47 U.S.C. § 227 (TCPA) Explained: Robocalls & Texts

47 U.S.C. § 227 is the core provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the federal statute that restricts robocalls, autodialed and prerecorded-voice calls, unwanted telemarketing texts, and junk faxes, and that lets a consumer sue for statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per violation.

This article explains the statute itself: what it prohibits, how the Supreme Court has narrowed and clarified it, and how its private right of action works. For a broader introduction to the TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry, see recordinglaw.com's TCPA overview; for a closer look at damages, settlements, and the FCC's current rulemaking posture, see TCPA Damages and Lawsuits. This article covers the federal statute, which applies nationwide by its own force. It does not cover state wiretap and recording-consent statutes, a separate body of law and the main subject of the rest of this site; see US recording laws by state for that topic.

Information last verified against primary federal sources on August 12, 2026. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

What 47 U.S.C. § 227 Actually Prohibits

Section 227(b) sets out three separate prohibitions, and courts treat them as independent theories of liability. First, § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) makes it unlawful to call an emergency line, a hospital patient or guest room, or a number assigned to cellular, paging, or other service the called party is charged for, using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, unless the call is for emergency purposes or is made with the called party's prior express consent; a call to a paging, cellular, or other charged-for number carries a further exception for calls made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States. Second, § 227(b)(1)(B) separately bars initiating a call to a residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message, without the called party's prior express consent, subject to similar emergency and federal-debt exceptions and any exemption the FCC issues by rule. Third, § 227(b)(1)(C) restricts sending an unsolicited advertisement to a fax machine, permitting it only where the sender has an established business relationship with the recipient, obtained the fax number through voluntary communication within that relationship or from a directory or website the recipient posted it to voluntarily, and the ad carries a compliant opt-out notice.

Each of these three prongs is its own basis for a claim, and a single call or fax can violate more than one at once. The residential prerecorded-voice prong in § 227(b)(1)(B) does not require automatic dialing equipment at all; a prerecorded message delivered to a residential line without consent can violate it regardless of how it was dialed.

What Counts as an Automatic Telephone Dialing System After Duguid

§ 227(a)(1) defines an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) as equipment with the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator, and to dial those numbers. For years, lower courts split over whether that definition covered equipment that dials automatically from a stored list of numbers, even without generating those numbers randomly or sequentially itself.

The Supreme Court resolved that split in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021), holding unanimously that a device must have the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator, either to store or to produce the numbers dialed, to qualify as an ATDS. Equipment that simply auto-dials down a list of numbers a business already has, such as a customer database, does not meet the statutory definition, even if the dialing itself is automated.

Duguid narrowed ATDS liability nationwide, but it did not touch the rest of § 227(b). A call or text made with an artificial or prerecorded voice remains restricted under § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) and § 227(b)(1)(B) regardless of whether the dialing equipment is an ATDS, and calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry remain restricted under § 227(c) regardless of the dialing method. Duguid narrowed one theory of liability under the statute; it did not narrow the statute as a whole.

The Do-Not-Call Provisions and Who Can Sue Under § 227(c)

§ 227(c) directs the FCC to prescribe regulations protecting residential subscribers' privacy rights, including a national database of people who don't wish to receive telephone solicitations, which became the National Do Not Call Registry. The statute defines telephone solicitation, for purposes of this framework, as a call or message made for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services. That definition itself excludes three categories of calls: those made with the recipient's prior express invitation or permission, those made to a person the caller has an established business relationship with, and those made by a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Because a political or survey call typically is not made to sell anything, it generally falls outside the telephone-solicitation definition on its own terms, separately from those three listed exclusions.

§ 227(c)(5) creates a private right of action for do-not-call violations, but with a real limitation the ATDS provisions in § 227(b) do not share: it is available only to someone who received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period, by or on behalf of the same entity, in violation of the FCC's do-not-call regulations. A single unwanted telemarketing call does not support a claim under § 227(c)(5) by itself, though it might still support a claim under § 227(b) if it used an ATDS or a prerecorded voice.

How Much You Can Sue For

Both private rights of action in § 227 use the same damages structure. Under § 227(b)(3), a person may bring an action in an appropriate court to recover actual monetary loss from an ATDS, prerecorded-voice, or fax violation, or $500 in damages for that violation, whichever is greater, plus injunctive relief. § 227(c)(5) provides the same choice, actual loss or up to $500 per violation, plus injunctive relief, for a do-not-call violation that clears the more-than-one-call threshold described above.

In either case, if the court finds the violation was willful or knowing, it may, in its discretion, increase the award to as much as three times the amount otherwise available, meaning up to $1,500 per violation. That increase is never automatic; the statute gives the court discretion, and a plaintiff has to show willfulness or knowledge, not just a bare violation, to obtain it. This article covers the statutory framework; for how courts count violations in practice and examples of recent settlements, see TCPA Damages and Lawsuits.

Do TCPA Text-Message Protections Match Phone-Call Protections?

Courts have long treated text messages as calls for purposes of the ATDS and prerecorded-voice restrictions in § 227(b), so an unwanted marketing text sent with equipment covered by § 227(a)(1) can violate the statute the same way an unwanted call can.

The do-not-call private right of action in § 227(c)(5) is a narrower question. In July 2026, the Seventh Circuit held in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services that a text message is not a telephone call within the meaning of § 227(c)(5), so a consumer in that circuit (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) cannot bring a do-not-call claim over an unwanted marketing text under that specific subsection, even if their number is on the National Do Not Call Registry, according to law-firm reporting on the decision. That ruling is the first federal appeals decision to squarely address whether a text is a call under § 227(c)(5) specifically, and it creates real tension with rulings in other circuits that have read call broadly under the neighboring § 227(b) ATDS provision, a different subsection; no other circuit has yet ruled the opposite way on § 227(c)(5) itself. Recordinglaw.com covered this ruling in more detail in Seventh Circuit Rules TCPA Text Messages Are Not Telephone Calls Under Do-Not-Call Law.

This split affects only the do-not-call theory under § 227(c)(5). It does not affect a text-message claim brought under § 227(b) over ATDS or prerecorded or artificial-voice use, which remains available nationwide regardless of which circuit hears the case. Because this is a very recent and unsettled area, confirm the current law in your circuit, or talk to a licensed attorney, before assuming a text-based do-not-call claim will or will not proceed.

FCC Rules That Implement § 227

§ 227 itself is short on operational detail for consent and revocation; Congress gave the FCC authority to fill much of that in by regulation, currently codified at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200. Those regulations address matters the statute does not spell out directly, including what qualifies as prior express consent for different categories of calls and texts, and how a consumer can revoke consent they previously gave.

The FCC has updated 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 more than once in recent years, including changes addressing how a consumer can revoke consent and how quickly a business must honor that revocation. Because the FCC's rules in this area, and their phase-in timelines, have continued to change, this article does not state specific compliance-window dates here; check the current text of 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 directly, or consult a licensed attorney, for what applies today.

The Supreme Court's 2025 decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp. adds a wrinkle to how much weight FCC interpretations carry in private litigation. The Court held that the Hobbs Act does not require a district court hearing a private TCPA suit to treat an FCC order's interpretation of the statute as binding; the court must independently interpret the statute, giving the agency's reading appropriate respect but not conclusive deference. Practically, that means an FCC order interpreting § 227 or its regulations is a strong, but no longer automatically controlling, guide in a private lawsuit.

How Courts Have Applied § 227

§ 227 has generated a large body of litigation. More than 3,200 federal court decisions cite the statute, according to recordinglaw.com's case-law index, with the pace of citing decisions roughly quadrupling from the 2000s to the 2010s and continuing to climb through the 2020s.

Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021), discussed above, is the leading modern case on the ATDS definition and has been cited by 386 subsequent decisions per recordinglaw.com's case-law index.

Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153 (2016), addressed a defense tactic used in TCPA class actions: a defendant offering the named plaintiff a settlement covering their full individual claim, then arguing the case is moot once the plaintiff turns it down. The Supreme Court held that an unaccepted Rule 68 settlement offer has no force once rejected, so it does not moot the plaintiff's individual claim or a putative class claim. It has been cited by 967 subsequent decisions per recordinglaw.com's case-law index, reflecting how central the mootness question is to TCPA class litigation.

McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., decided in 2025 and discussed above, is the most recent Supreme Court decision to reach § 227, and it changed how much deference an FCC order gets in private litigation going forward, rather than changing what the statute itself prohibits.

Common Misconceptions About § 227

"The TCPA bans all robocalls." It bans specific categories: automatic-dialing or prerecorded-voice calls to cell phones without prior express consent, prerecorded-voice calls to residential lines without consent, and telemarketing calls that violate the FCC's do-not-call regulations, with several carve-outs, including emergency calls and calls made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.

"Any automated dialing software counts as an ATDS." Since Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, a system that only auto-dials down a stored customer list, without using a random or sequential number generator, does not meet the statutory ATDS definition, though it can still create liability under the prerecorded-voice or do-not-call provisions.

"You need the FCC to sue on your behalf." § 227(b)(3) and § 227(c)(5) both create a private right of action a consumer can bring directly in court, without an FCC enforcement action coming first.

"One unwanted telemarketing call is always worth a lawsuit." The § 227(c)(5) do-not-call private right of action specifically requires more than one call within a 12-month period from the same entity. A single call can still be actionable under § 227(b) if it used an ATDS or prerecorded voice, just not under § 227(c)(5) alone.

"Statutory damages are automatically tripled." Treble damages, up to $1,500 per violation, are available only if a court finds the violation was willful or knowing, and the increase is discretionary; it is never automatic.

Disclaimer

This article explains 47 U.S.C. § 227, the core provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, as general legal information verified against primary federal sources on the date noted above. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. FCC regulations implementing this statute change over time, and courts continue to interpret provisions like the ATDS definition and the do-not-call private right of action; confirm current law in your jurisdiction, and consult a licensed attorney, before relying on anything here for a specific call, text, or potential claim.

Related Articles

• TCPA overview: robocalls, texts, and the Do Not Call Registry
• TCPA Damages and Lawsuits: Penalties, Settlements
• Seventh Circuit Rules TCPA Text Messages Are Not Telephone Calls Under Do-Not-Call Law
• US recording laws by state

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Last updated: August 12, 2026.