Vodafone Australia charges for international calls in one of three ways: nothing extra if your country is in your plan's Zone 1 or Zone 2 inclusions, a per-minute rate from your prepaid credit (A$0.03 a minute to India, A$0.08 to the UK), or a postpaid pay-as-you-go rate of A$0.10 to A$0.50 a minute to popular countries plus a 28c connection fee. You only need an add-on if your plan has no inclusions and you call a lot, or if you call a country that Vodafone charges heavily for.

All prices below are Vodafone's own figures, as of October 2026. Your price depends on three things: whether you are prepaid or on a plan, when you signed up, and which zone the country is in. Work through them in that order.

Step 1: is your country in Zone 1 or Zone 2?

Vodafone groups countries into two zones for its included minutes. Both apply only to standard calls made from Australia.

Zone 1 covers Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain (and the Canary Islands), Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the UK, the USA and the Vatican.

Zone 2 is a longer list of more than 50 countries. It includes the Philippines, Pakistan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Poland, France, Greece and Portugal.

Not on either list: Fiji, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, among many others. Calls there are always charged per minute. Vodafone keeps the full lists on its international calls page and says they "may change from time to time", so check before a long call.

Step 2: what your plan or recharge includes

You are on	Zone 1	Zone 2
Selected Infinite, Plus, SIM Only Plus and Business Flex plans	Unlimited standard minutes	Up to 300 standard minutes
A$35 Auto Recharge Only and A$40 Prepaid Plus	500 minutes	None
A$50 Prepaid Plus	Unlimited	100 minutes
A$60 Prepaid Plus	Unlimited	200 minutes
A$350 Prepaid Plus	6,000 minutes	1,200 minutes
Pay and Go, or a plan without inclusions	None	None

Prepaid inclusions on the 28-day recharges expire after 28 days or at your next recharge, whichever comes first. Calls are counted in per-minute increments, video calls and non-standard numbers are excluded, and Vodafone's Fair Use Policy applies (Vodafone does not publish a minute figure for it). Older or business plans can differ, so your plan's Critical Information Summary is the final word.

Once your Zone 2 minutes run out, or for a country outside both zones, you pay the per-minute rates in the next section.

Step 3: the per-minute rates Vodafone charges

Here is what Vodafone charges per minute to five common destinations. Prepaid rates come from Vodafone's prepaid international call rates page; plan rates are the pay-as-you-go rates for plans signed up from 2 May 2018, from its plan call rates page.

Country	Prepaid Plus (from My Credit)	Pay and Go	Plan pay as you go	Zone
India	A$0.03	A$0.03	A$0.10	1
United Kingdom	A$0.08	A$0.09	A$0.20	1
New Zealand	A$0.08	A$0.09	A$0.20	1
China	A$0.02	A$0.02	A$0.10	1
Philippines	A$0.21	A$0.21	A$0.50	2

Two things to know about the plan column. First, Vodafone adds a connection fee of A$0.28 to every pay-as-you-go call on plans from 2 May 2018. Second, if you signed up before that date, a different rate table applies, and some older plans skip the connection fee for "Selected Destinations". The prepaid page does not list a connection fee.

Those prepaid rates are low. If you are on Prepaid Plus and run out of included minutes, calling India or China from your credit costs a few cents a minute.

The add-ons, by their exact names

For plan customers

Vodafone sells two monthly add-ons for postpaid plans, both A$10, managed in My Vodafone. Details are on its international talk add-ons page.

A$10 Unlimited Zone 1 International Talk Add-on. Unlimited standard calls to the Zone 1 countries. This is the one to get if your plan has no inclusions and you call India, the UK, China or New Zealand often.
A$10 International Value Pack Add-on. You get A$10 of call credit and lower per-minute rates for every country. Examples: India drops from A$0.10 to A$0.05, the UK from A$0.20 to A$0.06, New Zealand from A$0.20 to A$0.07, China from A$0.10 to A$0.06 and the Philippines from A$0.50 to A$0.196. Once the A$10 credit is used, further calls bill at those discounted rates on top of your plan.

Vodafone also sells International Talk Boosters: one-off packs of extra Zone 1 and Zone 2 minutes that expire at the end of your billing month. The support page does not print Booster prices, so check them in My Vodafone.

If you still have the legacy A$10 International Call Add-on (120 minutes) or the A$5 International Access Pack, you can move to the Value Pack but you cannot switch back later.

For prepaid customers

Prepaid customers get Prepaid International Call Add-ons such as the "7 day 50 Destinations Add-on" and the "28 day 10 Destinations Add-on". The destination list includes India, China, the UK, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan and Nigeria. Buy them in My Vodafone, through Express Recharge, or by text message using a saved card or My Credit. Vodafone's prepaid add-on page does not show prices or minute counts, so read them on the purchase screen before you pay.

What a 10-minute call costs

10-minute call to	Vodafone plan, pay as you go	With the A$10 Value Pack rate	Vodafone Prepaid Plus credit	BoraPhone
India	A$1.28	A$0.50	A$0.30	US$1.11 (mobile or landline)
UK	A$2.28	A$0.60	A$0.80	US$0.40 landline, US$0.70 mobile
New Zealand	A$2.28	A$0.70	A$0.80	US$0.70 landline, US$1.90 mobile
China	A$1.28	A$0.60	A$0.20	US$7.20 landline, US$7.60 mobile
Philippines	A$5.28	A$1.96	A$2.10	US$4.61 landline, US$6.50 mobile

The pay-as-you-go column includes the A$0.28 connection fee. The Value Pack column is the discounted rate times ten, before any connection fee, and assumes your A$10 credit is already spent. If your plan or recharge includes the country, the Vodafone cost is A$0 extra. BoraPhone prices are at the time of writing (October 2026), billed per minute.

Read the table this way: for these five countries, Vodafone's own options usually beat BoraPhone. China and the Philippines are much cheaper on a Vodafone recharge or Value Pack. If you call one Zone 1 country for hours every month, the A$10 Unlimited Zone 1 add-on, or a plan that already includes Zone 1, is the cheapest option you can buy, and you need nothing else.

A worked example: a plan customer with no inclusions who makes four 20-minute calls to India a month pays 4 x (20 x A$0.10 + A$0.28) = A$9.12 at pay-as-you-go rates. The A$10 Unlimited Zone 1 add-on costs about the same and covers every extra minute, so it wins as soon as you call more than that.

Where Vodafone gets expensive

The gaps are countries outside the zones, and plans without inclusions calling Zone 2:

Per minute to	Vodafone plan, pay as you go	Vodafone Prepaid Plus	BoraPhone (landline / mobile)
Croatia	A$1.50 + 28c per call	A$0.80	US$0.07 / US$0.21
Portugal (no Zone 2 minutes)	A$1.30 + 28c per call	A$0.08	US$0.04 / US$0.11
Austria (no Zone 2 minutes)	A$1.00 + 28c per call	A$0.08	US$0.04 / US$0.11

Notice that Vodafone's prepaid credit stays cheap for much of Western Europe. The expensive cases are postpaid pay as you go, where the per-minute rate plus the 28c fee adds up fast, and countries such as Croatia that sit outside both zones on every Vodafone service.

This is where a pay-per-minute service earns its place. BoraPhone runs in a web browser, so you can call a landline or mobile in 180+ countries from your laptop or phone without changing your Vodafone service. You top up from US$5, the rate shows before you dial, there is no subscription, and your first call is free. It also suits occasional callers who would rather not pay A$10 a month for an add-on they use twice. Check the live price for your country on the rates page before you decide.

Adding or removing a Vodafone add-on

Vodafone says the best way to get or remove an international add-on or Booster is through My Vodafone (the app or the website). Prepaid customers can also use Express Recharge or a text-message code.

Plan add-ons are billed one month in advance, so your first bill after adding one shows two charges: one for the current period and one for next month. When you remove an add-on, it stays active until the end of the current billing period, so you can keep using it until then. Prepaid add-ons simply expire after their 7 or 28 days. To keep unused minutes, buy the same add-on with the same expiry before the old one runs out, and the leftover minutes roll into it.

Calling from Australia is not the same as calling while overseas

Everything above applies to calls you make while you are in Australia. Zone 1 and Zone 2 inclusions are described as minutes "from Australia".

When you travel, roaming takes over. On eligible plans, Vodafone's $5 Roaming costs A$5 extra a day in more than 100 destinations and lets you use your plan's calls, texts and data there, for up to 90 days per calendar year. You pay it only on days you use your plan overseas, and it switches on automatically when your "International roaming network" setting is on in My Vodafone. Prepaid customers buy roaming add-ons instead: A$5 for 1 day, A$15 for 3 days or A$35 for 7 days (as of October 2026). Vodafone says international talk add-ons work with $5 Roaming but not with pay-as-you-go roaming.

If you only need a couple of calls while away, a browser call over hotel WiFi avoids the daily roaming charge altogether.

How to dial overseas from a Vodafone mobile

Press and hold 0 until the + appears, then type the country code and the number without its leading 0. For a London number 020 1234 5678, dial +44 20 1234 5678. You can also use the Australian exit code 0011 instead of +. Vodafone's own dialling guide gives the same rule, and our guide on how to make international calls from Australia has country codes for the 15 most-called countries.

If you are comparing carriers, see what Optus includes and our side-by-side of every Australian plan with international calls. For prepaid cards, read our guide to phone cards in Australia.

Frequently asked questions

How many international minutes does Vodafone include?

Selected Infinite, Plus and SIM Only Plus plans include unlimited standard minutes to Zone 1 and up to 300 to Zone 2. On prepaid, the A$35 and A$40 recharges include 500 Zone 1 minutes, the A$50 and A$60 recharges are unlimited to Zone 1 with 100 or 200 Zone 2 minutes, and the A$350 recharge includes 6,000 Zone 1 and 1,200 Zone 2 minutes (as of October 2026).

How do I make an international call on Vodafone?

Dial + (hold the 0 key) or 0011, then the country code, then the number without its first 0. For example, +64 9 123 4567 calls an Auckland landline. The call uses your included minutes if the country is in your zone, otherwise your credit or pay-as-you-go rate.

Does Vodafone charge a connection fee on international calls?

On postpaid plans signed up from 2 May 2018, yes: A$0.28 per call at pay-as-you-go rates. Vodafone ties the fee to its pay-as-you-go rates, not to calls covered by your included Zone 1 or Zone 2 minutes. The prepaid rate page does not list a connection fee.

Can I use my Zone 1 minutes while I am overseas?

The inclusions are for calls made from Australia. Overseas, your calls are covered by $5 Roaming (A$5 a day on eligible plans) or by Vodafone's roaming rates and add-ons. Turn on roaming in My Vodafone before you leave if you plan to use your mobile network abroad.

International Calls on Vodafone Australia: Rates, Zones and Add-ons