FTC Sets 2027 Fees For Do Not Call Registry Access
The Federal Trade Commission has announced new fees that telemarketers will be required to pay beginning October 1, 2026, to access phone numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry for fiscal year 2027. The annual notice sets the cost of obtaining area-code-specific data used by companies to screen out consumers who have opted not to receive unsolicited sales calls.
Under the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, businesses that make telephone solicitations are generally required to subscribe to the registry and purge their call lists of numbers that consumers have registered. The FTC updates the associated access fees each year to reflect changes in the cost of administering the system, which now contains hundreds of millions of phone numbers submitted voluntarily by consumers since the registry launched in 2003.
The agency’s fee schedule is structured by area code, with telemarketers charged a set amount for each of the area codes they wish to access, up to a maximum annual fee for organizations that need nationwide data. As in past years, entities may access data for up to five area codes at no charge, a provision intended to ease compliance costs for smaller businesses that operate in limited regions. The FTC has not detailed the exact dollar figures within the material made public alongside this announcement, though the agency’s annual notices are typically published in the Federal Register with a full breakdown of per-area-code and maximum charges ahead of the fiscal year start.
The Do Not Call Registry remains one of the FTC’s most heavily used consumer protection tools. Since its creation, tens of millions of households have added their numbers, and enforcement actions against violators have resulted in millions of dollars in civil penalties over the years. The registry is jointly enforced by the FTC and the Federal Communications Commission, and violations can result in fines that reach well into the thousands of dollars per unlawful call under current civil penalty schedules.
Industry observers note that telemarketing compliance costs have risen steadily as regulators expand enforcement against illegal robocalls and spoofed numbers, a persistent source of consumer complaints. Call centers, debt collectors, political organizations exempt from certain rules, and marketing firms that rely on outbound calling all factor registry access fees into their annual compliance budgets. For many firms, the cost of registry access is comparatively small next to the broader expense of maintaining scrubbing software, staff training, and legal review needed to avoid Telemarketing Sales Rule violations.
The announcement also arrives amid continued scrutiny of automated calling practices more broadly. Consumers filed hundreds of thousands of complaints about unwanted calls with the FTC last year alone, according to the agency’s regularly published consumer sentinel data, keeping pressure on regulators to maintain robust registry infrastructure and on telemarketers to demonstrate compliance. Legal experts who track telemarketing regulation say the yearly fee adjustment, while procedural, serves as a reminder to businesses to review their subscription status and renewal timelines well before the new fiscal year begins.
Companies that place outbound sales calls typically must renew their registry subscriptions annually and certify compliance with data-use restrictions, which bar reselling or reusing registry data for purposes other than complying with the do-not-call rules. Failure to renew access or continuing to call numbers on the registry can expose firms to enforcement actions brought by the FTC, state attorneys general, or private litigants under related consumer protection statutes.
The FTC indicated that additional details on the fiscal year 2027 fee structure, including specific dollar amounts, would be made available through its official channels ahead of the October 2026 effective date, as reported by the FTC’s press release.
