Two different sets of requirements govern business SMS in the United States. The law is a federal statute, the FCC's rules under it, and the state statutes beside them. Separately, carriers and the industry set requirements before a message is carried at all.
Neither this page nor any page is legal advice. Whether a particular programme is lawful turns on facts a page cannot see.
Which law decides whether I may send?
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, through the Federal Communications Commission's rule at 47 CFR 64.1200.
That rule carries three federal obligations for text messages.
- Consent before a marketing message. The rule requires prior express written consent, a defined term rather than a checkbox. What is express written consent walks the definition.
- A window you may send in, measured where the recipient is. What are SMS quiet hours covers the window and the arithmetic it forces on a national list.
- Revocation by any reasonable method. The rule names words that always count, forbids designating one exclusive channel, and caps how long you may take. What is the TCPA quotes the four provisions.
A destination's consent model is published as data. Which consent model applies to SMS covers the three models and where to read the one in force.
Is 10DLC registration a legal requirement?
No. Carriers require it; the law does not.
Registering a brand and a campaign tells a carrier who you are before it decides whether to carry your traffic. Nothing in the FCC's rule requires it, and completing it discharges no obligation the rule imposes.
The two failures look different. A message blocked before it reaches a handset is a registration or filtering problem. A message delivered to someone who never agreed to receive it is a legal one.
The CTIA messaging principles covers the industry layer. 10DLC registration covers the process on Bird.
What else in federal law touches business messaging?
One further rule governs commercial email sent to a wireless device.
47 CFR 64.3100 restricts "mobile service commercial messages". No person or entity may initiate one unless, among the listed alternatives:
That person or entity has the express prior authorization of the addressee
The same rule requires a sender to "cease sending further messages within ten (10) days after receiving such a request by a subscriber" and to identify itself in the message.
Its subject is settled by the definition in paragraph (c)(7):
Mobile Service Commercial Message means a commercial electronic mail message that is transmitted directly to a wireless device
A commercial message "is presumed to be a mobile service commercial message if it is sent or directed to any address containing a reference ... to an Internet domain listed on the FCC's wireless domain names list". That is a presumption about addressing rather than a second definition.
So 64.3100 governs the email-to-text path. A campaign sent over an SMS API is governed by 64.1200 above. The distinction matters if any part of your stack still emails a carrier gateway.
Do state laws add anything?
Yes. A state can require more than the federal rule does.
Fla. Stat. 501.059 defines "prior express written consent" for itself, as a written agreement that bears the signature of the called party and includes, among other elements:
a clear and conspicuous disclosure informing the called party that ... He or she is not required to directly or indirectly sign the written agreement or to agree to enter into such an agreement as a condition of purchasing any property, goods, or services
Subsection (8)(a) requires that consent for an automated sales call. The statute's definitions put text messages inside "telephonic sales call".
The statute also adds a step the federal rule does not have. Before suing over text solicitations, the recipient replies "STOP". Within 15 days of that notice the solicitor "shall cease sending text message solicitations to the called party and may not send text messages to the called party thereafter", with one exception for a message confirming receipt.
Two consequences for a national programme. Meeting the FCC definition does not settle a state definition. And a state can attach its own remedy, including statutory damages.
Where do I read the current requirement?
On the destination page, which reads each country's policy live.
Bird's United States destination page renders the current position on consent, registration and permitted hours. SMS destinations covers every other country the same way.
Bird recognises an inbound stop keyword and suppresses that sender for that subscriber. The suppression covers one sender rather than the workspace. What is a STOP keyword covers its scope.