US Toll-free number registration

Toll-free numbers are a great option for businesses to have a national presence across the US instead of tying themselves to a local number in a city/state.

This helps to build trust with your customers, often with an easy-to-remember number and means that your callers can benefit from calling you for free, without having to shoulder long-distance call charges.

Toll-free numbers aren't currently subjected to the same registration requirements as standard 10DLC (10-digit long code) numbers, but to ensure that messages sent from toll-free numbers have the best in deliverability, we always advise you register your toll-free number once its created.

Benefits of a toll-free number include:

• No call charges for your callers - perfect for customer service or support lines
• SMS enabled as soon as you create the number
• National presence rather than associating with a specific US city/state
• No associated fees to register with the US carriers

If you plan to send SMS or MMS (media messages) from a toll-free number, you'll need to register to ensure your messages are delivered successfully - an outright block of messages sent from unregistered toll-free numbers is being put in place soon, so registered early means no downtime in outbound message functionality.

If your toll-free number will only be used for calls and inbound messages, there is currently no requirement to register.

If your workspace has both 10DLC numbers as well as toll-free numbers, it's worth noting that the registration process is different and you'll need to complete both applications to get the best from your Chalkboard numbers.

You can read on to learn more about the registration process for a toll-free number or click here to learn about A2P 10DLC registration.

If you don't register your toll-free numbers, you'll face higher levels of message filtering and ultimately will face an outright message block once the US carriers put this in place, stopping your message content from being delivered.

New regulations came into place in October 2022, meaning that unregistered toll-free numbers would be subject to higher rates of message filtering and blocking until registered.

Registration is designed to verify genuine business usage, build trust in the US carrier ecosystem and ensure that spam and general misuse of toll-free numbers can be managed more closely than before.

It takes approximately 2-3 weeks from the point of submission for applications to be reviewed and given an outcome.

Applications with higher volumes of toll-free numbers, multiple/mixed-use cases or those that require further information to verify can take longer to receive an outcome.

You'll still be able to use your toll-free number for messaging purposes while your application is being reviewed.

No, registration is free and open to all US toll-free phone numbers.

You can register up to 5 toll-free numbers without additional information being required.

If you need to register more than 5 numbers, you'll be asked to provide additional information such as:

• Why you need higher volumes of toll-free numbers
• If these numbers are all used and registered within the same business
• If the use-case is the same for each number, or different due to numbers being used across different departments of a business i.e. split across a sales team, a marketing team and a number used for verification messages

When you register your number, you'll be asked to provide:

• Your business name - this should be the business name your customer is engaging with
• Your business website/social media URLs - this is required to help verify both your identity and use-case
• Your business address - this should be the address the customer associates with your business such as a trading address or principal place of business
• Contact details - this needs to be the owner of the workspace, as we will need to verify the details provided against the information associated with your subscription
• Expected message volumes - this is required to help gauge the volume of message traffic expected to be seen by the US carriers
• Toll-free numbers to be registered - these should be active numbers within your workspace
• Use-case category - you'll be able to select from a predefined drop-down list, try and select the category that best suits your intended message type
• Summary of use-case - you'll need to provide a detailed explanation of what your number will be used for
• Message example - you'll need to provide a detailed example of a sample message that your customer would receive. It's important to include as much detail as possible here
• How your customers opt-in to receive your messages - it's important to provide as much information here as to how your customers consent to receive your messages. Failure to provide this information will result in your application being rejected
• An example of how/where your customer opts in - you'll need to provide evidence which shows how your customers can opt in to receive your messages

If you're ready to register, you can follow the steps here.