The Campaign Registry (TCR) is the third-party registry US mobile operators appointed to hold 10DLC identities: who the brand is, what campaign it is running, and which 10-digit numbers are attached. CSPs file records through TCR’s portal and APIs. MNOs read those records (and their own review queues) before they treat long-code SMS as declared A2P rather than as grey-route P2P.
TCR is not a consent database, not a spam filter, and not a regulator. TCPA, CTIA Messaging Principles, and each MNO’s code of conduct still apply after a campaign shows “registered.” TCR is also not how Toll-free texting or Short codes are authorized, even when the same operations team uses one vendor console for all three.
CSP, DCA, brand, campaign
| Role | Who it is | What it does in 10DLC |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | The legal entity sending (or whose ISV is sending on its behalf) | Holds EIN/tax identity, entity type, vertical, website. Vetting scores attach here. T-Mobile daily caps attach to the EIN. |
| Campaign | One messaging program under one brand | Declares a use case, samples, opt-in, STOP/HELP, and the long codes in play. The use case cannot be changed after the campaign is created. |
| CSP (Campaign Service Provider) | The company authorized to register brands and campaigns in TCR (often a CPaaS or messaging aggregator) | Operates the TCR API/portal on behalf of brands. Bills TCR fees. Must be enabled for gated use cases (sole proprietor, UCaaS, and others). |
| DCA (Direct Connect Aggregator) | An aggregator with a direct technical connection to MNOs for A2P delivery | Carries the traffic. A CSP may or may not be a DCA. Downstream DCAs enforce carrier filters regardless of TCR status. |
| MNO | AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and other US wireless providers | Set throughput, SHAFT policy, and which special use cases need pre- or post-approval. TCR stores the declaration; the MNO enforces the air interface. |
Use cases TCR knows about
At campaign create the CSP must pick the closest use case. Standard use cases (2FA, account notification, customer care, delivery notifications, fraud alerts, higher education, marketing, mixed, low volume mixed, polling and voting, public service announcement, security alert, machine-to-machine) are available to qualified brands without MNO pre-approval. Special use cases (charity, political, emergency, K-12, sweepstakes, agents and franchises, social, sole proprietor, proxy, platform free trial, UCaaS, carrier exemptions) add vetting and/or MNO review. Full definitions and the brand-vs-campaign-vs-vetting-vs-throughput split live in the 10DLC article.
- 2FA and most transactional standard cases: authentication and account traffic.
- Marketing and mixed: promotional or combined traffic; TCPA consent is the legal layer.
- Low volume mixed: small senders that would otherwise open several standard campaigns.
- Political: Campaign Verify or Aegis political vet (or specified non-profit statuses), not a generic marketing campaign labeled “political.”
What TCR does not do
| Expectation | Reality |
|---|---|
| TCR approval means the campaign is legal under TCPA | TCR stores the declaration. Consent is still the sender’s burden. See TCPA. |
| One TCR campaign covers 8XX and short codes | Those have other processes. See Toll-free texting and Short codes. |
| A vetting score is a spam score on each message | It is a brand-level input to throughput and some special-case gates. |
| Numbers ported onto a new CSP stay on the old campaign | Campaign number assignment is a TCR object. Porting the voice DID does not move the 10DLC association by itself. |
| TCR is global | It is the US 10DLC registry. Other markets do not use this brand/campaign pair. |