The TCPA explained: your rights against robocalls and spam texts

Congress passed the TCPA in 1991. It is codified at 47 U.S.C. 227, and the Federal Communications Commission writes the rules that implement it (47 C.F.R. 64.1200). The main prohibitions:

• Autodialed or prerecorded calls to cell phones without the called party's prior express consent, unless the call is for emergency purposes (Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii)).
• Prerecorded or artificial-voice calls to home phones without prior express consent, with limited exceptions (Section 227(b)(1)(B)).
• Telemarketing to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, and to people who asked a specific company to stop calling (Section 227(c) and the FCC's rules).
• Telemarketing at night. FCC rules bar telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the called party's location.
• Junk faxes, meaning unsolicited fax advertisements.

The FCC treats text messages as calls for the robocall and autodialer rules, which is why many spam text lawsuits are brought under the TCPA. See also quiet hours text lawsuits.

The TCPA sets damages per call or text, which is why TCPA cases can add up quickly.

Under 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3), a person can recover the greater of actual losses or $500 for each violation, and a court may increase the award to three times that amount if the violation was willful or knowing. Do Not Call claims under Section 227(c)(5) are available to a person who received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the rules.

Class settlements pay far less per person than the statutory amount because the fund is split among everyone who files. For real figures, see how much you can get from a TCPA lawsuit and the Momentum Solar TCPA settlement, which paid per call.

Consent is the most common defense in TCPA cases. Companies often claim you agreed to calls by filling out a web form, entering a sweepstakes, or buying something. For telemarketing robocalls, FCC rules require prior express written consent.

You can take consent back. Under FCC rules that took effect April 11, 2025, callers and texters must honor a do-not-call or consent revocation request within a reasonable time not to exceed 10 business days, and consumers can revoke consent by any reasonable means, including replying STOP to a text. A company may send one prompt text confirming your opt-out, but nothing more.

The FCC also tried to require "one-to-one" consent, so that a single web form could not authorize calls from dozens of companies. On January 24, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit vacated the FCC's one-to-one consent rule in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC, holding it conflicted with the ordinary meaning of "prior express consent" in the statute.

• Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid (2021). The Supreme Court held that a device is an automatic telephone dialing system only if it can store or produce telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Systems that just dial from a list of stored contacts often fall outside that definition, which ended many autodialer claims. Prerecorded voice claims and Do Not Call claims were not affected.
• McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp. (June 20, 2025). The Supreme Court held that the Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in enforcement proceedings to the FCC's interpretation of the statute. Courts must decide what the TCPA means for themselves, giving appropriate respect to the FCC's views. That opened long-settled FCC interpretations to fresh challenges.
• Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services (7th Cir. July 14, 2026). The Seventh Circuit held that text messages are not "telephone calls" under Section 227(c)(5), eliminating Do Not Call claims over texts in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The Ninth Circuit held on January 13, 2026 in Howard v. Republican National Committee that texts are calls under Section 227(b), creating a split that may reach the Supreme Court.

These rulings mean the strength of a TCPA claim depends on the type of call, the technology used, and where you live. They are one reason class actions can take years.

You can bring a TCPA claim on your own, in federal court or in state court where state law allows, or as part of a class action. Individual cases can be worth pursuing when you have many documented calls from an identifiable company. Class actions make sense when a company called or texted thousands of people the same way.

TCPA claims generally must be filed within four years of each call or text, under the federal catch-all limitations period in 28 U.S.C. 1658. Save evidence now:

1. Screenshots of call logs and texts with dates, times, and numbers.
2. Voicemails, especially prerecorded messages.
3. Your Do Not Call Registry registration date, which you can check at donotcall.gov.
4. Every STOP reply or verbal request, and the calls that came after.
5. The company name, product, or website each caller mentioned.

Identifying the company behind spoofed numbers is often the hardest part, and attorneys use subpoenas to carriers to trace calls. See our pages on robocall lawsuits, wrong-number robocalls, and car dealership telemarketing, plus how to stop robocalls and spam texts. If you keep getting illegal calls or texts, a free case review takes about two minutes.