A2P-10DLC SMS COMPLIANCE

A2P 10DLC News: July 2026 Rule & Fee Tracker

SIPNEX · July 4, 2026

This page is the running tracker of A2P 10DLC news — rule changes, carrier fee updates, TCR requirement changes, and deadlines — updated monthly. If you need the full registration walkthrough, that lives in our A2P 10DLC registration guide. This page covers what changed since you last registered a campaign, and what is coming next.

Last updated: July 4, 2026. Next update: August 2026.

SIPNEX is an FCC-licensed carrier that handles A2P 10DLC registration for customers of our SMS and MMS messaging service, so we track these changes because our own provisioning workflow depends on them. Items are verified against carrier, provider, and TCR bulletins before they are added.

What changed recently

June 2026 — Twilio hard-requires privacy policy and terms URLs on new campaigns

Effective June 30, 2026, Twilio requires a working privacy policy URL and a terms and conditions URL on new A2P 10DLC campaign submissions through its API — submissions without them are rejected. Existing registered campaigns are not affected. Other providers are heading the same direction: the links have long been a carrier vetting expectation, and hard enforcement tends to spread once one major CSP moves. The practical impact: if your business website does not have a published privacy policy and terms page, get them live before you submit a campaign. A missing or dead link is now grounds for rejection, and rejection-resubmit cycles add days to your launch timeline.

The FCC’s consent revocation rule — the provision that a revocation on one message type applies to all future communications from your business — has been extended again. Per the FCC’s second extension order (DA 26-12), that portion of the rule now takes effect January 31, 2027. The rest of the 2024 revocation order remains in force: consumers can revoke consent by texting “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel,” or “unsubscribe,” and you must honor it. Scope questions here get expensive fast — confirm your revocation handling with your counsel, and use our TCPA compliance checklist as the operational baseline.

January 2026 — T-Mobile and US Cellular revise pass-through fees

T-Mobile published a revised A2P pass-through fee schedule effective January 19, 2026. Among the changes: inbound (mobile-originated) SMS on 10DLC and toll-free numbers now carries a $0.0025 per-message fee. US Cellular issued new A2P pass-through fees for short code, toll-free, and 10DLC messaging effective the same day. If your provider itemizes carrier surcharges — as it should — expect the line items to have shifted since late 2025.

January 2026 — Toll-free verification requires business registration numbers

New toll-free verification submissions from January 2026 onward must include a Business Registration Number (an EIN for US businesses), the country of registration, and the legal entity type. Providers began collecting these fields on an optional basis in September 2025 before the requirement hardened. Already-verified toll-free numbers are unaffected. If you plan to add toll-free senders this year, have your EIN documentation ready before you file.

August 2025 — TCR raised registration and vetting fees

The Campaign Registry increased its fees effective August 2025: one-time brand registration moved from $4.00 to $4.50, and standard brand vetting moved from $40.00 to $41.50. TCR also introduced a $12.50 Authentication+ verification fee for publicly traded brands. Small numbers individually, but if you are an ISV or reseller registering brands at volume, the math compounds.

The rules as they stand today

The steady state in July 2026, independent of any single month’s news:

Registration is mandatory for business texting over local 10-digit numbers. A2P traffic on 10DLC numbers requires a registered brand and a registered campaign, filed with The Campaign Registry through your messaging provider. There is no compliant unregistered path.
Unregistered traffic is filtered or blocked. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon filter unregistered A2P traffic aggressively, and the failure is silent — your platform reports “sent” while the recipient gets nothing.
Vetting is brand plus campaign. Your business identity is vetted once; each use case (marketing, reminders, notifications) is registered as a separate campaign, and each number attaches to exactly one campaign at a time.
Carrier surcharges apply per message and vary by carrier and campaign type. These pass-through fees sit on top of your provider’s per-message rate and change over time — the January 2026 revisions above are the current examples, not the last ones.
Toll-free is a separate track. Toll-free numbers use carrier-managed verification, not TCR — with the tightened identity requirements noted above.
Registration is not TCPA compliance. TCR approval addresses carrier deliverability. Consent, opt-out handling, and calling-hour rules are a separate legal layer. If you send programmatically through an SMS API, your application logic has to enforce both.

Deadlines and dates to watch

In effect now: privacy policy and terms URLs hard-required on new Twilio campaign submissions (since June 30, 2026) and expected in carrier vetting everywhere, and business registration numbers required on new toll-free verifications (since January 2026).
January 31, 2027: the FCC’s revoke-all consent provision takes effect, unless extended again. Build your opt-out suppression to operate business-wide now and the rule change becomes a non-event.
Fee schedules: there is no fixed cadence. T-Mobile and US Cellular moved in January 2026, TCR in August 2025, and AT&T’s last major revision landed in October 2024. Treat surcharge tables as quarterly-review items, not set-and-forget.

The milestones that got us here

2021: AT&T and T-Mobile made brand and campaign registration through The Campaign Registry the gateway for A2P 10DLC — Verizon had launched the first 10DLC program back in 2019 — creating the first sanctioned framework for business messaging over local numbers.
2023: Enforcement got real. Major carriers moved from surcharging unregistered traffic to filtering and blocking it, and unregistered 10DLC messaging became functionally unreliable.
2024–2025: The framework matured into fee and vetting churn — carrier surcharge revisions, TCR fee increases, and toll-free messaging settling into a verification-required model of its own.
Today: Registration is table stakes. The ongoing changes are documentation requirements, identity verification, and fee schedules — which is exactly what this tracker exists to catch.

Frequently asked questions

Is A2P 10DLC registration mandatory?

Yes, in practice. There is no law compelling registration, but T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon require it as a condition of delivering application-to-person traffic over local 10-digit numbers, and they filter or block traffic that skips it. If your business sends texts to US consumers from a local number — marketing, reminders, notifications, two-factor codes — you need a registered brand and campaign. The full process is covered in our step-by-step registration guide.

What changed for A2P 10DLC in 2026?

Three things so far. In January, T-Mobile and US Cellular revised pass-through fees, toll-free verification began requiring business registration numbers, and the FCC pushed its revoke-all consent provision to January 31, 2027. In June, Twilio began hard-requiring privacy policy and terms URLs on new campaign submissions. No changes to the core registration framework itself — brand plus campaign through The Campaign Registry remains the model.

How often do A2P 10DLC fees change?

There is no fixed schedule — carriers and The Campaign Registry adjust fees periodically, usually with 30 to 90 days of notice through messaging providers. Recent history: TCR raised brand registration and vetting fees in August 2025, and T-Mobile and US Cellular revised pass-through fees in January 2026. Check your provider’s current surcharge table rather than relying on figures from an older guide, and expect at least one revision per year.

When does the FCC revoke-all consent rule take effect?

January 31, 2027, after the FCC’s second extension order in January 2026. The provision makes a consumer’s revocation on one message type apply to all future communications from your business. The rest of the 2024 revocation order is already in force — stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel, and unsubscribe must all be honored today. Building business-wide opt-out suppression now turns the 2027 date into a non-event.

This A2P 10DLC news tracker is updated monthly, and the A2P 10DLC registration guide covers the full brand-and-campaign process end to end. SIPNEX handles registration as part of our SMS and MMS messaging service, with carrier surcharges itemized separately on transparent per-message rates. Set up business messaging or call (833) 665-2220.