Using Your Phone in the US and Abroad: Roaming Add-Ons, eSIMs and Wi-Fi Calling

A winter trip to the US, or a snowbird stay that lasts the season, is when a Canadian phone bill stops looking like the plan you signed. Roaming means the phone is on another provider's network. The CRTC's roaming page, checked 29 Sep 2026, uses a Hamilton-to-New-York drive as the picture: once you are in New York you are no longer on your Canadian provider's network. Domestic roaming is inside Canada. International roaming is outside Canada. This page is the international case, plus the border, plus a long stay. It does not rank a carrier or an eSIM brand. Trip costs that are not the phone bill, including medical coverage, start on US trips from Canada and family travel medical insurance.

How roaming charges work

On the CRTC roaming page, international roaming fees apply when you use the phone outside Canada. That includes calls you make and texts you send or receive, and data you use while you are not on Wi-Fi. Roaming charges are typically separate from the everyday plan. Most plans, the page says, include Canada-wide calling and texting, so a drive inside Canada is not the same bill as a drive across the border. Data inside Canada but outside your local area can still be billed. Check the plan.

Accidental roaming is a border problem. The same page says a phone near the US border can attach to a US network. You can select your provider's network manually in settings. Apps can send data while the screen is off, so leaving the phone on is enough to create a data-roaming charge. Turn data roaming off if you do not intend to use foreign networks. Airplane mode blocks cellular data, calls, and texts, and still allows Wi-Fi. The page's steps differ for iPhone and Android. If you cannot find the switch, ask the provider rather than guessing.

The dollar cap is on the same page: under the Wireless Code, service providers cannot charge more than $100 for roaming per billing cycle unless you explicitly agree to pay more. They must notify you when you are roaming internationally. If the bill is still a surprise, contact the provider. The Wireless Code, simplified, checked 29 Sep 2026, places amended roaming text under a note that it comes into force on 13 April 2027, as amended by Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-67. That amended text says the provider must suspend national and international data roaming charges once they reach $100 in a single monthly billing cycle, unless the account holder or authorized user expressly consents to more. It says the cap includes daily fixed-rate options and plans that let you use the device abroad the way you do at home, that the cap is free, that it applies per account, and that both add-ons bought before you travel and overage after you travel count toward it. The June 2017 CRTC release already described a $100 roaming cap and a $50 data-overage cap, per account, with the account holder consenting by default. Read the current page before a trip. Do not treat the 2027 wording as if every sentence of it were already the only text.

The same simplified Code says the provider must notify you, at no charge, when the device's data usage reaches $50, which it calls half of the roaming charge cap. That notification sits in the section marked as coming into force on 13 April 2027. The roaming page's $100 statement does not carry that date. Check crtc.gc.ca for the wording that applies on your billing date.

Daily add-ons vs travel plans

Carriers sell roaming in more than one shape. A daily add-on bills each day you use the foreign network. A travel pass or travel plan covers a block of days or a block of data. A US-and-Canada plan builds the US into the monthly price so a cross-border week is not an add-on at all. Which one fits depends on how many days you will actually use the phone, not on a ranking of brands. This page does not quote live add-on prices. Check the carrier.

A daily add-on is easy to turn on and easy to forget. Ten days and ninety days are not the same product even at the same daily rate. The made-up chart later in this guide is that point, with invented dollars. A pass that looks expensive for a weekend can be the smaller number for a month. Write the number of days before you compare.

Ask the carrier, and write the answers down. Which countries are included? Does the day start at midnight in which time zone? Does a day you do not use still count? Do calls back to Canada count as roaming minutes? Does the add-on count toward the $100 cap the roaming page describes? The simplified Code's 2027 text says daily options count toward the cap. Confirm how your provider applies that today.

Travel eSIMs and unlocked phones

The roaming page lists another path: buy a local SIM, a digital SIM (eSIM), or a prepaid plan from a provider in the country you are visiting, and compare that with your Canadian provider's roaming plans. An eSIM is a digital SIM. It does not use the physical card you already have, which is why people use one to keep a Canadian number in the original SIM while data runs on the travel profile. Whether your phone can hold two lines at once is a device question. Check the manufacturer.

Another provider's SIM or eSIM needs a phone that is not locked to your Canadian carrier. The CRTC news release of 15 June 2017, checked 29 Sep 2026, says that as of 1 December 2017, customers can have a device unlocked free of charge on request, and all newly purchased devices must be provided unlocked. The Wireless Code, simplified, says any device provided for wireless service must be provided unlocked, and if a device is locked the provider must unlock it, or give you the means to unlock it, on request, at no charge. Confirm the phone is unlocked before you pay for an eSIM. A phone you are still financing can still be unlocked. Financing rules are on outright versus carrier financing.

A Commission letter of 28 November 2025 to Bell, checked 29 Sep 2026, says section F.1 of the Code requires devices to be provided unlocked, and cites paragraph 306 of Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2017-200 for unlocking at or before the time of sale. The letter directs Bell to stop selling locked phones and to unlock, free of charge, phones still locked because of a practice of locking them for up to 60 days. That letter is about that practice. It is not a catalogue of eSIM brands. If your phone is still locked, ask your provider to unlock it at no charge and keep the request.

Travel eSIM offer types are one way to buy foreign data. An offer type is not a brand ranking, and a checkout page in US dollars is not a Canadian tax receipt. Compare the total you will pay for the days you need with the carrier add-on for the same days, after you have checked both pages. No brand is named here.

Wi-Fi calling

Wi-Fi is the roaming page's way to use the phone without foreign data: turn data roaming off, or use airplane mode and turn Wi-Fi back on. With data roaming off, the page says you can still call and text, and that extra charges apply if your plan does not include calling and texting while travelling. Wi-Fi calling, the feature that places a call through a Wi-Fi network using your Canadian number, is a carrier feature on top of that. This page does not quote a price for it abroad, and it does not say it is free. Check the carrier's page for whether those calls are treated as home usage or as roaming, and for whether the feature works outside Canada at all.

Hotel and café Wi-Fi is a network you do not control. Get Cyber Safe, checked 29 Sep 2026, lists public Wi-Fi among the connections it wants households to think about. Prefer a network you trust for banking and for account passwords. A messaging app on Wi-Fi can cover "we landed" without opening data roaming. It does not replace a working phone number if the hotel network is down.

Snowbird stays

A ten-day trip and a three-month stay should not share a daily add-on without the multiplication written out. Snowbirds also care about keeping a Canadian number for banks, clinics, and family. Staying on a Canadian plan, using Wi-Fi calling if the carrier supports it abroad, or parking the number in a way your provider allows are carrier-specific. Check the carrier before you leave. This page does not say every snowbird can keep a Canadian number on every plan, and it does not say a US plan replaces provincial health coverage. Medical insurance for the people travelling is the travel medical guide. Teens on the same trip add their own data habits: travel with teens.

A long stay can also cross billing cycles. The $100 figure on the roaming page is per billing cycle, not per trip. Three cycles are three caps, and only if you have not consented to more. A daily add-on you leave on for ninety days is the chart, not the cap. If you consent to charges past the cap, the cap is no longer the ceiling. Read the consent text before you tap it.

Households that already bundle mobile with home internet should see whether the mobile line's roaming is priced inside the bundle or on top of it. That bundle question is mobile and home internet bundles. A home discount does not cap a US data bill.

Checklist

Do this before you leave, not from the airport Wi-Fi after the first roaming text.

Example with made-up inputs. A daily add-on at $15 a day is $150 over 10 days and $1,350 over 90 days. A travel eSIM at $6 a day is $60 and $540. Wi-Fi only is $0 on the phone bill in both columns, if data roaming stays off and calls are not billed. None of these rates was taken from a carrier page. The $100 cap is not applied inside the chart, so you can see the raw multiplication. On a real bill, consenting past the cap is what lets a daily add-on keep climbing.