The True Cost of SoftBank 海外あんしん定額 in Europe (2026) vs. Lotsotravel eSIM

Fourteen days through Italy and France on SoftBank 海外あんしん定額 costs ¥13,720. The same fortnight on a Lotsotravel Europe eSIM is $8.95, roughly ¥1,400. That gap is the whole post, and the rest is the arithmetic plus the four pieces of SoftBank small print that decide which number you pay.

Start with what changed this year. On 2 June 2026 SoftBank revised 海外あんしん定額, and it got materially better. Data in 定額国L went from 3GB per 24 hours to unlimited per 24 hours, and the old 24-hour, 72-hour and 96-hour plans were replaced by any number of days from 1 to 31, chosen one day at a time. The price stayed at ¥980 a day. If you are reading a guide that quotes "3GB per 24 hours" or a 96-hour plan, you are reading the pre-June product.

So this is not a post about a carrier overcharging for Europe. SoftBank's European day rate undercuts both au's current ¥1,000 to ¥1,200 and the ¥2,980 ceiling on Docomo's 世界ギガし放題, and its billing clock rolls from when you start rather than following Japan's calendar day. The problem is the shape of the price, not the price. ¥980 a day never falls, so one SoftBank day in Paris ($6.23) costs more than our entire Europe 5GB / 10-day plan ($5.95).

The two price tags, side by side

What changed on 2 June 2026

SoftBank published the change as an attachment to its 10 April 2026 press release. 別紙2 carries the before-and-after table in two rows.

Two things follow from that table. The first is that a Japanese traveller planning a European trip on advice written before June is planning around a product that no longer exists: there is no 3GB ceiling to ration and no 96-hour block to fit an itinerary into. The second is that the price per day did not move, which is why the arithmetic below is unchanged by the revision. SoftBank made the day better. It did not make the day cheaper, and it did not make the tenth day cost less than the first.

Billing starts when you tap 利用を開始する on the site SoftBank's arrival SMS links to, and the plan cannot be cancelled after that. Today the full fee for the days you chose is billed in the month the plan starts, even if the trip runs into the next month. SoftBank says that from a date it will announce in or after December 2026 it will split the fee by 24-hour period, each billed to the month in which that period starts.

The same release created 海外データ放題, covered further down, and confirmed that 海外パケットし放題 will be retired on a date SoftBank will announce from December 2026 onward.

Europe is in the ¥980 band, and we checked rather than assumed

SoftBank's service page describes 定額国L coverage with an example list: Europe, "Germany, France, Italy, U.K., Finland, etc." Its English page adds that group L reaches "99% of popular overseas travel destinations" excluding the US. Neither tells you whether Türkiye, Iceland or Malta is in the ¥980 band, which matters, because SoftBank's English page warns that moving into a country in a different group stops your data rather than repricing it.

The real answer is machine-readable. SoftBank's 定額対象国・地域 page loads a provisioning spreadsheet, overseas.csv, with one row per destination and roaming partner and a column holding that partner's tier. The copy we parsed on 2026-10-31 is dated 2026年10月29日 in its header. Here is what is in it.

• Its 483 operator rows resolve to 231 country and territory entries, of which 201 carry at least one 定額国L operator. That is what SoftBank's "200以上の国と地域" headline refers to.
• 63 entries are filed under ヨーロッパ, a region SoftBank draws wide enough to include the Caucasus and Central Asia. 62 of them have an L operator. The sole exception is Turkmenistan, marked 未提供 (not provided).
• Of the rest, 11 entries are 定額国S, 5 are covered by アメリカ放題 instead of either group, 12 are not served at all, and 2 are the in-flight and on-board-ship entries. No entry carries both L and S.
• Every one of the 11 定額国S entries is outside Europe: the Bahamas, Belize, the Cook Islands, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, the Gambia, Iran, Lebanon, Micronesia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

All 33 countries on the Lotsotravel Europe plan are in the ¥980 band, on partners including Orange France and SFR, Vodafone Spain and Movistar, TIM and WINDTRE, EE and O2 UK, Swisscom and Salt, and TURKCELL and Türk Telekom for Türkiye. So there is no European itinerary on which 海外あんしん定額 prices below ¥980 a day, and none on which it refuses to work either. Both halves of that are useful to know before you fly.

What six real trips cost on each side

These are the five European itineraries we priced for au Kaigai Hodai, so the Japanese carriers stay comparable, plus SoftBank's 31-day maximum. Lotsotravel figures are live VIP prices, the price you pay through a link on this blog, on the Europe regional plan. SoftBank figures assume you are paying the daily rate, so you are not drawing on a 海外データ放題 allowance.

The eSIM is 84 to 90 percent cheaper on every row, and the dollar gap climbs with trip length because ¥980 has no ceiling of its own. There is no billing cap, no weekly rate, nothing that makes day 20 cost less than day one. Our 10GB Europe plan costs the same $8.95 at 10, 15 or 30 days of validity, so stretching a trip on the same data costs nothing extra.

The 31-day row is the one worth sitting with. SoftBank's own English page prints the top of its range as ¥30,380, which is the ceiling on a month abroad: about $193 to keep one phone online. A Europe 30GB / 30-day eSIM is $21.95, and a 60-day Europe unlimited plan at 1GB a day is $37.95.

Who gets those days free, and how many

The June revision came with a second product, 海外データ放題, which pays for your 海外あんしん定額 days instead of you. It is the most important thing to check on your own bill before you price anything above, and it comes in three very different sizes.

Four details decide what that is worth on a European trip.

The allowance is in days, and most of it is three or five of them. A 14-day trip on a 5-day allowance still bills nine days at ¥980, so ¥8,820, about $56. On a 3-day allowance it is ¥10,780, about $69. Both are cheaper than the full ¥13,720 and both are still six to eight times the eSIM.

Unused days do not carry over. SoftBank's page says any remaining allowance at the end of a billing month cannot be rolled into the next one. Two one-week trips in the same calendar month share one allowance; split across a month boundary, each gets its own. Until a date SoftBank will announce from December 2026, the 1ヵ月 variant also works by starting 定額国L days, up to 31 per billing month.

The unlimited month has its own fair-use rules, and they are stricter than the daily ones. On ペイトク2 and テイガク無制限, if your combined domestic and overseas data over the previous 30 days exceeds 300GB, speed is limited to a maximum of 4.5 Mbps. And if you use the service abroad on 35 or more of the last 60 days, speed drops to a maximum of 128 kbps. Like the 10GB daily throttle, SoftBank's page says both rules start from a date in spring 2027, and overseas usage is not counted toward the 300GB until then. That second rule is aimed squarely at people living abroad on a Japanese line, and it is worth reading before treating 海外データ放題（1ヵ月） as an open-ended arrangement.

It is still an opt-in product. Both 海外データ放題 and the daily plan require the 世界対応ケータイ option and enrolment in 海外あんしん定額, and the plan still has to be started once you land. Free days you never activated are free days you did not use.

On a 3-day or 5-day allowance, most of a two-week trip still bills at the daily rate in the table above.

The US is not in group L at all

One quirk that catches Japanese travellers routing through the States. The US mainland, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are not in 定額国L or 定額国S; in SoftBank's spreadsheet those five entries, across all 12 of their operator rows, read アメリカ放題. That service covers data, SMS and calls to Japan and within the US at no extra charge on an eligible plan. It is also why the 99% figure SoftBank's English page quotes for group L is calculated over its customers' trips outside the US.

Guam and Saipan are the other way round: SoftBank's own page says they are not covered by アメリカ放題 and points you at 海外あんしん定額 instead.

So a Tokyo → New York → London itinerary runs on three different billing regimes in one trip, and the London leg needs its own ¥980 days. A single Lotsotravel plan is a simpler way to think about a multi-region trip: Europe is one eSIM across 33 countries, and our Americas plans cover the USA, Canada and Mexico on one.

If you are a heavy data user

Daily headroom is where SoftBank's pass currently gives more than ours.

Until the spring 2027 throttle arrives, 定額国L is uncapped. Our Europe unlimited plans work differently: each gives a daily full-speed allowance that resets every day, then drops to 128 kbps until the next day. Europe 45GB Unlimited / 15 days is 3GB a day at full speed for $38.95; Europe 90GB Unlimited / 30 days is also 3GB a day, for $43.95.

Compare the two on the two things that matter separately.

Daily headroom. SoftBank gives you as much as you can use per 24 hours today, and 10GB before a 4.5 Mbps throttle once the restriction starts. Our highest Europe daily allowance is 3GB before 128 kbps. If you reliably push more than 3GB a day, SoftBank's day is the roomier one.

Total full-speed data over the trip. Fourteen days at 3GB a day is 42GB of full-speed data for $38.95 on a 45GB / 15-day unlimited plan. Fourteen days of SoftBank is ¥13,720, about $87, for more than that but at more than twice the price. On a 10GB fortnight, a $8.95 fixed plan covers it and the comparison is not close.

SoftBank is still the more expensive option on every itinerary in the table above, including for heavy users. What its pass currently buys over ours is daily headroom, not a lower price. So if you are a 5GB-a-day hotspot user travelling before spring 2027, size the plan deliberately and compare our unlimited tiers rather than a 10GB fixed bucket. If you are the ordinary case of maps, messaging, photos and the occasional video call, you are nowhere near any of these ceilings and the fixed plan is a tenth of the price.

Dual-SIM workflow for SoftBank customers in Europe

Most phones sold since 2020 run two lines at once. This setup keeps the SoftBank line for your Japanese number and puts data on the eSIM.

Step 1. Buy the Europe eSIM 3 to 7 days before you fly

Light use (maps, LINE, the odd photo upload) takes roughly 3 to 5GB a week. Video calls, a tethered laptop or posting video take more, so budget 1 to 2GB a day. Your QR code arrives by email and is also on the website.

Step 2. Install the eSIM at home, on Japanese Wi-Fi

On iPhone: Settings → Cellular → Add eSIM → scan the QR code. On Android: Settings → Network & internet → SIMs → Add eSIM. Label the line "Travel" so you cannot confuse it with the SoftBank line. Installing before departure means you land connected instead of hunting for airport Wi-Fi, and it avoids SoftBank's 23:25 to 00:30 enrolment blackout mattering either way.

Step 3. Turn data roaming off on the SoftBank line, before you board

Settings → Cellular → tap the SoftBank line → Data Roaming OFF. On Android: Settings → Network & internet → SIMs → SoftBank → Roaming OFF. Voice and SMS keep working, so your Japanese number still rings and still receives bank and card one-time passcodes. This step is what makes an accidental ¥2,980 海外パケットし放題 day impossible.

Step 4. Configure the default lines

• Cellular Data: Travel (the new eSIM)
• Default Voice Line: SoftBank
• iMessage / FaceTime: SoftBank
• Allow Cellular Data Switching: OFF. This stops iOS from quietly moving data back to the SoftBank line when the eSIM signal dips in a metro tunnel or a thick-walled building. That fallback is how a "no roaming charges" trip usually ends up with roaming charges.

Step 5. Activate on arrival

Switch cellular data to the Travel line when you land. The eSIM connects to a European partner network in about 30 to 60 seconds. No enrolment, no SMS link to open, no day counter to watch, and nothing that cannot be cancelled.

What this comparison leaves out

The arithmetic above isolates the price of data. Three things sit outside it, and any of them could matter more to your trip than the money.

Voice quality is the first. Both options hand you to a European partner network, and call quality then depends on your handset, the audio codec it negotiates and which partner you land on. We have no representative dataset, so we do not claim one.

Speed under load is the second, and it cuts both ways, as the heavy-user section above sets out. SoftBank's current lack of a cap beats our 128 kbps floor for anyone who reaches it. Local networks also sometimes deprioritise roaming traffic at peak times, and neither option promises anything during a stadium concert or a New Year countdown.

The third is your own contract. Which 料金プラン you are on decides whether you get 31 free days, 5, 3 or none, and that single fact changes your bill more than anything else here. We have priced SoftBank's published rates. Check yours in My SoftBank before you fly.

The buy

SoftBank built the best daily roaming pass of Japan's three big carriers, and the June 2026 revision is why. The 24-hour window rolls from when you start it instead of following Japan's clock, the way Docomo's Sekai Giga Shihodai does. Data is unlimited rather than rationed in 3GB slices. You can buy exactly the number of days your trip runs, from 1 to 31. And at ¥980 it undercuts au's ¥1,000 to ¥1,200 for the same continent, at least until 1 February 2027, when au's own announced flat rate of ¥980 draws level.

None of that changes the shape of the price. A day rate that never falls means fourteen days in Italy costs about ten times the eSIM that covers the same fortnight across 33 countries, and a month abroad tops out at ¥30,380. Install a Lotsotravel Europe eSIM, turn data roaming off on the SoftBank line, and keep your Japanese number ringing for the price of a coffee in Rome.