The United Kingdom and Switzerland have agreed a wide-ranging services trade deal that the British government says will lower costs for travelers and businesses, including a commitment to scrap mobile roaming surcharges and open Swiss airport e-gates to UK visitors.
Announced on July 13, the agreement is described by the UK government as the most significant services trade deal the country has ever negotiated, and the sixth trade deal Britain has secured in two years.
What travelers gain
Under the deal, British travelers would be able to use their mobile phones in Switzerland without paying roaming surcharges. Switzerland has never been covered by the European Union's roaming rules, so the arrangement is a new benefit rather than a restoration of a previous one. The government has not set out a precise timetable for when the change will take effect or which operators will take part.
UK nationals will also gain access to Switzerland's automated e-gates, allowing quicker passage through passport control. The government said the gates would help travelers move "more quickly through passport control," though it did not specify a start date or which airports would be first. Roughly 800,000 British visitors travel to Switzerland each year.
The economic case
The bulk of the agreement concerns professional and financial services rather than travel perks. The government estimates the deal could increase UK services exports to Switzerland by £5.2 billion a year in the long run. Services exports to Switzerland supported an estimated 144,800 UK jobs as of 2022, and Switzerland ranks among Britain's largest markets for such trade.
The deal makes permanent an arrangement allowing UK professionals to work in Switzerland for up to 90 days a year without a work permit, and eases rules on transferring staff between the two countries. It also includes provisions on digital trade intended to keep data flowing freely and to spare firms from future data-localization requirements.
Part of a post-Brexit strategy
The agreement is the latest in a series of bilateral deals Britain has pursued since leaving the European Union, as it seeks to deepen ties with individual trading partners outside the bloc. Practical questions remain, particularly the timing of the roaming and e-gate changes, which depend on further arrangements with Swiss authorities and mobile operators. Even so, both governments have presented the deal as a template for closer cooperation between two economies heavily weighted toward services.
