TCPA and DNC Compliance FAQ
Last reviewed: 25 September 2026
This page answers the questions outbound teams, lead buyers and the compliance staff who support them ask most often before a number is dialled: what the national DNC safe harbor actually requires, what the TSR is, what prior express written consent must contain, and why "scrub the number and you don't get sued" is not how the rules work. Every legal claim below links to its primary source on the eCFR, the U.S. Code or a federal agency site, so you can read the rule instead of taking our word for it. Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing on this site creates a safe harbor. It is a plain starting point for people who want to check a number and understand what the result does and does not tell them.
Is there a national DNC safe harbor?
Yes. The Telemarketing Sales Rule treats a call to a number on the National Do Not Call Registry as an abusive practice, but 16 CFR 310.4(b)(3) gives a seller or telemarketer a defence when the call was the result of error and the seller can show all of the following: written procedures for complying with the do-not-call rules; personnel trained in those procedures; an internal do not call list of numbers the seller may not contact, maintained and recorded; a process that prevents calls to registered numbers using a version of the national registry obtained within the 31-day window the rule sets, with records documenting that process; and monitoring and enforcement of the procedures. The FCC has a parallel safe harbor at 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(2)(i). This site does not produce or keep those records for you; a lookup here is a spot check of one number, not a scrub log. Check registry status with our DNC lookup.
What is the TSR?
The TSR is the Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR Part 310, issued by the Federal Trade Commission under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, 15 U.S.C. 6101-6108. It covers most outbound sales calls to consumers: calling hours, caller ID transmission, required disclosures, abandoned-call limits, the national registry, entity-specific do-not-call requests and the safe harbor described above. It sits alongside two other rules. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227, is the statute that restricts autodialed and prerecorded calls and texts and gives consumers a private right of action. The FCC's implementing rules at 47 CFR 64.1200 apply the TCPA and carry the FCC's own do-not-call requirements, which reach some callers the TSR does not. A call can be lawful under one rule and unlawful under another, which is why compliance teams check against all three. Our free TCPA tools return the signals a single-number check can give.
What is express written consent?
Prior express written consent is defined in 47 CFR 64.1200(f). It is an agreement in writing, bearing the signature of the person called, that clearly authorises a specific seller to deliver advertisements or telemarketing messages to a stated telephone number using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice. The agreement must include a clear and conspicuous disclosure that the person is not required to sign it, or agree to it, as a condition of buying anything. An electronic signature that complies with the E-SIGN Act counts. Two points trip callers up. First, consent belongs to the person who gave it, not to the number: if the number is later reassigned, the new subscriber never consented, which is the problem the Reassigned Numbers Database answer below addresses. Second, consent says nothing about whether the person has sued callers before, so run the number through the TCPA litigator lookup as well.
How many DNC violations before there is a problem?
There is no safe count, and any page that gives you one is guessing. Under the TSR, each call to a registered number without an established business relationship or a signed written agreement is a violation, subject to the safe harbor conditions in 16 CFR 310.4(b); the defence depends on your procedures, not on how few calls you made. Under the TCPA, 47 U.S.C. 227(c)(5) lets a person who has received more than one call within any 12-month period from or on behalf of the same entity, in violation of the do-not-call regulations, sue for up to $500 per violation, which a court may treble for wilful or knowing violations; the same section makes reasonable practices and procedures an affirmative defence. In practice one call is a regulatory exposure and a second call to the same registered number within a year is a lawsuit exposure. Check before the first call with our DNC lookup.
How do I get a copy of the National Do Not Call list?
Sellers and telemarketers do not download a public file. They register at telemarketing.donotcall.gov, receive a Subscription Account Number (SAN) and then obtain registry data for the area codes they subscribe to. Access fees are set by 16 CFR 310.8, which also provides that the first five area codes of data are free; the FTC adjusts the amounts each fiscal year, so read the current figures there rather than on any third-party page. The FTC's Q&A for telemarketers and sellers explains who must subscribe and how the scrub obligation works in practice. Consumers need none of this: registering a personal number, or checking whether it is registered, is free at donotcall.gov. If you only want to know whether one number is on the national registry or one of the state registries, our DNC lookup answers that without a subscription.
Is a clean DNC scrub safe to dial?
No. A clean DNC scrub of a single number tells you one thing: at the moment of the check, the number was not on the national registry or the state registries we cover. It tells you nothing about three other risks. Litigator status is independent of DNC status; serial plaintiffs who make a living from TCPA suits commonly keep their numbers off the registry so that the calls, and the claims, keep coming. Consent status is separate too: an unregistered wireless number still needs prior express written consent before an autodialed or prerecorded marketing call. And reassigned numbers can carry stale consent from a previous subscriber. Your own internal do not call list also has to be honoured whatever the registry says. Treat the DNC result and the litigator result as two different questions and check both: the DNC lookup and the TCPA litigator lookup.
What is a TCPA litigator?
A TCPA litigator is a person who has filed one or more lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or whose number or name appears in the filings and demand letters that compliance data providers collect. "Serial plaintiff" and "TCPA troll" are informal terms for the subset who file repeatedly, sometimes dozens of times. A litigator list is a record of those filings matched to phone numbers and names. When this site shows a litigator match, it is a record match: the number or name corresponds to an entry in that corpus. It is not a determination about the person now holding the number, who may have inherited it, and it is not an allegation that anyone has done anything wrong; filing a lawsuit is a legal right. Check a number with the TCPA litigator lookup, or check a name and optional state with the litigator name search.
What are reassigned numbers and what is the Reassigned Numbers Database?
A reassigned number is one that has been disconnected by one subscriber and later issued to another. Consent given by the first subscriber does not transfer to the second, so a caller with a valid consent record can still be calling a stranger. The FCC established the Reassigned Numbers Database at reassigned.us so callers can check a number against the date they obtained consent; the database answers yes, no or no data. Under 47 CFR 64.1200(m), a caller who queries the database, receives a "no" response and calls in reliance on it has a safe harbor against liability for reaching a reassigned number. That safe harbor is tied to the database query itself, and this site does not query the Reassigned Numbers Database. A suppression hit here comes from complaint, litigation and do-not-call sources instead; our blacklist lookup page explains what that result means.
Are the blacklist and litigator rows a scam warning?
No. The Blacklist and Litigator rows in a result are caller-side suppression signals. They tell an outbound caller that the number belongs to someone who has asked not to be called, complained, threatened, or appeared in TCPA litigation records, and that dialling it carries risk for the caller. They say nothing about whether the person who owns the number is a scammer, a spammer or a bad actor of any kind; a consumer who reports abusive telemarketers is exactly the kind of person who ends up on a suppression list. If you searched your own number with the reverse phone lookup and it is listed, that is all it means, and you can ask us to review the record from the data removal page. The blacklist lookup page explains each value.
What this page is not
US People Search is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the information we provide is not a consumer report. You may not use this site to make decisions about employment, housing, credit, insurance or any other purpose covered by the FCRA.
Nothing on this page is legal advice; the rules summarised here change, and the linked primary sources control over any paraphrase. A lookup result does not create a safe harbor under the TCPA, the TSR or any state law, and we do not produce or retain the written procedures, training records or scrub logs a safe harbor requires. Read about our data sources for how each signal is assembled, and use the data removal page to ask for a record to be corrected or removed.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a national DNC safe harbor?
Yes. The Telemarketing Sales Rule at 16 CFR 310.4(b)(3) excuses a call to a registered number made in error if the seller has written procedures, trained staff, a maintained internal do not call list, a scrub process using a registry version obtained within the 31-day window the rule sets, records of that process, and monitoring. It rests on your own records, which a lookup here does not produce.
What is the TSR (Telemarketing Sales Rule)?
The TSR is the Federal Trade Commission's telemarketing rule at 16 CFR Part 310. It sets calling hours, disclosure and caller ID requirements, the national registry and internal do-not-call duties, and the safe harbor. It works alongside the TCPA statute at 47 U.S.C. 227 and the FCC rules at 47 CFR 64.1200.
What is express written consent under the TCPA?
Prior express written consent, defined at 47 CFR 64.1200(f), is a signed written agreement in which a person clearly authorises a named seller to send marketing calls or texts to a stated number using an autodialer or a prerecorded or artificial voice, with a clear disclosure that signing is not a condition of purchase. An E-SIGN compliant electronic signature counts. Consent belongs to the person, not the number.
How many DNC violations are allowed?
None, and there is no safe count. Under the TSR every call to a registered number without an exemption is a violation, subject only to the safe harbor in 16 CFR 310.4(b). Under 47 U.S.C. 227(c)(5) a person who receives more than one call in a 12-month period from the same entity in violation of the do-not-call rules can sue for up to $500 per violation, trebled at the court's discretion for wilful violations.
How do I get a copy of the National Do Not Call list?
Sellers and telemarketers register at telemarketing.donotcall.gov for a Subscription Account Number and then obtain registry data by area code. Fees are set by 16 CFR 310.8 and change each fiscal year, so read the current amounts there. Consumers register their own number free at donotcall.gov. To check one number, use our DNC lookup.
Is a clean DNC scrub safe to dial?
No. DNC status and litigator status are independent: serial plaintiffs often keep their numbers off the registry so calls keep coming. An unregistered wireless number still needs prior express written consent for autodialed or prerecorded marketing, a reassigned number can carry stale consent, and your internal do not call list applies regardless. Check both the DNC lookup and the TCPA litigator lookup before dialling.
What is a TCPA litigator?
A person who has filed one or more lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act; serial plaintiff and TCPA troll are informal terms for those who file repeatedly. A litigator list matches those filings to numbers and names, and a match here is a record match, not a determination about the person now holding the number. Check a number with the TCPA litigator lookup or a name with the litigator name search.
What are reassigned numbers and how do I check them?
A reassigned number has been disconnected by one subscriber and issued to another, so earlier consent no longer covers it. The FCC's Reassigned Numbers Database at reassigned.us answers yes, no or no data for a number and a consent date, and 47 CFR 64.1200(m) gives a safe harbor to callers who rely on a no response. This site does not query that database.