What is the TCPA?

The TCPA is a law about phone calls and text messages. It says a business cannot call or text people in certain ways unless those people said yes first.

TCPA stands for Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Congress passed it in 1991. It is federal law, which means it applies in every state.

The law is written down at 47 U.S.C. § 227. The FCC, the government agency in charge of phones, writes the detailed rules. Those rules are at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200.

What the law says

It covers five main things.

• You cannot use an autodialer or a recorded voice to call or text someone's cell phone without their permission.
• You cannot play a recorded sales message to someone's home phone without their permission.
• You cannot make sales calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, with a few exceptions.
• You have to stop calling anyone who asks you to stop.
• You cannot make sales calls before 8 in the morning or after 9 at night, in the time zone of the person you are calling.

Text messages count as calls under this law. So do voicemails that are dropped into a mailbox without ringing. Permission has its own rules. See what is consent.

The Supreme Court said in 2021, in a case called Facebook v. Duguid, that an autodialer means a machine that can make up phone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Many dialers that just call a list do not count. But a recorded voice still needs permission, however it was dialed. The FCC said in 2024 that a computer-made voice counts as a recorded voice.

What happens if you break it

The person who got the call can sue you. They do not need to show they lost money. The law sets the amount: $500 for each call or text that broke the rules. If a court decides you did it on purpose, or knew you were breaking the rules, that can go up to $1,500 for each one. See what could it cost.

They can go back four years. That comes from a different law, 28 U.S.C. § 1658.

Florida has its own version

Florida has a state law called the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. It is at Fla. Stat. § 501.059. It has its own rules and its own $500 to $1,500 per call. A text to a Florida number can break both laws at once. Some other states have their own laws too.

Who enforces it

Mostly the people who get the calls. They can sue on their own, or join together in a class action. The FCC and state attorneys general can also take action, but most letters a business gets come from a person, a lawyer, or a company working for the person who was called. See why did my business get a letter.