Before your agency can text anyone, the carriers have to know who you are

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon require any organization that sends automated texts to register who it is and what it sends. Since February 2025 they have blocked traffic from anyone who has not. Your agency can hand that work to eCourtDate, an approved Campaign Service Provider, or build it in-house on Twilio and keep it running for as long as you send.

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How carrier registration works

The registry and the carriers hold every sender to the same three steps, whether it is a national retailer or a county probation department.

  1. 1

    Your agency registers as a brand

    In the registry’s vocabulary, a brand is a sender. Registering one means verifying your agency’s legal identity and its standing as a government entity. Every message you send afterward traces back to that record.

  2. 2

    You register what you send as a campaign

    A campaign describes the messages themselves: court date reminders, payment notices, supervision check-ins, victim notifications. Carriers read the description, review sample messages, and approve the campaign before a single text can leave.

  3. 3

    Carriers assign a sending tier

    Each carrier sets how many messages your agency may send in a day and how quickly they move through the queue. The tier depends on what kind of organization registered. A verified government agency is placed at the top.

Two ways to get registered

Sooner or later someone in IT points out that Twilio can send a text for a fraction of a cent. That is true as far as it goes. Sending is the easy part. What takes work is registering the agency, getting its campaigns approved, and keeping all of it in good standing through every rule change the carriers hand down. One of two teams has to do that work: yours, or ours.

Built on Twilio

  • When the registry rejects a submission, someone on your staff has to work out why, rewrite it, and pay for another review. The reasons are rarely obvious.
  • Consent records, opt-out keywords, quiet hours, and duplicate suppression all have to be written into the integration, then rewritten every time the rules move.
  • A carrier can filter a message and still report it as delivered. Unless your team builds monitoring to catch the gap, nobody knows a reminder went missing.
  • Links go out through a shared public shortener unless you register and maintain a domain of your own.
  • The registration rules changed several times through 2026. Each change lands on whoever owns the code.
  • A general-purpose messaging API is not a CJIS environment and does not run in AWS GovCloud. Everything built around it has to make up the difference.

On eCourtDate

  • eCourtDate prepares and files the registration. If the registry sends anything back, we handle the resubmission.
  • Opt-out keywords are honored on every send, and any scheduled messages to that person are cancelled the moment they reply.
  • Carrier blocks are watched for and escalated. Affected messages can be resent through an alternate campaign while the issue is resolved.
  • Trackable links run on your agency’s own domain.
  • Rule changes are absorbed by the platform. Your agency rebuilds nothing.
  • CJIS compliant, hosted in AWS GovCloud, WCAG 2.2 AA.

Registration is one line in a much longer list. The Build or Buy page covers the rest.

The tier that decides whether your reminders go out on time

The registry sorts every sender into a throughput tier, which sets how many messages it can send in a day and how quickly they move. Commercial brands start at the bottom and pay an outside vetting firm to move up. A verified government agency is placed at the top from the start, without paying anyone.

The catch is getting the government status confirmed. Submissions fail on details most agencies have no reason to know, and each rejection sends the application back to the end of the queue. eCourtDate files registrations for justice agencies every week, and government registration is the only kind we do.

Top Carrier Tier

A verified government agency receives the highest message class on AT&T and uncapped daily volume on T-Mobile, for every use case it registers. Commercial senders start at the bottom tier and pay to climb.

Nothing to Buy

Commercial brands pay an outside vetting firm to earn a higher tier. Government status carries that placement on its own. There is no vetting fee and no one to hire.

Filed as a Justice Agency

Every eCourtDate customer is a justice agency, so government registration is the only kind we file. On a generic API it is a footnote in documentation written for retailers and marketers.

Who does what, and how long it takes

Registration happens during onboarding. Your agency never files anything with the registry or the carriers, and nothing comes back to your desk for a second try.

Your agency provides

  • A few identity details about your agency.
  • Confirmation of what you plan to send.

eCourtDate does

  • Prepares and files your brand and campaign through our Campaign Service Provider connection.
  • Answers anything the registry or a carrier sends back.
  • Assigns your numbers, or ports the ones you already use, and completes the carrier setup around them.
  • Watches deliverability once you are live.
Agency verification
Usually within an hour
Campaign approval
5 to 15 business days
While you wait
Build templates and automations, and run them in a test mode that sends nothing

Proof points

10,000+

Courts and justice locations on the platform

24

States with agencies on eCourtDate

50%

Reduction in failure to appear (FTA), at the high end

100+

Languages supported without configuration

The Campaign Registry, the body carriers use to register senders, lists eCourtDate publicly as an approved Campaign Service Provider: a platform cleared to register and send on behalf of many organizations at once. eCourtDate is CJIS compliant and runs in AWS GovCloud. Your IT team can check every one of those claims against our security documentation.

Guides for agencies on the platform

The step-by-step instructions, the forms, and the troubleshooting live in the help center and the technical wiki, where they are kept current as the rules change.

Complete Carrier Registration

What to expect at each stage, from verifying your agency to the approval of its first campaign.

Help center

Texting Campaign Best Practices

How many campaigns an agency should run, how to structure them, and how to keep each one in good standing.

Help center

Carrier Registration Reference

Number types, campaign structure, throughput, and porting, written for technical staff.

Technical wiki

Consent and opt-in rules are covered on the Opt-in Compliance page. To register a new number or port one you already use, contact us.

Questions agencies ask about carrier registration

What administrators, IT directors, and deployment partners want to know before deciding how to register.

Does our agency have to register to send text messages?
Yes. Since February 2025 the mobile carriers have blocked automated text traffic from any organization that is not registered, regardless of its size or purpose. A reminder sent from an unregistered number does not reach the phone.
Can we build this ourselves on Twilio?
You can, and some agencies have. Twilio will carry the message. The registration itself, and everything that keeps it in good standing, stays with your team: rewriting rejected submissions, handling consent and opt-outs, setting up a link domain, porting numbers, and rebuilding the integration each time the carriers change the rules. That work lasts as long as the system runs. On eCourtDate it is already done, inside a platform that is CJIS compliant and hosted in AWS GovCloud.
What does registering as a government agency get us?
Placement in the top throughput tier on the major carriers, for every use case you register, with no third-party vetting to buy. Commercial senders start at the bottom tier and pay to move up. The practical difference is speed. A morning batch of reminders leaves in minutes rather than being metered out over the day.
Who does the registration work?
eCourtDate does. Your agency supplies a few identity details and confirms what it intends to send. We prepare and file the registration through our Campaign Service Provider connection, answer anything the registry sends back, and set up your numbers. That includes dedicated registrations, special use cases, exemption requests, and number porting.
How long until we can send?
Agency verification usually finishes within an hour. Campaign approval takes 5 to 15 business days, and no live text can go out until it clears. Your team does not lose that time. Templates and automations can be built and run in a test mode that sends nothing, so the first real message goes out the day the campaign is approved.
What does carrier registration cost?
The carriers and The Campaign Registry set the fees and revise them periodically. Expect a one-time brand registration fee, a recurring campaign fee, and a small per-message carrier surcharge. A short code adds a recurring lease on top. Treat them as a first-year line item, and contact us for the current amounts for your agency.
What happens when a carrier filters a message anyway?
Carriers can filter a message without returning an error, so the delivery report may still read as delivered. eCourtDate watches for carrier blocks, notifies your agency when one occurs, and can resend the affected messages through an alternate campaign while the block is resolved. Contact validation also catches landline numbers up front and routes those recipients to a voice call instead of a text that would fail.
Do we need a short code?
Most agencies do not. A local 10-digit number handles the large majority of justice agency messaging, supports two-way replies, and shows a familiar area code on the recipient’s phone. Short codes are built for very high volume, take considerably longer to provision, and cost more to keep.
Can we keep the phone number we already use?
Yes. Local numbers, toll-free numbers, and short codes can all be ported to eCourtDate with no downtime during the transfer. Carrier registration has to be complete before a number is eligible to move. The help center walks through the paperwork.
Does each of our courts or departments need its own registration?
Yes. Each eCourtDate agency registers as its own brand. A county with several courts and departments, or a state office serving multiple jurisdictions, plans one registration per agency, and our team sequences a multi-agency rollout so each goes live on schedule.
We deploy eCourtDate for agencies as a partner. Is registration handled for each one?
Yes. Each agency you deploy registers as its own brand through eCourtDate’s Campaign Service Provider connection, and eCourtDate does the filing. Your team registers nothing and holds no registration on an agency’s behalf. For a rollout across several agencies, we sequence the registrations with you so each one goes live on schedule.

See registration handled for an agency like yours

Get a demo built around your agency, including how registration is completed during onboarding.

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