Industry
TCPA Compliance for Debt Collection
Does the TCPA apply to debt collection calls?
Short answerYes, in part. The TCPA's consent rule for calls to wireless numbers made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice (47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii)) applies whatever the call is about, collections included. Its telephone solicitation rules, including the National Do Not Call Registry, are built around calls that encourage a purchase, and the FCC has said calls made solely to collect a debt are not telephone solicitations. Call frequency, calling hours and opt-outs for third-party collectors come from Regulation F (12 CFR part 1006), not the TCPA.
Checking a whole list? Preview 20 rows of it free →
On this page
Most TCPA guidance is written for telemarketers, and a collections team reading it gets two things wrong in opposite directions. It over-applies the parts built around sales calls, like the Do Not Call Registry, and it under-applies the part that reaches every call regardless of purpose: the consent rule for autodialed and prerecorded calls to wireless numbers. Add Regulation F on top, which governs how often and when a debt collector may call, and it is easy to lose track of which rule comes from where.
This page separates them. It is not legal advice, and it covers federal rules only.
What the TCPA reaches in collections, and what Regulation F reaches
The TCPA applies to "any person" who makes the covered calls, so a creditor collecting its own accounts is inside it as fully as an agency. Regulation F is narrower: it binds a debt collector as defined in 12 CFR 1006.2(i), which generally means someone collecting debts owed to another and excludes, among others, a creditor's own employees collecting in the creditor's name and a person collecting a debt it originated.
| Rule | Source | How it applies to collection calls |
|---|---|---|
| Autodialer or artificial/prerecorded voice to a wireless number | 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii); 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(1)(iii) | Needs prior express consent, whatever the call is about |
| Prerecorded voice to a residential line | § 227(b)(1)(B); 64.1200(a)(3)(iii) | Without consent, no more than three calls in any consecutive 30-day period, with an opt-out mechanism and a do-not-call list (64.1200(b), (d)) |
| National Do Not Call Registry | 64.1200(c)(2) | Restricts telephone solicitations; the FCC says calls solely to collect a debt are not |
| Calling hours | 12 CFR 1006.6(b)(1)(i) | Before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time at the consumer's location is presumed inconvenient |
| Call frequency | 12 CFR 1006.14(b)(2) | Presumption: no more than 7 calls in 7 days per particular debt, and none for 7 days after a conversation |
| Opt-out in emails and texts | 12 CFR 1006.6(e) | Each electronic communication must describe a reasonable and simple way to opt out |
| Revoking TCPA consent | FCC revocation rules | See the 10-business-day opt-out clock |
Damages are what make the first row expensive. Section 227(b)(3) gives a private right of action for $500 per violation, which a court may treble for a willful or knowing violation. Collection work is repetitive by nature, and every call to the same unconsented wireless number is a separate call.
Why line type decides which consent rule applies
The same prerecorded reminder is treated differently depending on where it lands. To a wireless number it needs prior express consent. To a residential landline, a commercial call with no advertisement can go out without consent up to the three-in-30-days limit. So the practical question for every number on a collections file is what kind of line it is today, not what it was when the account opened.
Those drift apart. Numbers port from landline to wireless, and the rule's allowance for that is short: 64.1200(a)(1)(iv) excuses a voice call to a number ported from wireline to wireless only within 15 days of the port, only if the call was not knowingly made to a wireless number, and only if the number is not already on the national or your company's do-not-call list. After that, a wireless number is a wireless number whatever your account record says.
Reassigned numbers and the safe harbor
Collections consent is often old, and old consent is exposed to reassignment: the consumer who gave the creditor a cell number years ago may no longer have it. The FCC's safe harbor, 47 CFR 64.1200(m), protects a caller who had prior express consent from the previous subscriber, queried the Reassigned Numbers Database using the most recent data, received "no", and called because that answer was wrong. The caller carries "the burden of proof and persuasion" on each element, so keep the query record.
Regulation F has its own, separate version of the idea for texts. Under 1006.6(d)(5), one route to reasonable procedures for texting a number is confirming, within the past 60 days and "using a complete and accurate database," that the number has not been reassigned since the consumer's most recent consent or text.
Litigators and collection files
A fixed per-call award with no need to prove loss supports a population of serial TCPA filers. Their numbers are ordinary, active mobile lines that pass every technical check, and nothing about how a number arrived in a collections system flags them. The only practical screen is comparing the file against a court-sourced database of known filers before calling, which is what a batch litigator scrub does.
Collection files carry a second population: consumers who sue collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). NumberBroom's litigator check covers them too. It flags numbers tied to TCPA, FDCPA, FCRA and CFPB suits, found by scanning court filings for the phones used in litigation. A match does not say which law the suit was under, and the check is not a guarantee: no database catches every litigator, a first-time filer is in none of them, and a number can be missed. It reduces exposure rather than removing it.
Skip tracing for collections: a found number is not a consented number
When the number on file stops working, collectors trace a new one. The FCC's 2008 ruling ties consent to a number the consumer provided to the creditor during the transaction that created the debt, so a traced number does not carry that consent. The same ruling says that where the consumer has not given the creditor the number, the FCC expects collectors to determine which numbers are wireless and comply with the autodialer and prerecorded-voice prohibition for them.
That makes line type the first question for a traced number, before any dialing strategy is chosen. See cleaning a list after skip tracing for the checks a trace cannot run.
Operational checklist
- Record, per account, where each wireless number came from and whether the consumer provided it to the creditor in the transaction that created the debt.
- Route traced or otherwise unconsented wireless numbers away from autodialed and prerecorded campaigns.
- Check line type before each campaign, not once at onboarding, because numbers port.
- Cap prerecorded calls to residential lines at three in any 30-day period unless you hold consent, and include the opt-out mechanism.
- Enforce Regulation F frequency per particular debt and calling hours in the consumer's local time, in the dialer itself.
- For aged consent, query the Reassigned Numbers Database and retain the response.
- Honor revocations within the current window, and include an opt-out statement in every email and text.
- Screen the file for known litigators and keep a dated record that you did.
Quick check: the TCPA in collections
Pick an answer to see whether it is right, and why.
What NumberBroom does and does not do
A CSV upload runs carrier validation (line type as mobile, landline or VoIP, carrier, and an activity score that signals disconnects) and litigator screening (numbers tied to TCPA, FDCPA, FCRA and CFPB suits; not a guarantee, as above) in one job. You get a *_clean.csv with every original column plus line_type, carrier, activity_score and scrub_status, and a dated Record of compliance screening for the job at /certificate/{jobId}. Pricing is $0.20 per number for the first 2,000 rows, falling to $0.08 a row between 5,001 and 10,000, with a $5 minimum and no subscription. One job takes up to 10,000 rows; a longer file is scrubbed up to that cap and the rest is handed back as its own file to upload as a second job. A single number can be checked with the free carrier lookup, and the API screens one number per call.
Read this before uploading a collections file
On the full scrub, the clean file keeps only rows that passed: connected mobile numbers that are not litigator matches. Landline and VoIP rows are removed from it and come back in a separate file of removed rows, each with its line type and reason, and litigator matches come back in that file too and in a file of their own. If your strategy still includes calls to landlines, choose Litigators only on the upload card instead: it removes known litigators and numbers that are not valid, and keeps landline, VoIP and disconnected rows with line_type, carrier and activity_score appended, at the same price.
NumberBroom does not query the FCC Reassigned Numbers Database, check state do-not-call lists, skip trace, capture or verify consent, or enforce Regulation F call frequency or calling hours. The one Do Not Call check it offers is a federal Do Not Call Registry check, under your own FTC subscription (SAN), included free on lists of up to 1,000 numbers for a signed-in customer. A signed-in customer can also keep their own do-not-call list in Settings; its numbers are removed from every list they scrub, before anything is looked up. Keeping and honouring that list is still your obligation. An activity score is not an RND response and earns no safe harbor. For how these obligations fit the wider rules, see the TCPA compliance guide.
Frequently asked questions
Do debt collectors have to scrub the National Do Not Call Registry?
The federal registry rule, 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(2), restricts telephone solicitations, which the rule defines as calls "for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services." In its 2008 ACA International ruling the FCC said "calls solely for the purpose of debt collection are not telephone solicitations and do not constitute telemarketing."
Two limits on that. The word doing the work is solely: a call that also pitches a new product is a different call. And this is the federal rule only; state laws are outside this page. None of it touches the separate consent rule for wireless numbers, which applies regardless of content.
Does giving a creditor a cell number count as consent to autodialed or prerecorded calls?
Under the FCC's 2008 ruling (FCC 07-232, paras. 9 and 10), a wireless number the consumer provided to the creditor, for example on a credit application, during the transaction that resulted in the debt reasonably evidences prior express consent to be called at that number about that debt. The creditor bears the burden of showing it, and calls a third-party collector places for that creditor are treated as if the creditor placed them.
It is narrower than it sounds. Consent given to one creditor does not let it, or its collector, call on behalf of other creditors, affiliates included. And a number the consumer never gave the creditor, such as one found by a skip trace, is not covered by that ruling at all.
What are the FDCPA call limits, and do they come from the TCPA?
They come from Regulation F, not the TCPA. Under 12 CFR 1006.14(b)(2), a debt collector is presumed to comply if it calls a particular person about a particular debt neither more than seven times within seven consecutive days nor within seven consecutive days after a telephone conversation with that person about the debt. Exceeding either is presumed to violate the rule.
Some calls do not count: calls made with the person's prior consent given directly to the collector (within seven days of that consent), calls that do not connect to the dialed number, and calls to the people listed in 1006.6(d)(1)(ii) through (vi), such as the consumer's attorney (1006.14(b)(3)). It is a presumption, not a safe number. NumberBroom does not track or enforce it.
Is a predictive dialer an autodialer after Facebook v. Duguid?
The Supreme Court held in 2021 that an "automatic telephone dialing system" under 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(1) must have the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Whether a specific dialing platform meets that definition turns on how it works, which is a question for counsel with the system's specifications in hand, not for a web page.
What Duguid did not change matters more for collections: the separate prohibition on calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice is unaffected, as the Court said expressly. A prerecorded message to a wireless number still needs prior express consent however the number was dialed. See TCPA autodialer rules for the rest of what applies whatever the dialer.
Is there still a TCPA exception for collecting government-backed debt?
Not in the wireless-number rule. Congress added an exception in 2015 for calls "made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States." In Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (2020), six Justices held that exception violates the First Amendment, and seven concluded it must be invalidated and severed, leaving the rest of the 1991 restriction in force.
Watch for this when reading the statute: the U.S. Code text on some sites still prints the clause in § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). The FCC's own rule, 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(1)(iii), does not contain it.
- 47 U.S.C. § 227 -- Restrictions on use of telephone equipment (Cornell LII)
- 47 CFR 64.1200 -- Delivery restrictions, incl. (a)(1), (a)(3), (c), (f)(15), (m) (eCFR)
- FCC 07-232 -- ACA International Declaratory Ruling, CG Docket 02-278 (2008)
- 12 CFR 1006.2 -- Regulation F definitions (eCFR)
- 12 CFR 1006.6 -- Communications in connection with debt collection (eCFR)
- 12 CFR 1006.14 -- Harassing, oppressive, or abusive conduct (eCFR)
- Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, No. 19-631 (U.S. 2020)
- Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, No. 19-511 (U.S. 2021)