Best International Cell Phone Plans 2021

You come home from vacation. You’re relaxed. You’re refreshed.
Then you check your cell phone bill and find that you owe $800.
International roaming rates are nothing to mess around with, so it’s important to know what you’re on the hook for before you travel abroad. We’ve surveyed the mobile landscape and picked out the carriers and plans that are most friendly to frequent out-of-country travelers.
Best international roaming plans: postpaid
T-Mobile Magenta
Price: $75; $70 with autopay discount
At a glance: Unlimited talk, text and 5GB of high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. Unlimited texting and 2G data in more than 210 other countries.
Why we like it: Easy text and data access while overseas, no add-ons necessary, with the option to upgrade to Magenta Plus for faster data speeds and free in-flight Wi-Fi.
Sprint Unlimited Basic with Global Roaming
Price: Unlimited Basic is $65; $60 with autopay discount. Global Roaming is a free to add to any Sprint plan.
At a glance: Unlimited talk, text and 5GB of high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. Unlimited texting and 2G data in more than 200 countries. International calling starts at 25 cents per minute.
Why we like it: Talk, text and high-speed data in North America. Add Global Roaming for free to extend text and data access beyond Canada and Mexico.
Things to Know
Best international roaming: prepaid
Project Fi
Price: $20 per month, plus $10 per GB
At a glance: Unlimited talk and text in the U.S. Unlimited texting while abroad. High-speed data is a flat $10 per gigabyte, even when roaming internationally.
Why we like it: Use your service (texts and data) in more than 200 countries for the same price you pay at home. Calls from overseas are an additional cost.
Things to Know
Alternative options
Buying a cheap, unlocked prepaid phone to use when traveling abroad is often much more cost-effective than using your normal plan abroad. Then you can buy a prepaid SIM in your destination country and simply pop it into your phone for access to the local network. You can call your carrier and ask whether your phone is compatible with international SIM cards.
METHODOLOGY
We evaluated all the major international roaming cell phone plans on the market, including those offered by AT&T, Google’s Project Fi, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.To determine the best plans, we looked at the price of the international roaming option before taxes and fees, the price per gigabyte of data, and the price of international calls and texts.