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Brand Registration & the 10DLC

Best practices and resources to get your brand registered.

Sam Abello avatar
Written by Sam Abello
Updated over a week ago

Effective August 31, 2023, all 10DLC phone numbers used to send SMS messages to U.S. phone numbers must be fully registered to an approved campaign under your brand. Messages sent using unregistered phone numbers will be subject to a full block of all unregistered U.S.-bound messages sent after August 31, 2023.

What is the A2P 10DLC?

A2P 10DLC refers to a system in the United States that allows businesses to send Application-to-Person (A2P) type messaging via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers.

Having your brand registered and approved with the 10DLC means better delivery quality and lower filtering risk for you and your team. This process is required for any brand that is messaging candidates in the US – no matter where you're texting from.

Best Practices

Use a valid EIN for US-based companies

The EIN and Legal Company Name must match business registration sources.

  • Customers with a US presence must use an EIN number.

  • For Non-Profit and Political Organizations, the EIN provided has to match the Legal Company Name available in the list of Tax-Exempt Organizations or Registered Political Organizations.

How to find your EIN number (for US companies)

  • If your company is publicly traded and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), you can use the SEC's EDGAR system to look up your EIN for free.

  • Contact your company's accountant or financing office and ask for the EIN.

  • Find your company’s W2 form, or any local or federal tax filings that may be online.

Use a Valid Tax ID for companies based outside of the U.S.

For private and public profit companies, the provided EIN and Legal Company Name has to match registration sources. Please ensure:

  • ALL customers creating a Business Profile must provide a valid Tax ID.

  • For Standard A2P 10DLC brand registration or customers with an International presence, a Tax ID from their country is required.

Guidance for companies in Canada

As of July 27, 2023, only BN-9 will be accepted as company registration number.

An example BN-9 appears below as the bolded part of the Canadian Business Number:

  • Tax/Corporation ID Field: 123456789XXXXXX

Please enter your Provincial Corporation Number as your Business Registration Number.

For example:

  • Alberta Corporation Number

  • Ontario Corporation Number (make sure you enter only the numbers after the first two leading zeros)

  • British Columbia Corporation Number (make sure the BC prefix is part of the number)

  • Saskatchewan Corporation Number

  • Nova Scotia Corporation Number

  • Quebec Corporation Number

  • Manitoba Corporation Number

If this does not work for you, you may alternatively use your federally-issued Canada Corporation Number.

Guidance for companies in the rest of the world

Companies in Europe should use the VIES VAT number validation lookup to look up their brand information before submission.

Companies in Australia should use their Australian Business Number (ABN) and use the official ABN Lookup tool to look up the information.

Companies in New Zealand should use New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) and use the official NZBN lookup tool to look up the information.

Companies in Hong Kong should use your Companies Registry (CN) number. You can use the official CN lookup tool to find it.

For other countries, please enter the numeric portion of your VAT ID number. If you don't have a VAT ID, please provide the primary corporation registration number or tax ID number for your country.

Further recommendations:

  • For US businesses, to ensure you’re providing accurate information, enter your business's EIN into the HIPAA Space lookup website. If your business appears in the results, please fill in your business name exactly according to the business listing information.

  • If you are an ISV-type customer and need to validate and enter information for multiple brands in the US, you could use the subscription-based EIN verification service provided by TINCheck.

  • For validating a brand’s status as a nonprofit, you can use Results for Tax Exempt Organization Search from the US IRS.

  • Newly issued EINs or equivalent tax IDs won’t propagate across the relevant databases validation systems for a few weeks. So, if your brand registration failed due to tax ID mismatch and you recently registered your business for a tax ID, please share documentation with support to help your brand get verified manually by the third-party vendors. Any such documentation has to be from the federal level and not the state level.

Check Your Business Address

For all entity types, a mismatch in one of the following might product a lower Trust Score:

  • Address/Street line

  • City

  • State

  • Postal Code/Zip Code

  • Country

Please note: Submitting the address of a local branch or any address different from the official registered company address might produce a mismatch with a negative impact on the Trust Score.

Supported Stock Exchanges

For Public Profit companies, the stock ticker symbol and the designated stock exchange must match available sources. Available Stock Ticker values are as follows:

  • NONE

  • NASDAQ

  • NYSE

  • AMEX

  • AMX

  • ASX

  • B3

  • BME

  • BSE

  • FRA

  • ICEX

  • JPX

  • JSE

  • KRX

  • LON

  • NSE

  • OMX

  • SEHK

  • SGX

  • SSE

  • STO

  • SWX

  • SZSE

  • TSX

  • TWSE

  • VSE

  • OTHER



Please note:

  • All submissions are subject to a manual vetting process and can take up to 3 weeks.

  • Accounts are considered to be unregistered until there is an approved and verified result – this means your team will not be able to send any messages within that time frame.

For more information on A2P 10DLC Registration, check out these articles:

Have questions? Send us an email at sms-registration@grayscaleapp.com

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