The Campaign Registry (TCR) is the central registration and reputation authority for A2P 10DLC business text messaging in the United States. Businesses register who they are (a brand) and what they send (campaigns) with TCR through their messaging provider. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon then use that registration data to decide how to treat the traffic — what throughput it gets, what surcharges apply, and whether it gets filtered.
This explainer is written by SIPNEX, an FCC-licensed carrier that submits brand and campaign registrations to The Campaign Registry on behalf of customers of our SMS and MMS messaging service. If you are new to the whole category, start with our A2P messaging overview — this page goes deep on the registry itself.
What The Campaign Registry is
The Campaign Registry is not a government agency and registration with it is not a law. It is the industry registration body at the center of the A2P 10DLC framework — the vetting system the major US mobile carriers established to separate legitimate business messaging over 10-digit local numbers from spam.
Before TCR, carriers had no way to know who was behind a business text. A message from a dental office confirming an appointment and a message from a phishing operation looked identical at the network level, so carriers filtered both bluntly. The Campaign Registry solves the identity problem: every registered sender has a vetted business identity and a declared use case on file, and every 10DLC number sending A2P traffic is linked to both.
The framework rolled out in stages — Verizon launched the first 10DLC program in 2019, and AT&T and T-Mobile made brand and campaign registration through The Campaign Registry the gateway for A2P 10DLC in 2021. Since 2023, enforcement has been real: registration determines whether your messages deliver at all.
Brands and campaigns: TCR’s two-layer model
The Campaign Registry organizes everything around two objects, and understanding the split explains most of how the system behaves.
A brand is who you are. One registration per legal business entity: legal name matching your EIN, address, website, business type, and industry vertical. The brand is vetted once, receives a trust score, and that score follows every campaign the brand runs.
A campaign is what you send. Each messaging use case — appointment reminders, marketing promotions, account notifications, two-factor codes — is registered as a separate campaign under the brand, with a description, sample messages, and documented opt-in and opt-out handling. Each phone number attaches to exactly one campaign at a time, which is why mixing marketing and transactional traffic on one number is not just bad practice but structurally impossible in a compliant setup.
Most businesses end up with one brand and one to three campaigns. If you want the full field-by-field walkthrough of what gets submitted at each layer, our step-by-step A2P 10DLC registration guide covers the entire process, fees, and timelines.
Trust scores: how TCR vetting works
When a brand is registered, The Campaign Registry runs a vetting process: the EIN is checked against IRS records, the business address is verified, the website is checked for legitimacy indicators, and additional business databases may be queried. Vetting typically takes 1 to 5 business days.
The output is a trust score, and the trust score is the single most consequential number in the system — it determines your messaging throughput. Standard 10DLC throughput ranges from roughly 1 to 75 messages per second depending on that score, along with daily message caps. The scoring model is not fully transparent, but the pattern is consistent: established businesses with verifiable EINs, active websites, and clean history receive adequate throughput, while sole proprietorships and brand-new entities land in the lowest tiers with the tightest limits.
The registry charges for this. Brand registration is a one-time fee — $4.50 since TCR’s August 2025 fee increase — with standard brand vetting at $41.50, and campaign registrations typically running $10 per month per campaign for standard use cases — special use cases range from $1.50 to $30 per month — billed monthly for as long as the campaign is active. All of it is collected by TCR through your messaging provider. Fee schedules shift periodically; our A2P 10DLC news tracker logs each revision as it lands.
How carriers use TCR data
The Campaign Registry does not deliver a single message. It is a data layer — carriers consume it.
When your traffic hits a carrier network, the carrier resolves the sending number to its registered campaign and brand. That lookup drives three decisions. First, throughput provisioning: your trust score and campaign type set the messages-per-second and daily limits the carrier will accept from your numbers. Second, surcharge assignment: T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon each apply per-message pass-through fees on A2P 10DLC traffic — as of mid-2026, roughly $0.0035 to $0.0045 per outbound SMS segment, with MMS running $0.007 to $0.01 and rates varying by carrier and campaign type. Third, filtering posture: registered traffic from a vetted brand gets preferential routing; unregistered traffic gets the hostile treatment described below.
Registration is not spam immunity. Carriers still run content filtering on registered traffic — phishing-style links, misleading claims, and missing opt-out language can get individual messages flagged even from a fully registered campaign. And if you send programmatically, your application has to respect the limits: our SMS API explainer covers how throughput and registration interact at the integration layer.
What happens to unregistered traffic
Unregistered A2P traffic from 10DLC numbers is throttled, filtered, or silently dropped by every major carrier, with T-Mobile the strictest enforcer. The failure mode is the dangerous part: your platform reports the message as “sent” because the carrier’s ingestion point accepted it, but it was never delivered. You believe your reminders are going out; your customers receive nothing.
There is no compliant unregistered path for business texting over local 10-digit numbers in 2026. The choice is registering through The Campaign Registry, moving to a toll-free number with its own carrier-managed verification, or watching delivery rates decay. For a sense of how enforcement and fees keep tightening, the A2P 10DLC news tracker is the running record.
Who actually interacts with TCR
Almost nobody registers with The Campaign Registry directly — and as a business sending texts, you cannot. TCR’s registration interfaces are built for Campaign Service Providers: the messaging providers, CSPs, and carriers that submit brands and campaigns on behalf of their customers. You never create a TCR login, never see its dashboard, and never pay it directly — fees flow through your provider.
Your role is supplying accurate inputs: legal business name matching your EIN registration, a working website, honest campaign descriptions, and real sample messages. Bad inputs are the number-one cause of vetting delays and campaign rejections, because TCR verifies what you submit against external records.
SIPNEX handles the TCR side as part of our messaging service — we submit the brand registration, file each campaign, manage number-to-campaign associations, and itemize the carrier surcharges separately on your invoice so the pass-through fees are visible rather than bundled into an inflated per-message rate.
What The Campaign Registry is not
Three boundaries worth drawing, because they cause real confusion.
TCR is not TCPA compliance. Registration addresses carrier deliverability; consent, quiet hours, and revocation handling are a separate legal layer that no registry approval satisfies. Our TCPA compliance checklist covers that operational baseline — and none of this page is legal advice.
TCR does not cover toll-free numbers. Toll-free messaging uses a verification process managed through the carriers themselves, not The Campaign Registry — a separate track with its own identity requirements.
TCR does not judge your content in real time. It vets identity and declared use cases at registration. Per-message filtering happens downstream at each carrier, which is why a registered campaign can still see individual messages blocked. The two layers work together; neither replaces the other. For choosing what to send in the first place, our SMS vs MMS comparison covers the format side.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Campaign Registry (TCR)?
The Campaign Registry is the central registration and reputation authority for A2P 10DLC business text messaging in the United States. Businesses register a brand (their vetted legal identity) and campaigns (their declared messaging use cases) with TCR through their messaging provider. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon consume that registration data to assign throughput limits, apply per-message surcharges, and decide filtering treatment. Registered traffic gets preferential handling; unregistered A2P traffic from 10-digit numbers is filtered or silently dropped. The full submission process is covered in our A2P 10DLC registration guide.
Is The Campaign Registry a government agency?
No. The Campaign Registry is an industry registration body, not a regulator, and registering with it is a carrier requirement rather than a law. It sits at the center of the A2P 10DLC framework established by T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon to vet business senders on local 10-digit numbers. The practical effect resembles a mandate — carriers filter or block traffic that skips registration — but the enforcement comes from the carriers, not from the FCC. Legal obligations like consent and opt-out handling come from separate law such as the TCPA, which registration does not satisfy.
Do I register with The Campaign Registry directly?
No. TCR’s registration interfaces are built for messaging providers and Campaign Service Providers, not for the businesses that send the texts. Your provider submits your brand registration and campaign registrations on your behalf, links your phone numbers to approved campaigns, and passes through TCR’s fees. Your job is supplying accurate inputs — a legal business name that matches your EIN registration, a working website, honest campaign descriptions, and real sample messages — because TCR verifies submissions against external records. SIPNEX handles the entire TCR workflow as part of our SMS and MMS messaging service.
What is a TCR trust score?
The trust score is the rating The Campaign Registry assigns to your brand after vetting — checking your EIN against IRS records, verifying your address, and reviewing your website. The score determines your messaging throughput: standard 10DLC throughput ranges from roughly 1 to 75 messages per second depending on the score, plus daily message caps. The scoring model is not fully transparent, but older, verifiable businesses score higher; sole proprietors and new entities land in the lowest tiers. The score is set at the brand level and applies across all of that brand’s campaigns.
Does The Campaign Registry cover toll-free numbers?
No. The Campaign Registry only covers A2P messaging from standard 10-digit local numbers (10DLC). Toll-free business messaging goes through a separate verification process managed through the carriers rather than TCR, with its own identity requirements — new toll-free verifications now require a business registration number such as an EIN. Short codes are a third track with their own provisioning process. If you send from both local and toll-free numbers, you will complete both processes: TCR brand and campaign registration for the 10DLC numbers, and toll-free verification for the rest.
The Campaign Registry decides how carriers treat your texts, but your messaging provider decides how painless registration is. SIPNEX handles TCR brand and campaign registration end to end as part of our SMS and MMS messaging service — same DIDs as your voice, carrier surcharges itemized separately. Set up business messaging or call (833) 665-2220.
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