By Lisa Salter
Montreal travel advisor · Updated August 4, 2026
Telus charges for international roaming through Easy Roam, a daily fee that lets your Canadian plan travel with you. It is a reasonable product for short trips and an expensive one for long trips, and the rate went up in 2026 without most customers registering the change.
What Easy Roam costs now
Easy Roam runs at $16 per day as of 2026, having been increased earlier in the year. Telus also sells multi-day passes — a seven-day international pass around the $40 mark — which work out cheaper per day than the daily rate if your trip fits the window.
The increase is worth knowing about because it happened quietly. If your mental model of what roaming costs was formed a couple of years ago, it is out of date, and the arithmetic below is probably worse than you remember.
What that adds up to
| Trip length | At $16 per day |
|---|---|
| Weekend (2 days) | $32 |
| One week | $112 |
| Two weeks | $224 |
| Three weeks | $336 |
| Snowbird month | $480 |
Check the multi-day passes against your actual dates before defaulting to the daily rate — if you are away for seven days, a seven-day pass is meaningfully cheaper than seven daily charges, and Telus does not apply it for you automatically.
When Easy Roam is the right choice
For a weekend, it is genuinely good. Thirty-two dollars for two days of your normal plan working normally, with no setup and no second profile, is a fair trade for most people. Nothing to install, nothing to learn.
It is also right when you need your Canadian number to ring for incoming calls throughout a trip, and when you would simply rather not think about it. Those are legitimate reasons and they are worth money.
When it stops making sense
Around the four-to-seven day mark, depending on whether a pass fits your dates. Past that, a travel eSIM is one fixed price for the whole trip and the gap widens every additional day. At a month, you are comparing $480 against a data plan costing a fraction of it.
The two are not mutually exclusive. A travel eSIM handles data while your Telus line stays active for calls and texts on your own number, so verification codes and calls from home still reach you.
Avoiding charges you did not intend
Easy Roam triggers on use, and background activity counts as use. Turn data roaming off in settings if you have decided not to use it, because a two-minute map check costs a full day.
Two traps are worth naming. Near the border, your phone can latch onto a US tower while you are still in Canada. And on a cruise ship, the onboard satellite network is not Easy Roam and is billed at considerably worse rates — put the phone in airplane mode and use Wi-Fi at sea.
What to do instead on a longer trip
A travel eSIM installs at home before you fly and activates when you land, at a fixed price with no daily counter running. You keep your number for calls and texts.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Telus Easy Roam cost per day?
$16 per day as of 2026, following an increase earlier in the year. Multi-day passes, including a seven-day international pass around $40, work out cheaper per day when your trip fits the window.
Did Telus raise its roaming rates?
Yes — rates went up in 2026 with little fanfare, so if your sense of what roaming costs is a couple of years old, it is out of date.
Is a travel eSIM cheaper than Easy Roam?
Beyond roughly four to seven days, almost always. For a short weekend the daily rate is competitive and simpler. The longer the trip, the wider the gap.
Will I keep my Telus number with a travel eSIM?
Yes. The eSIM carries data while your Telus line stays active for calls and texts on your usual number.