TCPA Texting Rules for Contractors in Plain English

Text messages are the cheapest way to reach a lead, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is the main federal law that sets the terms for doing it. The statute allows people to sue for $500 per violation, and a willful or knowing violation can be tripled. That per-message structure is why a text program deserves more care than a button in your CRM.

This guide covers the texts a contractor actually sends: replies to people who contact you, missed-call text back, follow-up on estimates, and reactivation campaigns to old customer lists. For each, it says what the rules say and where to read them. It stops short of telling you what your own program should do, because that depends on facts only you and your lawyer have.

The short version of the law

The statute is 47 U.S.C. 227. The part that matters most here says that it is unlawful to make a call to a cellular number using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, unless the call is for an emergency or the caller has the called party's prior express consent. The text is at 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(1)(A).

Three pieces of background shape everything else:

• A text message is a "call." The Supreme Court wrote that "a text message to a cellular telephone, it is undisputed, qualifies as a 'call'" under that provision, in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez (2016).
• The autodialer definition is narrow. In Facebook v. Duguid (April 1, 2021), the Court held that a device qualifies as an autodialer only if it can use a random or sequential number generator to store or produce the numbers it dials. Whether a given texting platform meets that test is a question courts still argue about, and plenty of plaintiffs also rely on state laws that are written differently (see the state section below).
• Courts do not have to follow the FCC. In McLaughlin Chiropractic v. McKesson (2025), the Supreme Court held that district courts deciding private TCPA suits are not bound by the FCC's interpretations of the statute. FCC guidance still matters, but a judge can read the statute differently.

The money: under 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3), a person can recover actual damages or $500 per violation, whichever is greater, and a court may increase that to as much as three times for a willful or knowing violation. The do-not-call provisions in 227(c)(5) carry a similar structure.

Two different rulebooks: consent for robotexts, and the do-not-call rules

Contractors often blur these, so keep them apart.

Rulebook one is consent for automated texts and calls. Under 47 CFR 64.1200(a), calls made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice to a wireless number need the called party's prior express consent. If the message is advertising or telemarketing, the rule requires prior express written consent instead.

The rule defines that term in 64.1200(f)(9): a written agreement, signed (an electronic signature counts if valid under law), that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver advertising or telemarketing messages, lists the phone number, and discloses that signing is not a condition of purchase.

Rulebook two is the do-not-call regime. Under 64.1200(c)(2), telephone solicitations to a residential subscriber whose number is on the National Do-Not-Call Registry are prohibited, with listed exceptions: error, the subscriber's prior express invitation or permission, or a personal relationship. The same section defines "telephone solicitation" to exclude calls to someone with whom the caller has an "established business relationship." That term is defined in 64.1200(f)(5) as a relationship formed by a voluntary two-way communication, based on a purchase or transaction within the prior 18 months, or on an inquiry or application within the prior three months.

Note what that does and does not say. The established-business-relationship language sits in the do-not-call definitions. It is not a substitute for the written consent that rulebook one requires for autodialed marketing texts. A past customer can be in the first category and still outside the second.

One more wrinkle: courts and defendants have fought over whether a cell phone counts as a "residential" line for the do-not-call rules. The law firm Husch Blackwell notes that defendants have already challenged the FCC's treatment of cell phones as residential, and that one district court has rejected that challenge. Treat that as an open fight, not settled ground.

The consent changes people ask about

Two items get misreported by vendors, so here is the status with sources, as of October 2026.

The one-to-one consent rule did not take effect

In 2023 the FCC adopted a rule that would have required consent to be given to one seller at a time and to be "logically and topically" tied to the interaction that prompted it. In January 2025, the Eleventh Circuit vacated it in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC, holding that the FCC exceeded its statutory authority by redefining "prior express consent." The rule was scheduled to take effect on January 27, 2025, and it never did. Any page that says it took effect in 2026 is wrong.

Revocation of consent: what is in force and what was delayed

The FCC's February 2024 order rewrote how consent can be revoked, and the current text of 64.1200(a)(10) reads in part:

• A called party can revoke consent by "any reasonable method" that clearly expresses a desire not to receive further calls or texts.
• Replying "stop" and similar words to a text is a reasonable method on its face, and a reply in other words counts if a reasonable person would understand it as a revocation request.
• Revocation must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days.
• A sender of texts may not designate an exclusive means of revoking consent.

The piece that was delayed is narrower. The "revoke-all" requirement says that a revocation made in response to one type of message applies to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller on unrelated matters. The FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau extended its waiver of that requirement until January 31, 2027 in an order adopted January 6, 2026 (DA 26-12), citing the need to review the record from a pending rulemaking. The earlier waiver had run to April 11, 2026.

As of October 2026 that waiver is still in effect. Check the current status before you design opt-out logic around either date.

Missed-call text back: what the sources say, and what they do not

This is the question most contractors reading this want answered, so here is the honest state of the sources.

What the rules say. A missed-call text back is a text message to a cell number, so it is a "call" under 227(b). The consent requirement depends on the type of message. The written-consent rule applies to advertising and telemarketing, which 64.1200(f)(13) defines as a call or message initiated "for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of" goods or services. A text that only responds to the caller's inquiry reads differently from one that pushes a tune-up special, and the same rule treats them differently. Whether your text is on one side of that line is a question about your actual wording.

What CTIA says. CTIA's Messaging Principles and Best Practices (May 2023) lists several ways a consumer can show opt-in consent, including "initiating the text message exchange in which the Message Sender replies to the Consumer only with responsive information." Note the wording: it describes the consumer starting a text exchange. A phone call is not a text exchange. CTIA's document is an industry guideline for carriers and senders, not law, and it says so itself: it does not constitute legal advice.

What we could not find. We did not find an FCC rule, a court decision or a law-firm analysis that squarely addresses whether a text sent to a missed caller counts as responsive, informational or consented to. A vendor's assurance on this point is not a source. Because courts decide these cases without being bound by FCC readings, this is one to put in front of counsel with your actual template.

Questions a lawyer will probably ask, based on the rule text:

• What does the text say, word for word, and does anything in it encourage a purchase?
• How many texts go out per missed call, and when does the sequence stop?
• Does the platform send to numbers that have never contacted you, such as spoofed or wrong-number callers?
• What happens when someone replies STOP, and where is that recorded?

Reactivation campaigns to old customer lists

A dormant-database campaign is the highest-exposure text a contractor sends, because the recipients did not just contact you. Here is what the rule structure points to.

• Marketing text via an autodialer. Rulebook one calls for prior express written consent. Having a name on a customer list from a 2022 water heater job is not, by itself, the signed agreement 64.1200(f)(9) describes.
• The 18-month window. The established-business-relationship definition is limited to a purchase or transaction in the prior 18 months, or an inquiry in the prior three months. Older contacts are outside that window by the rule's own terms.
• Do-not-call scrubbing. Rulebook two applies to numbers on the National Registry, and callers who do telemarketing must also keep an internal do-not-call list under 64.1200(d).
• Purchased or rented lists. CTIA says senders should not use opt-in lists that have been rented, sold or shared, and that an opt-in should not be transferable.

None of this says you cannot contact old customers. Phone calls, email and direct mail run under different rules. The point is that "they were my customers once" is not the legal test for a text, and the answer to which channel is appropriate depends on how each number was collected. Dormant database reactivation is one of the eight components of our Booked-Jobs Recovery System, and the consent question above is the first thing to settle before a list gets touched.

Opt-outs: honoring STOP

Opt-out handling is the part with the clearest text. Under 64.1200(a)(10), as quoted above, "stop" must work, other reasonable phrasing must work, you cannot insist on a single channel, and you have at most ten business days. A one-time confirmation text that merely confirms the revocation, with no marketing content, is permitted by 64.1200(a)(12) when it is the only message sent after the request.

CTIA's guidance goes further than the law in some respects. It says senders should read and act on normal-language requests such as "end," "cancel," "quit" and "please opt me out," should support opt-out by phone call, email or text, and should send one final confirmation message per campaign after which no further messages go out.

Build the opt-out so a reply of STOP in the middle of a sequence ends the sequence, across every automation that can text that number. Stray follow-ups from a second workflow are how a handled opt-out turns into a complaint.

Quiet hours

Federal: 64.1200(c)(1) bars telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the called party's location. The called party's location can differ from yours, so a scheduled send needs to use the recipient's time zone.

State rules can be tighter. Florida is the one to watch because many contractors operate there. Florida's commercial telephone sellers provision, section 501.616(6), bars commercial telephone solicitation calls, including calls made through automated dialing or recorded messages, before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. local time in the called person's zone, and bars more than three such calls from any number to a person over 24 hours on the same subject matter. That section applies to "commercial telephone sellers," which is a defined term in that part of the statute. Whether your business falls inside it is for your lawyer to say.

Florida's separate telephone solicitation statute, section 501.059, defines a telephonic sales call to include a text message sent to solicit a sale. It bars unsolicited sales calls that use an automated system for selecting and dialing, or play a recorded message, without prior express written consent. It lets a called party sue for actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, with an increase of up to three times for willful or knowing violations. For text solicitations, the statute requires the person to reply STOP first, and the solicitor then has 15 days to stop before a suit can begin.

Maryland's 2023 law is described by the law firm Manatt as banning calls between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. and limiting calls to the same number to three in 24 hours; that summary dates to June 2023, so read the current statute. We could not verify hours rules for other states from primary sources, so we are not listing them. If you text across state lines, ask counsel to check each state you operate in.

The practical takeaway from the sources: a 9 p.m. federal cutoff is a ceiling, not a safe harbor.

Recordkeeping

The sources point to the same habit: keep proof of consent and proof of opt-out, per number.

CTIA lists the data to retain when documenting opt-in consent: the timestamp, the medium (web form, signed paper form, SMS keyword), a capture of the language and action used to secure consent, the specific campaign, the IP address, the phone number, and the identity of the person who consented. It also says senders should keep all opt-in and opt-out requests on record so that future messages are not attempted after an opt-out.

Under 64.1200(d)(6), a do-not-call request must be honored for five years from the time it is made, and 64.1200(d) calls for a written do-not-call policy, available on demand, and staff training for telemarketers. Ask your lawyer whether your texting falls under it.

In practice that means your lead form, your CRM and your texting platform need to agree on who said yes to what, and when. If the consent lives in one system and the texts go out of another, you cannot produce the record when someone asks. That is a systems problem, and it is the kind of wiring that AI lead generation and follow-up work has to get right.

A checklist to take to your lawyer

This is not a compliance checklist. It is a list of the questions the sources raise, to bring to counsel.

1. What types of texts do we send, and which are advertising or telemarketing under 64.1200(f)(13)?
2. For each type, what consent did we collect, in what form, and is it stored per phone number?
3. Is the text from a missed call responsive to the caller, and how is it worded?
4. How old are the numbers in our reactivation list, and how did we collect them?
5. Do we scrub against the National Do-Not-Call Registry and our own internal list?
6. Does STOP stop every automation that can text that number?
7. Are sends timed to the recipient's local time zone, and what do the states we serve require?
8. Is the sending number registered for business texting? Without that, the carriers may block the messages whatever the legal position. That registration is a separate carrier requirement and not part of the law described here.

Frequently asked questions

Is missed-call text back legal?

The sources we found do not answer that directly. A text to a cell number is a "call" under the TCPA, and the consent a message needs depends on whether it is informational or advertising. CTIA lists a consumer-initiated text with a responsive reply as one form of opt-in, but a phone call is not a text. Have counsel review your actual wording.

Did the FCC's one-to-one consent rule take effect?

No. The Eleventh Circuit vacated it in January 2025 in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC, before its scheduled January 27, 2025 effective date.

What is the "revoke-all" rule, and when does it apply?

It is the part of 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10) that makes a revocation of consent apply to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller, including unrelated ones. The FCC extended its waiver of that requirement until January 31, 2027 in DA 26-12. The rest of the revocation rules, including "any reasonable method" and the ten-business-day limit, are in the current rule text.

How much can a TCPA violation cost?

Under 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3), a person can recover actual damages or $500 per violation, whichever is greater, and a court can award up to three times that for a willful or knowing violation. State laws have their own remedies. Florida's section 501.059 uses the same $500 and three-times structure.