Starlink in Europe: Country-by-Country Pricing, Coverage and Taxes

Starlink in Europe isn't one price. It's thirteen

When Americans talk about "the Starlink price," they mean one number: $120/month. Europeans don't get that luxury. Cross the Channel, cross the Alps, cross the Øresund bridge, and the sticker price changes, the VAT changes, the hardware cost changes, and the competition you're comparing against changes. A household in Lisbon pays 50 EUR/month for Residential. A household in Oslo pays 75 EUR. A household in Zurich pays CHF 99. Same dish, same satellites, very different bills.

This guide walks through 13 European markets, shows the real all-in cost with VAT and electricity factored in, and highlights where local fiber makes Starlink the wrong call. If you want a quick personalized answer instead, our plan picker factors in your country and usage in about 60 seconds.

EU-wide reality: VAT drives the price gap

The single biggest reason Starlink looks expensive in Europe versus the US is tax structure. American buyers pay state sales tax in the 0-10% range, and only on the hardware, not always on the monthly service. European buyers pay VAT of 19-25% on both hardware and the monthly subscription, every single month. That's a structural surcharge baked into the price you see on starlink.de or starlink.fr.

VAT is already included in the advertised prices, unlike the US where tax gets added at checkout, so the 50 EUR/month you see in France really is what leaves your bank account. The comparison trap is converting that to USD and feeling like you got a deal: 50 EUR at ~1.08 USD/EUR is about $54/month, which sounds cheaper than the US $120. It isn't. Starlink prices lower in markets where strong local fiber competition forces them to.

The second layer is electricity. A Standard Gen 3 dish draws 75W around the clock. That's 54 kWh/month. In Germany at 0.40 EUR/kWh, you're paying 260 EUR/year just to keep the dish powered, versus 90 USD for a US household. Over 5 years, the electricity delta alone between a German and a US Starlink setup is about 800 EUR.

Country-by-country pricing matrix

All prices below are for Starlink Residential, sourced from each country's official Starlink site as of April 2026. Hardware is one-time; monthly includes VAT. USD conversion uses 1 EUR = 1.08 USD, 1 GBP = 1.25 USD, 1 CHF = 1.12 USD.

A few patterns jump out. The Western European core (FR, IT, ES, NL, PT, PL) sits at a clean 50 EUR/month, Starlink's competitive answer to aggressive fiber pricing from Orange, TIM, Movistar and KPN. Germany and the UK are a tier higher at 70-75 EUR, reflecting stronger willingness-to-pay and slightly thinner fiber coverage in rural regions. The Nordics are the most expensive Eurozone-adjacent markets at 75 EUR plus a 600 EUR hardware premium, partly higher VAT (25%), partly specialized cold-weather testing the hardware goes through. Switzerland prices in CHF and sits outside EU VAT at only 8.1%, but the monthly lands around CHF 99 anyway because of local cost structure.

The electricity reality: Germany vs France vs Nordics

A dish that looks cheap on paper can quietly become expensive depending on where you live. Electricity in Europe varies from 0.11 EUR/kWh (Norway, hydro surplus) to 0.40+ EUR/kWh (Germany, post-Energiewende). For a 75W dish running 24/7, that's 54 kWh/month or 648 kWh/year, and the annual electric bill for your Starlink alone spans from 71 EUR in Norway to 259 EUR in Germany. France sits in the middle at around 0.25 EUR/kWh, or 162 EUR/year.

Over a 5-year ownership window, the German household pays about 800 EUR more than the Norwegian one in electricity alone, for the same dish doing the same thing. That's not a rounding error. It's larger than the initial hardware cost in several markets. Our off-grid power sizer handles these calculations and models solar offset if you're considering a partial self-supply.

If you're in a high-electricity market, the biggest lever is a smart-plug schedule that cuts the dish off between, say, 1am and 6am. That's roughly 21% of the month gone from the power bill, about 55 EUR/year saved in Germany and 35 EUR in France, at a one-time plug cost of 20 EUR. It's the cleanest no-compromise saving available to European Starlink customers.

Roam Global: the no-brainer for European nomads

For customers who cross borders more than 2-3 times a year, the math shifts. Residential is a bad fit. Starlink charges up to 100 EUR to re-register the service address, plus a 24-72 hour service interruption every time. The correct plan is either Roam Regional (around 50 EUR/month in most European markets, portable across Europe) or Roam Global at approximately 175 EUR/month in Eurozone pricing for worldwide coverage with unlimited priority data.

Roam Global is what liveaboard sailors around the Mediterranean, long-haul business consultants, and digital nomads running 5-country years default to. The premium over Roam Regional, about 125 EUR/month, is insurance against ever having to think about data, country borders, or regional mismatch warnings. For pure within-Europe travel, Roam Regional is the smarter pick and saves 1,500 EUR/year.

Country deep-dives: the five biggest markets

United Kingdom: £75/month and the Openreach question

The UK Starlink market is mature and well-priced at £75/month plus a £449 hardwarefee including 20% VAT. Speeds vary by location and time of day. The elephant in the room is BT Openreach's full-fiber rollout: over 70% of UK premises now have access to FTTP at fiber plans with address-dependent performance for £30-45/month. In those postcodes, Starlink is generally the wrong choice for a static home. Where Starlink wins is the final 15% of the UK, including Highland crofts, remote Welsh villages, and Cornish farms, that Openreach's commercial rollout has skipped. For those users Starlink is one of the few viable broadband options, and the value equation is overwhelmingly positive.

Germany: €70/month and the electricity trap

Germany sits at €70/month plus €450 hardware, 19% VAT included. Speeds vary by location and network load. But the German cost reality is not the sticker price. It's the 0.40 EUR/kWh electricity rate that quietly adds 260 EUR/year to ownership. Over 5 years that's a 1,300 EUR silent tax on the dish that never appears on the Starlink invoice. German fiber competition is also stronger than most buyers realize: Deutsche Glasfaser, Deutsche Telekom, and Vodafone all offer fiber with provider-dependent speeds in major metro areas starting at 35 EUR/month. For Bavarian farmhouses and Mecklenburg villages where fiber hasn't reached yet, Starlink remains the practical winner. Just budget for the power draw.

France: €50/month and urban fiber saturation

France is one of Starlink's price-aggressive European markets: €50/month plus €450 hardware at 20% VAT. The reason is competition. Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues have covered essentially all French urban and suburban areas with fiber at 30-40 EUR/month for plans with address-dependent performance. Starlink cannot compete on flat concrete. Where Starlink wins in France is the rural 20-25% still on copper ADSL or slow VDSL: Massif Central villages, Corsican mountain towns, Pyrenean hamlets, and many Breton farms. In those zones Starlink can be transformative. The previous best option was often slow DSL. Starlink.fr handles activation in French, invoices in EUR with SEPA direct debit.

Italy: €50/month and the island advantage

Italy matches France at €50/month and €450 hardware, with a slightly higher 22% VAT. Speeds can be lower in dense cells, reflecting heavier usage in northern metros. Italy's fiber leader is TIM (formerly Telecom Italia), offering FTTH at 25-35 EUR/month where available. Starlink's real Italian market is the Mezzogiorno and the islands: Sicilian mountain villages, Sardinian interior, Aeolian and Tuscan archipelago, Dolomite valleys. Italy's geography, narrow and mountainous with thousands of hillside villages, means fiber rollout lags badly in the south. For those households Starlink is straight-up the best broadband they've ever had, and 50 EUR/month is an easy sell.

Spain: €50/month vs cellular and Movistar

Spain is another €50/month market with 21% VAT. Movistar (Telefónica's fiber arm) dominates Spanish broadband at 30-40 EUR/month for fast, consistent fiber in most cities. The unusual Spanish dimension is cellular: the big three carriers offer genuinely good 5G home internet at 25-35 EUR/month, which works surprisingly well in rural Spain where tower density is high. That makes Starlink's Spanish market narrower than in France or Italy — you need to be both outside fiber rangeand outside good 5G coverage. That leaves the Cantabrian mountains, parts of Galicia, interior Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha. For those users Starlink is excellent value; for everyone else, fiber or 5G wins.

Starlink vs local fiber champion

The pattern is obvious: where fiber exists, fiber wins. Starlink doesn't try to compete head-on in cities. Its European business is the 15-25% of each country's geography that commercial fiber rollouts have skipped. Run our broadband comparison tool to see the numbers side-by-side with your local options.

Roaming within the EU: what changes when you cross borders

The EU's single-market regulations apply loosely to satellite internet. On Residential, you cannot simply drive your dish from Madrid to Berlin and keep it working — the plan is address-locked, not region-locked, and a cross-border dish move triggers suspension within days. On Roam Regional, borders are invisible: the same 50 EUR/month subscription works in all EU states plus the UK, Norway and Switzerland, with automatic cell acquisition as you cross. No SIM swap, no re-registration, no speed degradation beyond normal cell congestion.

One subtle difference: VAT applies based on your billing country, not where the dish is physically used. A Spanish-registered Roam account pays 21% Spanish VAT even when traveling in Norway. That's a minor advantage for customers billed from low-VAT countries like Luxembourg (17%) or Malta (18%).

EU regulatory landscape: spectrum and licensing

Starlink operates in Europe under Ku-band (user terminals) and Ka-band (gateways) spectrum allocations coordinated through ITU and individual national regulators. Key authorities include Ofcom (UK), BNetzA (Germany), ARCEP (France), AGCOM (Italy) and CNMC (Spain). SpaceX holds gateway licenses in all major European countries, with ground station infrastructure in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Nordic countries.

The one ongoing regulatory friction is around in-motion use in aviation — EASA still has stricter certification requirements than the FAA for aircraft-mounted Starlink terminals, which is why European business aviation adoption lags the US. For consumer residential and Roam use, there is essentially no regulatory friction across the EU, UK and Switzerland in 2026. Before making a purchase decision it's worth running a quick speed test on your current connection and then plugging the numbers into our TCO calculator to see what the real European 5-year cost looks like for your specific country and usage.