Since February 2025 the carriers block every text from an unregistered campaign number. Registration isn’t paperwork on the side of the program. It is the program’s permission to run.
A 10-digit local number, registered with The Campaign Registry so carriers know who’s sending and what. Registered numbers get real throughput and delivery. Unregistered ones get silence.
Spam broke consumer trust in SMS, and the carriers answered with an identity system. Every sender registers a brand, every program registers a campaign, and traffic that skips the system stops existing on the network. There is no political exception. The carriers wrote that down.
Political senders carry one extra step. Campaign Verify, the nonpartisan verification for candidates, parties, and PACs. The token proves the committee is real, and carriers treat verified political traffic accordingly. Committee first, then brand, then campaign, then numbers.
Files the whole chain for you. Campaign Verify, brand, campaign, numbers. It’s why day one on the platform starts with paperwork instead of sending, and why week three doesn’t start with a blocklist.
Brand registration runs days. Campaign approval runs one to three weeks, longer in the fall crush when every committee in America files at once. There is no emergency lane and no expedite fee. The campaign that registers in July sends in October. The one that registers in October watches.
Registration gets you on the network. Behavior keeps you there. Message content has to match what you registered, opt-out rates feed your trust score, and evasion tricks like masking bulk traffic as personal texting end in fines and termination. The registration is a promise. The sending keeps it.
Operational guidance, not legal advice. Registration details shift. The platform tracks them so you don’t.