The Cost of a Mobile Phone

If you will only be staying in Germany for a short period of time, or if you are unwilling to arrange for a landline to be installed, you may wish to find a mobile telephone deal instead. If you are calling friends and family who are not in Germany, you will find that telephone calls and text messages are very expensive. If you continue to use your foreign mobile phone provider you will also be required to pay when you receive a call. To avoid excessive charges, you will need to buy a SIM card from a German mobile phone provider. When you have a German SIM card you will also have a German phone number. It is no longer expensive to call other German mobiles and landlines, but it may still be expensive to call home. If friends and family call you, you will not have to pay to receive the call.

If you are staying in Germany temporarily, you may find that a pay-as-you-go SIM card offers you the best deal: you load the card with money and are then able to make telephone calls and send text messages until this credit has been used up. People are still able to text and call you, even if you have no credit. You will have to pay for the pay-as-you-go SIM card and any additional credit you need, but you will not have to pay a monthly fee. Pay-as-you-go SIM cards are available from all major German telephone providers and from several supermarket chains.