Does EE Roaming Work in China?

What EE includes in China

Mainland China is in Zone 1 on EE’s list of roaming destinations, along with the United States, Australia, India and 34 other places. Hong Kong is in Zone 2, with a 24-hour pass for £8 and a 7-day pass for £40. Macao is in Zone 3, with a 24-hour pass for £8 that includes 500MB of data.

Option	Price	Data in China	Calls and texts
24-hour Zone 1 Pass	£6	Your UK allowance	Your UK allowance
7-day Zone 1 Pass	£30	Your UK allowance	Your UK allowance
Full Works plan	Included in the plan	Your UK allowance, up to 50GB	Your UK allowance
No pass	Standard charges	No mobile data	£2.46 a minute to make or receive calls, 98p a text

Pass prices are from EE’s roaming passes page, checked Oct 9, 2026. Standard charges are from EE’s roaming costs page for China. These are pay monthly prices. We haven’t confirmed EE’s pay as you go charges for China.

• Full Works: EE’s pay monthly terms for plans taken from 20 August 2026 say roaming in Zone 1, including China, is included in Full Works plans.
• Fair use: EE says passes use your UK data allowance subject to fair use, without giving a limit for China. For Full Works, EE’s terms set a 50GB fair use limit for data outside the UK. If your UK allowance is bigger than 50GB, EE charges 0.36p per MB after you reach 50GB, until your next bill or until you’re back in the UK.
• Speeds: EE says speeds abroad depend on the local network, and 4G and 5G may not be available.

How the passes work

When you land, EE sends a welcome text with a link to your pass options. If you’re already abroad, you can buy a pass at add-on.ee.co.uk. EE says loading the page from its text won’t use any of your data.

Opened directly, EE’s roaming costs page for China says no passes are available and shows only standard charges. EE’s roaming passes page lists China in Zone 1 with the prices above.

How to turn on EE roaming in China

1. Before you leave the UK, text ROAMING to 150 to make sure your phone is ready to roam.
2. Turn on data roaming in your phone’s settings. Set your phone to automatic network selection.
3. Turn off WiFi Calling. EE says it only works in the UK.
4. Check that your Spend Cap is high enough to cover your roaming charges for the whole trip.
5. When you land, use the link in EE’s welcome text to buy a Zone 1 pass, unless your plan includes Zone 1 roaming. Without a pass, you won’t have mobile data.

Roaming isn’t available on EE Safer SIM plans in China. Pay monthly Safer SIMs can only roam in the EU, and pay as you go Safer SIMs don’t connect to networks outside the UK. EE also lists Apple Watch, SIM Access and 4G Home plans as plans without roaming.

Google and WhatsApp on EE: what’s known

Likely, but not confirmed by EE. We found no EE page that says how EE routes roaming data or whether apps blocked in China work on it. Reports on EE’s community forum mostly say they do:

• A customer wrote in April 2025 that EE roaming in China “is all tunnelled through the UK”. They said that in February 2025 they found no blocked pages and didn’t need a VPN.
• A customer on a Full Works plan wrote in May 2026 that “all apps worked fine” on a Chinese network without a VPN.
• A customer wrote in September 2026 that it “worked perfectly” on 5G but not on local Wi-Fi.
• One customer wrote in August 2025 that on their last trip, WhatsApp, Google and Instagram were blocked without a VPN. They didn’t say when the trip was or which plan they had.

A forum member with the rank “EE Community Star”, not a member of EE’s support team, wrote in July 2025 that EE roaming data is “usually routed through EE’s core network in the UK”. BGR explained in July 2026 that a roaming phone sends its traffic back to the carrier’s home country before it goes online, which is what lets roaming phones reach Facebook and YouTube in China. BGR didn’t name EE.

None of these reports describes a test. Have a backup ready. Our WhatsApp in China page covers other ways to reach it.

Calls on EE in China

Two EE customers wrote on EE’s forum in 2025 that they couldn’t make or receive calls in China. One said data still worked. The other believed the cause is that EE has no roaming deal with Chinese networks for VoLTE calls. EE hasn’t confirmed this. A Full Works customer wrote in May 2026 that calls home worked.

When you still need a VPN

Roaming doesn’t help on Wi-Fi. The September 2026 report above says apps worked on 5G but not on local Wi-Fi. On hotel or café Wi-Fi in China, you need a VPN for blocked apps, whatever your phone plan. EE’s own travel checklist advises avoiding public networks unless you use a VPN. A VPN is also your fallback if EE roaming data doesn’t get past the firewall for you. Install and test one before you leave the UK. See eSIM or VPN for China and VPN for hotel Wi-Fi in China.

Cost compared with travel eSIMs

Extra cost for data in China for one person, checked Oct 9, 2026, on each provider’s site:

Option	Data in China	7 days	15 days
EE Zone 1 passes	Your UK allowance	£30	£66
EE Full Works plan	Your UK allowance, up to 50GB	Included	Included
Airalo	Unlimited	£21.50	£38.50
Holafly	Unlimited	£22.00	£42.00

• 7 days: one 7-day Zone 1 Pass costs £30. Unlimited data on Airalo costs £8.50 less, and Holafly £8.00 less.
• 15 days: two 7-day passes and one 24-hour pass cost £66. Airalo costs £38.50 and Holafly £42.00.
• Full Works: if your plan includes Zone 1 roaming, a travel eSIM adds cost rather than saving it.

The EE passes include calls and texts. The eSIMs are data only. Speed limits on unlimited eSIM plans, and how each one routes data, are on our eSIM comparison.