Tourists at Berlin Wall, Picture: Phone Guide Germany

Because of high roaming charges, prepaid SIM cards of domestic providers are a good choice when making mobile phone calls in another country. Usually, these prepaid price plans come without any minimum term or any monthly fee and users are only charged when actually making a phone call. Thus, tourists, travelers, au-pairs or exchange students can even take the prepaid SIM card back home and use it again when visiting the country next time. When being in Germany, there is a broad range of prepaid price plans offering low rates for mobile phone calls within Germany and for international mobile phone calls. All people need in order to buy such a prepaid SIM card at a supermarket, kiosk, gas station or mobile phone store is to show an ID.

However, there are a few low-cost providers in Germany which offer prepaid price plans that require a minimum turnover by the customer – not on a monthly basis but every three to six months. Otherwise, these providers charge their prepaid customers a so-called “maintenance fee”. You will discover such charges only when carefully checking the fine print or the general terms at the provider’s website. Prepaid price plans with such a maintenance fee are not suited for repeated use in Germany: Either the selected provider constantly deducts small amounts of money of the customer’s prepaid account or the provider freezes the prepaid account or cancels the prepaid contract.

Prepaid Price Plans Requiring a Minimum Turnover

Among mobile phone providers in Germany which offer prepaid price plans with a required minimum turnover are Callmobile, Maxxim, Mcsim and Simply. Callmobile charges its prepaid customers EUR 1.00 per month when they have not made phone calls or sent SMS messages for at least EUR 6.00 over a three-months period. Simply charges its prepaid customers EUR 1.79 per month when they have not made any phone calls or sent any SMS messages within the preceding two months. And Maxxim and Mcsim cancel existing prepaid contracts when their customers have not topped up new calling credit for fifteen months and not made any phone calls for two months. The persons concerned can prevent this cancellation by topping up new credit soon after having received the cancellation notice.

This is not to say that prepaid price plans offered by the providers mentioned above are not to be recommended to mobile phone users per se. In fact, all of them offer comparably low rates for mobile phones calls within Germany. However, such prepaid SIM cards should only be bought by mobile phone users who make phone calls and send SMS messages on a regular basis. Others should check the following price plan overviews for alternative low-cost tariffs:

Overviews of Current Cell Phone Plans in Germany:
Prepaid Price Plans with Single Tariff for Mobile Phone Calls
Prepaid Price Plans with Community Tariff for Mobile Phone Calls
Prepaid Price Plans with Flat Rate Tariff for Mobile Phone Calls
Prepaid Price Plans for International Mobile Phone Calls

More Information on Prepaid Price Plans in Germany:
The Difference Between Prepaid and Quasi-Prepaid

Read more about prepaid price plans with minimum turnover at www.teltarif.de (in German).