wholesale roaming ceilings that sit behind UK mobile use in Norway and Iceland. The Regulations amend the 2023 roaming rules, apply across the whole United Kingdom and are made under the Trade Act 2021. DSIT’s Explanatory Memorandum says the purpose is to give domestic effect to Decision No. 1/2025 of the UK-EEA EFTA Joint Committee. (statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk) The change is narrow in legal form but important in administrative terms. It updates the cap on what mobile operators may charge one another for wholesale roaming, rather than setting a retail cap for consumers. That distinction was repeated by Minister Ian Murray in the Commons committee on 8 July, where he described the measure as a technical amendment to the 2023 regime. (hansard.parliament.uk)
The revised ceilings are lower across the main chargeable services. Outgoing voice calls fall from €0.032 to €0.019 per minute, outgoing SMS falls from €0.01 to €0.003, and data falls from €2.50 per gigabyte to €1.30 before dropping again to €1 from 1 January 2027. Incoming SMS remains free. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) In practice, those figures sit in operator-to-operator contracts rather than on a consumer bill. A lower wholesale ceiling can reduce input costs, but the legislation does not require providers to pass any saving through to retail customers. In committee, ministers said they hoped lower wholesale charges would be reflected in consumer offers, while also stressing that the instrument itself does not regulate retail pricing. (hansard.parliament.uk)
The legal origin sits in the 2021 free trade agreement between the UK and the EEA EFTA states. Article 3.69 and Annex XX set roaming ceilings and require a review every two years so that the rates remain appropriate. DSIT says the existing figures had moved away from the relevant international benchmark, which in this case is the EU wholesale roaming rate. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) The arrangement is not uniform across all three EEA EFTA states. Both the treaty decision and DSIT’s memorandum state that Liechtenstein has opted out of the roaming provisions, so the operative relationship is the UK with Norway and Iceland. The Joint Committee adopted Decision No. 1/2025 on 25 November 2025, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office presented it to Parliament on 23 April 2026. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The parliamentary route has been as technical as the substance. The draft regulations were laid before both Houses on 4 June 2026 under the draft affirmative procedure. They were considered in Lords Grand Committee on 7 July and in the Commons Delegated Legislation Committee on 8 July. The Lords motion to approve was agreed on 13 July, and the Commons approval step was recorded on 15 July. (statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk) That scrutiny was not entirely routine. The House of Lords European Affairs Committee reported the underlying treaty decision for the special attention of the House and criticised the Government’s explanatory memorandum, saying it repeated the 2023 version almost word-for-word and gave too little comment on the substance of the new rates and the reason for them. (publications.parliament.uk)
On impact, the Government’s position is that very little changes in operational terms for operators or the public sector. DSIT did not refresh the 2023 de minimis assessment because it judged current UK-Norway and UK-Iceland wholesale deals likely to be already below the new caps. The memorandum says there is no significant effect on businesses, charities, voluntary bodies, small firms or the public sector, because the instrument applies only to mobile network operators. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk) The evidence base cited by DSIT points the same way. Using BEREC data for Q3 2025, the memorandum says average Norwegian wholesale charges were already €0.009 for voice, €0.001 for SMS and €0.150 for data, while average EEA operator rates were €0.013, €0.002 and €0.570 respectively. All sit below the new ceilings. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)
For travellers, that means the measure should not be read as a fresh retail roaming guarantee. In the 8 July Commons debate, Ian Murray said the instrument would have no direct effect on consumer prices because it concerns wholesale charges only. He also told MPs that the Government were still reviewing options for surcharge-free roaming for UK travellers to Norway and Iceland. (hansard.parliament.uk) The wider policy point is more procedural than dramatic. The Regulations show how a trade agreement commitment is maintained in UK law: an external joint committee decision, domestic secondary legislation under the Trade Act, committee scrutiny in both Houses, and a concluding legal update to the statute book. For telecoms and trade officials, the main effect is legal alignment with the current EEA benchmark rather than a major change in market conduct. (commonsbusiness.parliament.uk)