Compliance

What is 10DLC (brand & campaign registration)?

Why carriers require registration to text from a regular phone number — and how Focal handles it for you.

10DLC stands for “10-digit long code” — a normal local phone number used to send business text messages. In the US, the mobile carriers require every business that sends texts from one of these numbers to be registered. It’s how they cut down on spam and keep real business messages getting delivered.

Two things get registered

Your brand — who your business is (legal name, address, tax ID). Registered once.
Your campaign — what kind of messages you send (e.g. appointment reminders, marketing) and sample messages. You can have more than one.

How Focal handles it

You fill in your business details once. Our team does a quick review to catch anything that would get rejected by the carrier, and then we submit it for you. You don’t deal with the carrier paperwork directly.

Approval is not instant and it’s not fully in our hands — the carrier’s registry reviews it. Expect anywhere from a few hours to a couple of business days. You’ll see the status update automatically, and you can set everything else up while it’s pending.

Why it matters

Messages sent from an unregistered number get filtered or blocked by carriers. Registering is what makes your texts actually arrive — it’s the foundation, not red tape.