Without a bolt-on, O2 Pay Monthly charges £4.10 a minute to call most countries outside Europe from the UK, and 23p a minute to Ireland and EU countries (as of October 2026). The O2 International Bolt On costs £3 a month and brings many of those calls down to between 1p and 6p a minute. If you are on Pay Monthly and ring another country more than once or twice a month, add it before your next call.

Below are the standard rates, the bolt-on rates for the countries people call most, what a real 10-minute call costs each way, and how to add or remove the bolt-on.

What O2 charges to call abroad without a bolt-on

If you have no international product on your account, O2 bills standard international rates. These are the per-minute prices O2 lists for calls made from the UK, as of October 2026:

Where you are calling	Pay Monthly	Pay As You Go
Ireland	£0.23 a minute	£0.195 a minute
EU countries (including Poland, France, Spain)	£0.23 a minute	£0.195 a minute
Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey	£0.65 a minute	£0.55 a minute
All other countries (USA, India, Pakistan, Nigeria and so on)	£4.10 a minute	£1.50 a minute

That bottom row is the one that hurts. A 15-minute call to family in Lahore or Lagos on Pay Monthly with no bolt-on is £61.50. Pay As You Go is cheaper at £1.50 a minute, but still far more than it needs to be.

Pay As You Go customers with an active £15, £20 or £30 Big Bundle or Rolling plan do not pay these standard rates, because those bundles come with discounted international calls. If the bundle runs out, the standard rates apply again.

The O2 International Bolt On explained

The International Bolt On is O2's add-on for calling other countries from the UK. Here is what you get, as of October 2026:

Price: £3 a month, on any O2 Pay Monthly tariff. It is not part of your Spend Cap.
Rates: from 1p a minute to landlines and mobiles in over 200 countries, and from 6p a text.
Billing: calls are charged by the minute and rounded up to the next full minute, so a 4-minute 10-second call is billed as 5 minutes. Each call charge is then rounded up to the next penny.
Renewal: it renews every month until you remove it.
Not covered: international premium rate numbers, some satellite numbers and countries, video calls, and picture messages.
Limits: O2's bolt-on terms set no monthly minute allowance or cap. You pay the discounted rate for every minute, so there is nothing to run out of.

In short, this is a discount, not a bundle of free minutes. Every call still costs something, just much less.

Pay As You Go customers have a separate product, the International Monthly Bolt On, which is £2 a month and gives discounted calls from 1p a minute and texts from 30p, according to O2's international calling page.

Bolt-on rates for the countries people call most

O2's own rate checker on the bolt-on page shows a separate price for landlines and mobiles in each country. These are the Pay Monthly International Bolt On rates for a selection of popular destinations, as of October 2026:

Country	Landline per minute	Mobile per minute
India	4p	4p
Pakistan	6p	6p
Bangladesh	4p	5p
Poland	1.5p	5p
Ireland	1p	5p
USA	5p	5p
Canada	5p	5p
Australia	2p	12p
Philippines	11p	15p
Nigeria	15p	19p
Ghana	28p	28p
Jamaica	25p	25p

Western Europe, North America and South Asia are very cheap. Much of Africa and the Caribbean costs more, and a few destinations are expensive even with the bolt-on: Cuba is 80p a minute, the Maldives 90p and Cameroon landlines 70p. Mobiles often cost more than landlines, so check which one you are dialling.

What a 10-minute call actually costs

Here is the same 10-minute call priced three ways. The O2 figures are Pay Monthly prices as of October 2026. The bolt-on column shows the call cost only; the £3 monthly fee comes on top. The last column is in US dollars at the time of writing (October 2026), and each country links to its live rate page.

10-minute call to	O2 standard (no bolt-on)	O2 with International Bolt On	BoraPhone (landline / mobile)
India	£41.00	40p	$1.11 / $1.11
Pakistan	£41.00	60p	$3.50 / $4.00
Poland	£2.30	15p landline, 50p mobile	$0.70 / $1.60
USA	£41.00	50p	from $0.40
Nigeria	£41.00	£1.50 landline, £1.90 mobile	$5.10 / $5.20
Ireland	£2.30	10p landline, 50p mobile	$1.11 / $2.10

If you are an O2 Pay Monthly customer, the International Bolt On is the cheapest option in this table for every country, and by a wide margin for India, Pakistan and Nigeria. Even with the £3 fee added, one 10-minute call to Pakistan costs £3.60 in its first month, and every call after that adds just 60p.

A worked month: an hour a week to family in Pakistan is about 260 minutes. On the bolt-on that is £15.60 in calls plus the £3 fee, so £18.60. With no bolt-on, the same minutes at £4.10 would cost £1,066.

That standard column is the real warning. Forgetting to add the bolt-on before a long call to anywhere outside Europe turns a 40p call into a £41 one.

How to add or remove the International Bolt On

Adding it on Pay Monthly

Sign in to My O2 online or in the My O2 app.
Go to your Bolt Ons and choose the International Bolt On.
Confirm. The discounted rates then apply to calls you make from the UK.

You can also call 2202 from your O2 phone, which is free, and add it over the phone.

Adding it on Pay As You Go

Sign in to My O2, text MONTHLYINT to 21300, or call 2202. All three are free from an O2 phone. This adds the £2 International Monthly Bolt On.

Removing it

The bolt-on keeps renewing until you remove it. To cancel on Pay Monthly, call 2202 free or remove it in My O2. O2's terms ask for 30 days' notice, but also say the bolt-on is taken off your account within 24 hours of cancelling and the monthly charge is pro-rated. If you only add it for one big month of calls, set a reminder to cancel it, or it will keep billing £3 a month.

Calling abroad from the UK is not the same as using your phone abroad

People mix these up all the time, and they are billed completely differently.

The International Bolt On only covers calls you make while you are in the UK. O2 says its rates apply to calls made from the UK. Calls you make while you are abroad are roaming calls and are billed under your roaming terms instead.

When you are travelling:

In O2's Europe Zone, roaming is included in Pay Monthly tariffs, so your UK minutes and texts work as they do at home, within O2's fair use policy. O2 says its Pay As You Go SIMs include EU roaming too, depending on the destination.
Outside Europe, Pay Monthly customers can use the O2 Travel Bolt On, which costs £7 a day (only on days you use your phone) in 75 destinations including the USA and Australia. Pay As You Go customers cannot get O2 Travel and pay standard roaming rates instead.

When the bolt-on is not the right tool

The International Bolt On is excellent value for regular callers on O2. It is less useful in a few situations:

You make one international call a year. You would pay £3 a month for a single call, then have to remember to cancel.
You are abroad. The bolt-on stops working the moment you leave the UK.
You are calling from a laptop or a work phone, or you are not an O2 customer at all. A bank, hotel or government office abroad is often easier to ring from your desk.

For those cases, BoraPhone lets you call landlines and mobiles in over 180 countries from a web browser on any device, with pay-as-you-go credit from $5, no subscription and no app. Billing is per minute, the rate is shown before every call, and your first call is free. It is cheap to the USA, Western Europe and Australia. It is not cheaper than O2's bolt-on for regular calls from an O2 phone, and it is expensive to places such as Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and the Maldives, so for those the bolt-on is the better deal.

If you are weighing up other UK networks or ways to pay, see our guides to EE international calls, Vodafone international calls, the best SIM for international calls in the UK and phone cards for international calls.

Frequently asked questions

What is an O2 International Bolt On?

It is a £3 a month add-on for O2 Pay Monthly customers that lowers the price of calls and texts from the UK to other countries. Rates start at 1p a minute and 6p a text, and they differ by country and by whether you call a landline or a mobile. Pay As You Go customers have a similar £2 International Monthly Bolt On.

How much is the O2 International Bolt On?

It costs £3 a month on Pay Monthly as of October 2026, on top of your normal bill. You then pay the discounted per-minute rate for each call, for example 4p a minute to India or 5p a minute to the USA. The Pay As You Go version costs £2 a month.

How do I add the international bolt on with O2?

Sign in to My O2 online or in the app and add it from the Bolt Ons section, or call 2202 free from your O2 phone. On Pay As You Go you can also text MONTHLYINT to 21300. Add it before you make the call, because calls made before it is active are charged at standard rates.

Is international roaming free on O2?

Roaming in O2's Europe Zone is included in Pay Monthly tariffs, so your UK minutes, texts and data work there within O2's limits. Outside Europe it is not free: Pay Monthly customers can add O2 Travel at £7 a day in 75 destinations, and other usage is charged at roaming rates. The International Bolt On does not cover any calls you make while abroad.

Does the O2 International Bolt On include data?

No. It only discounts calls and texts from the UK to other countries. Data abroad is covered by your Europe Zone allowance, O2 Travel or O2's data roaming bolt-ons, which are separate products.

O2 International Bolt On: Prices, Rates and How to Add It