Optus Overseas Roaming Explained

November 16, 2025

Heading off on an overseas adventure and want to stay connected? This guide will answer your key questions on Optus international roaming, including the kicker:

"How much is it going to cost me?"

How much will it cost?
How much data will I get?
Can I make calls and send texts?
How do I turn it on?
Alternatives
What's my Plan?
Coverage & Supported Countries
Useful Links

How much will it cost?

Optus offers daily roaming in eligible countries, and their offering is pretty complex. How much it'll cost depends which plan you're on:

If you're on a Choice Plus plan, it'll cost you $5 per day to use Optus Daily Roaming (5GB of data, unlimited calls and texts)
If you're on another postpaid plan, it'll cost you $10 per day to get a $10 Optus Roaming Pass (1GB of data, unlimited calls and texts)
Otherwise you might have to opt for Standard Roaming Rates. $1/MB (yikes) of data, pay per minute for calls and texts, depending on destination country

(What's my Plan?)

How much data will I get?

Depends on your plan:

If you're on a Choice Plus plan, you'll get 5GB of data per day
If you're on another postpaid plan you'll get 1GB of data per days
Otherwise, $1 per MB of data

(What's my Plan?)

Can I make calls and send texts?

Yes, you can.

You get "unlimited standard talk and text" on with Optus Daily Roaming on a Choice Plus.
On a $10 Optus Roaming Pass (on other eligible postpaid plans), you get "unlimited national talk and text for 24 hours".
Otherwise, you'll pay per minute and per text on Standard Roaming Rates ($1.50 per minute, $0.50 per text).

How do I turn it on?

Optus Daily Roaming and $10 Roaming Pass is automatically activated when you land in your destination, unless you turn it off in the My Optus app.

Alternatives

If you're reading the above and saying "wow that's so many dollars I could be spending on ramen in Japan 🇯🇵", then there is another option for you that's a little friendlier on the wallet.

RoamMate offers travel eSIMs for your overseas adventures. They're data only packages and they're much more cost effective than Optus's offering. No calls or texts, but you can still use services like WhatsApp, Instagram and Google Maps which use a data connection.

For example (assuming you were on an Optus Choice plan) for your 3 week ramen tour of Japan you could grab our Japan 10GB 30 Days eSIM instead of paying for Optus roaming:

	Optus	RoamMate
Keeping in touch	Yes, calls and texts over cell network	Yes, using apps that work over data (iMessage, Facetime, WhatsApp etc)
Data allowance	105* GB total (*5 GB per day, does not roll over)	10 GB total, used over your trip
Price	$105 🤯❌	$23 ✅

That's an $83 difference. Sure, you get more data from Optus, but in order to take advantage you need to be burning 5 GB per day, rather than enjoying Tokyo's culture. Our eSIMs allow you to maximise your spend on experiences, not data. Check out our eSIMs here.

What's my Plan?

You can figure out what plan you're on with the MyOptus app.

Coverage & Supported Countries

Optus has two buckets for countries - Zone 1 and Zone 2. In Zone 1 you'll get access to Optus Daily Roaming and $10 Optus Roaming Pass. In Zone 2 you'll be paying standard roaming rates per MB.

Zone 1 covers popular destinations like: