What Is the National Do Not Call Registry: Signup and Exemptions

The National Do Not Call Registry is a free federal service that lets you block most telemarketing calls to your home or cell phone. You add your number at donotcall.gov or by phone, and legitimate companies must stop calling within 31 days.¹ Registration is permanent once you sign up.²

The Federal Trade Commission runs the registry, which has been available since 2003. The legal backbone is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act at 47 U.S.C. § 227 and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule at 16 C.F.R. Part 310.³ Any personal home landline or cell phone number is eligible. Business lines are not.¹

How to Register Your Number

You have two ways to sign up, both free and both taking a couple of minutes.

Online at donotcall.gov. Enter your phone number and email address. The system emails you a verification link that you must click within 72 hours. If you add multiple numbers, each gets its own confirmation email.
By phone at 1-888-382-1222, calling from the number you want to register. An automated system walks you through the prompts, and no email is needed. A TTY line is available at 1-866-290-4236.

Your email address is stored separately from your phone number and is never shared with telemarketers.²

If you aren’t sure whether a number is already on the list, you can check at donotcall.gov/verify.html. Enter up to three phone numbers with your email, and the system will confirm by email whether and when each was registered.⁴

How Long It Takes and How Long It Lasts

Telemarketers are required to scrub their call lists against the registry at least once every 31 days. You may still get some sales calls in that first month. After 31 days, any commercial sales call to your registered number is a federal violation.⁵

Once your number is on the list, it stays there. The FTC only removes it if the number is disconnected and reassigned, or if you ask for it to be removed.²

Who Can Still Legally Call You

The registry blocks commercial sales calls from companies that follow the law. Several categories fall outside that scope and can keep calling you even after you register:

Political organizations, including campaign calls and political surveys.
Charities calling directly. A paid telemarketer calling on a charity’s behalf must follow the registry rules.
Debt collectors calling about money you owe.
Legitimate survey calls that aren’t trying to sell anything.
Purely informational calls with no sales pitch, such as appointment reminders or flight cancellations.

None of these callers can slip a sales pitch into the conversation. A survey that turns into a product offer crosses into telemarketing.²

Companies You’ve Recently Done Business With

A company you’ve recently bought from, paid, or received a delivery from can call you for up to 18 months afterward. If you submitted an inquiry or application without buying anything, the window is three months.⁶

You can shut that window at any time. Tell the company directly to stop calling, and it must honor that request immediately, regardless of how much time is left. If it calls again after your request, it faces a penalty of up to $53,088.⁶

Asking a Specific Company to Stop

You don’t need the national registry to stop a single company from calling. Any telemarketer must maintain its own internal do-not-call list, and it must add you and honor your request when you ask. This works even if your number isn’t on the national registry.⁶ The same request works for a paid telemarketer calling for a specific charity.

What the Registry Cannot Do

The registry works by giving lawful companies a list of numbers to avoid. Scammers ignore it. The FTC is direct about this: the registry will not stop calls from people who don’t care about the law, and many illegal robocallers operate from overseas where U.S. enforcement has limited reach.²

Any robocall selling something to you without your prior written permission is illegal, whether or not your number is on the registry. The FTC’s guidance is to hang up. Don’t press any buttons, because that signals the caller that your number is active.²

Scammers also spoof caller ID to hide where a call comes from. The FCC now requires phone carriers to use a framework called STIR/SHAKEN, which lets the originating carrier digitally sign a call as legitimate and the receiving carrier verify it before the call reaches you.⁷ That verification is what drives the “Spam Likely” or “Scam Risk” labels you may already see on incoming calls.

Text Messages

The same federal law that governs robocalls also covers unsolicited commercial texts. A company sending you a robotext to sell something without your prior express consent violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. You can revoke consent at any time using any reasonable method, such as replying “STOP,” and the sender must honor it.⁸

Reporting Violations and Penalties

If sales calls keep coming more than 31 days after you register, report them at donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222. The complaint form asks for the date and time of the call, the name of the company or product being pitched, and the phone number that appeared on your caller ID. Noting whether the call was live or recorded helps the FTC categorize it.¹

A single complaint won’t necessarily produce action on your case. The FTC uses complaints in aggregate to spot patterns and build cases against repeat offenders. Specific details make your report more useful.

Companies that violate the rules face civil penalties of up to $53,088 per illegal call, an amount adjusted for inflation periodically.⁶ Because each call is a separate violation, thousands of illegal calls can add up to enormous liability.

You can also sue on your own. Under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5), you can recover either your actual financial loss or $500 in statutory damages per violation, whichever is greater. If the court finds the violation was willful or knowing, it can triple that to $1,500 per call.⁹ Small claims courts in many jurisdictions handle these cases, so you don’t necessarily need a lawyer.

1
Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry
2
Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
4
Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry – Verify
5
National Do Not Call Registry. National Do Not Call Registry – FAQ for Businesses
6
Federal Trade Commission. Q&A for Telemarketers and Sellers About DNC Provisions in TSR
7
Federal Communications Commission. Combating Spoofed Robocalls with Caller ID Authentication
8
Federal Communications Commission. Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 US Code 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment