Safaricom’s International Roaming Rates

Safaricom roaming services are charged separately from the services provided locally when in Kenya.

Therefore, any existing minutes, data and SMS bundles one has prior to roaming cannot be used while roaming abroad. The same applies for products redeemed from Bonga Points and Tunukiwa offers.

The roaming charges are typically expensive and tend to vary depending on the visited network (e.g. AT & T calling rates will be different from those of T-Mobile when roaming in the US).

The Safaricom rates can be categorized into two plans:

• Safaricom Roaming Tariffs
• Safaricom Roaming Bundles

The availability of the roaming bundles will however depend on country.

Safaricom Roaming Tariff

The Safaricom roaming tariff covers rates for the following services:

• Calls within the roaming country
• Calls to Kenya
• Calls to other countries
• Calls to satellite networks
• Receiving voice calls
• SMS
• Data

The roaming customer is charged for receiving calls, as all calls have to be first transferred to Kenya.

This is however NOT a reverse call since the callers will likewise be charged depending on whether they are calling from within the visited country or the home country.

Callers from the home country (i.e. Kenya) are charged the normal rates since the roaming customer is charged the international part for receiving the call.

Callers within the visited country are on the other hand charged international call rates for calling the roaming customer.

Take note that the correct mobile and telephone number formats should be dialled to ensure calls are successful while roaming. You can find out more on how to do this on using roaming with Safaricom.

How to Check Safaricom Roaming Tariff Rates

To check the roaming rates, go to Safaricom’s roaming site and click on the International Calling Rates button.

Next choose the country you want to check the rates for and the results will be displayed.

Note: The new Safaricom roaming site only displays the calling rate. The screenshot has been updated to reflect this.

Safaricom Roaming Bundles

Safaricom provides three roaming bundles that include:

• East Africa (EA) Roaming Bundles
• Vodafone / Vodacom Roaming Bundle
• Data Roaming Bundles

These bundles can be purchased by dialling *100# and then navigating to Products & Services > Roaming > Purchase Roaming Bundles or via mySafaricom App by going to Services > Roaming Services

1. East Africa (EA) Roaming Bundles

The EA Roaming Bundles allow Safaricom prepaid and postpaid customers roaming in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda to call and receive calls, send and receive SMS and use Data at subsidized rates.

These bundles are however only applicable when calling and texting Safaricom customers in Kenya and subscribers of the partner networks in the participating countries. The partner networks include:

• Uganda Telcom Network (UTL)
• MTN Uganda
• Vodacom Tanzania Network
• MTN Rwanda

The EA Roaming Bundles are available in the following categories:

• Voice Bundles
• SMS Bundles
• Internet Data Bundles
• Receiving Calls Bundles

The individual bundles and their pricing is as follows:

2. Vodafone / Vodacom Roaming Bundle

This roaming bundle is only valid in some select countries where the partner network is Vodafone or Vodacom e.g. Ghana, DRC, South Africa. There is currently only one bundle in this package:

3. Safaricom Data Roaming Bundles

Normally data is charged on the airtime per MB, however Safaricom does offer Data Roaming Bundles which can be used in select countries while on particular partner networks.

When purchasing this bundle via USSD, you’ll be prompted to enter the country where you intend to use the roaming bundles. You’ll not be able to complete the purchase if it happens the country you entered is not amongst the select countries.

The bundles are as follows:

Note: The above roaming bundles take precedence over the EA Bundles and Vodafone / Vodacom Bundle if both are subscribed to at the same time.