Best SIM option for UK and Italy?

My partner is Italian and we live in the UK. We frequently travel to Italy. We'd like to have a phone that we can use to call Italy affordably from the UK, and use in Italy to contact both Italian number and UK numbers.

Is there a UK or Italian (or international) SIM or deal that we could take advantage of for this? Is the best idea to just have two and take good care of them?

uk cellphones italy

Best Answer

Option #1: Three using their Feel At Home special deal available on all their price plans. As both the UK and Italy are covered, with a UK sim, you can use your bundles of minutes / texts / data for no additional charge when in Italy (amongst other countries).

UK calling UK = normal prices / free with bundle
Italy calling UK = free with bundle / add-on
Italy calling Italy = free with bundle / add-on
UK calling Italy = 46p/minute without an add-on

Option #2: EE 4GEE which comes with free texts and calls roaming anywhere in the EU, but isn't available on pay-as-you-go:

UK calling UK - free with bundle
Italy calling UK - free
Italy calling Italy - free
Italy calling anywhere else in Europe - free
UK calling Italy - 5p/minute landlines, 20p/minute mobiles

Option #3 - Get any sim from any non-UK non-Italy EU country, and pay the quite low EU-capped roaming rates everywhere! With the EU caps it's currently a maximum of €0.05/minute above your domestic rates, so with a cheap package from elsewhere in the EU roaming can be cheap!