TCPA Consent Revocation Rule: Where the FCC's 2026 Changes Leave a Lender's Calls and Texts

TL;DR

• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bars non-emergency calls to a cell number made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice unless the called party gave prior express consent, with damages of actual loss or $500 per violation and, at the court's discretion, up to three times that for a willful or knowing one (47 U.S.C. § 227(b)).
• The FCC's 2024 revocation rule, in force since April 11, 2025, lets a called party revoke consent by "any reasonable method", names seven reply keywords and allows at most ten business days to honor a request.
• Its broadest requirement, applying one revocation to all of a caller's unrelated robocalls and robotexts, never took effect and is waived until January 31, 2027.
• On September 30, 2026 the FCC adopted FCC 26-67, allowing revocation by message category and an exclusive revocation method. It takes effect 30 days after Federal Register publication, which had not happened by October 13, 2026.
• 80.0% of U.S. adults lived in wireless-only households in July to December 2025, per the CDC's National Health Interview Survey.

Why this matters

As of October 2026. This is for the collections or servicing manager of an auto lender or buy-here-pay-here dealer-lender whose floor, in-house or first-party support, places autodialed or prerecorded calls and sends texts to borrowers' cell phones. It covers consent and revocation for servicing and collection contacts; the sales side is in our outsourced BDC post. The Pew Research Center's mobile fact sheet reports that 98% of U.S. adults own a cellphone (survey of February 5 to June 18, 2025).

This is orientation, not legal advice. Each rule is described by what its text says; how it applies to a particular lender, platform and message is a question for counsel.

Consent for a servicing call

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A), makes it unlawful, outside an emergency, to call a cellular number "using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice" without "the prior express consent of the called party". The Federal Communications Commission's rule, 47 CFR § 64.1200, repeats that in paragraph (a)(1) and requires "prior express written consent" in (a)(2) for advertising and telemarketing calls.

Servicing and collection calls that carry no offer sit under the first standard. In its 2008 declaratory ruling, FCC 07-232, the Commission agreed that "calls solely for the purpose of debt collection are not telephone solicitations and do not constitute telemarketing," found that giving a creditor a cell number, for example on a credit application, "reasonably evidences prior express consent by the cell phone subscriber to be contacted at that number regarding the debt," and said "the burden will be on the creditor to show it obtained the necessary prior express consent."

The weight a court gives that reading is counsel's question: under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., decided June 20, 2025, a district court in an enforcement proceeding "must independently determine for itself whether the agency’s interpretation of a statute is correct."

The 2024 revocation rule: what took effect, and when

Revocation was codified in the Federal Communications Commission's 2024 Report and Order, FCC 24-24. Paragraph (a)(12), on confirmation texts, took effect on April 4, 2024 and paragraphs (a)(10) and (a)(11) on April 11, 2025 (Federal Register notices of March 5, 2024 and October 11, 2024).

Paragraph (a)(10) today lets a called party revoke consent "by using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender." Three methods are reasonable "per se": an automated opt-out mechanism on a call; a reply text using "stop," "quit," "end," "revoke," "opt out," "cancel," or "unsubscribe"; and a website or telephone number the caller designates. Requests "must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request," and callers "may not designate an exclusive means to request revocation of consent." Paragraph (a)(12) allows a one-time text confirming the request, presumed to fall within the consumer's consent if sent "within five minutes of receipt".

Revocation crosses channels: "if the consumer revokes consent using a reply text message, then consent is deemed revoked not only to further robotexts but also robocalls from that caller." Where a lender texts Spanish-speaking borrowers in Spanish at their request, the order says a reply using that language's equivalent of the keywords may be found reasonable "under a totality of the circumstances analysis."

The delayed piece and the September 30, 2026 order

FCC Order DA 25-312, released April 7, 2025, delayed until April 11, 2026 the rule's broadest requirement: "to treat a request to revoke consent made by a called party in response to one type of message as applicable to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller on unrelated matters." Order DA 26-12, released January 6, 2026, extended the waiver to January 31, 2027.

On September 30, 2026 the Commission voted to replace that requirement (FCC news release) in its Report and Order, FCC 26-67, released October 1. Once it takes effect, callers may read a revocation of an informational call or text "as applying only to the specific category of informational robocalls and text messages to which the revocation was directed"; the order's example is a revocation "in response to payment reminders", and it does not define the categories. A caller may designate one or more of the three listed methods "as the exclusive means to revoke consent," disclosed "on the call or in the text," and is then "not required to process revocation requests made by any other means." The Commission declined to let a caller designate a method set by another agency's rules, answering a comment that cited "regulations for debt collection calls that require consumers to notify the caller in writing that they want to stop future calls."

Paragraph (a)(10)	In force on October 10, 2026	Once FCC 26-67 takes effect
Method	Any reasonable method; no exclusive means	Caller may designate an exclusive method
Scope	Apply-to-all waived until January 31, 2027	Informational revocation may be read as limited to its category
Deadline	Ten business days	Ten business days; comment sought on shortening

The amendments "become effective 30 days after Federal Register publication," and the order says the new paragraph (a)(10) will then "supersede the delayed effective date" of January 31, 2027. As of October 13, 2026 the order had not appeared among the Federal Register's FCC documents, so no effective date exists and the 2024 text is still the rule.

What an autodialer is after Facebook v. Duguid

The statute defines an autodialer as "equipment which has the capacity— (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers." In the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, of April 1, 2021, the Court held "that a necessary feature of an autodialer under §227(a)(1)(A) is the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to either store or produce phone numbers to be called." Whether a platform dialing from a stored list has that capacity is a question for counsel and the vendor.

Voice stays in scope regardless. The prohibition on calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice is separate, the Court wrote: "Our decision does not affect that prohibition." Texts follow the autodialer question; the FCC treats an autodialed text as a call, and the Court assumed as much "without considering or resolving that issue." State law can differ: § 227(f)(1) leaves room for "more restrictive intrastate requirements".

The other way consent ends: a reassigned number

When a borrower's number is reassigned, the consent on file was given by someone who no longer answers it. The FCC's 2018 order creating the Reassigned Numbers Database, FCC 18-177, described what follows: "callers may inadvertently reach the new consumer who now has the reassigned number." It said approximately "35 million numbers are disconnected and made available for reassignment to new consumers each year," a 2013 to 2016 average.

Under paragraph (m) of the rule a caller "will not be liable" for calling a reassigned number it had consent to call if, "bearing the burden of proof and persuasion," it shows that it queried the database, was told "no," and that the answer was wrong. The query uses the number and "the date on which such prior express consent was obtained," so the safe harbor is only as good as the dates on the account, the provenance point in our wrong-party contact post.

Where consent and revocation live on the floor

The 2008 ruling says creditors "are in the best position to have records kept in the usual course of business showing such consent". The revocation belongs beside it, on the account in the lender's system of record, however it arrives: a keyword reply the texting platform handles alone; a reply in other words, which someone reads against what "a reasonable person would understand"; a request spoken to an agent, a per se method only where the lender has designated that telephone number for opt-outs; or an email, letter or voicemail, to which paragraph (a)(11) gives a rebuttable presumption.

The ten business days begin "upon receipt of the revocation request and not the sending of the confirmation text message." Among debt collection complaints reporting an electronic communication issue in 2024, 32 percent were "told them to stop contacting you, but they keep trying," according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's FDCPA Annual Report 2025.

Regulation F, where it applies or is the program's operating standard, is a separate layer. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's commentary to §1006.14(h) treats a person who says "stop calling" as having "requested that the debt collector not use telephone calls," with no distinction by dialing method, while the FCC's 2024 order says a revocation "applies only to those robocalls and robotexts for which consent is required under the TCPA." What stays available after a text opt-out, a manually dialed call for instance, is a question for the lender's counsel; see our Regulation F messaging post and guide for creditors.

TEKS agents work the lender's queue inside the lender's systems, under the lender's name, as first-party collections support. The consent record and the opt-out list are the lender's; an agent who hears a revocation records it on the account, on that call.

An illustrative operating example

The example below is illustrative, uses round numbers and is not a client result.

A lender with 10,000 active accounts texts a reminder before each due date and places prerecorded calls to accounts a few days late. In one month the floor receives 255 revocations:

• 200 keyword replies, suppressed by the text platform on receipt;
• 30 replies in other words ("ya no me escriban"), read by an agent each morning;
• 20 spoken to an agent and logged with a revocation disposition;
• 5 by email or letter, keyed the day they arrive.

Each becomes one flag on the account in the lender's system of record, with date received, channel and scope. Dialer and text platform both build lists from it, so a STOP sent to a text also removes the number from the prerecorded campaign. The lender's standard is the next list build; the rule's outer limit is the tenth business day.

When FCC 26-67 takes effect, the lender and its counsel decide whether a reply keyword becomes the exclusive method for texts and whether reminders and past-due calls are one category or two.

What operators say

When the rule was codified, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote in her statement on FCC 24-24: "We do this because no consumer should be forced to jump through hoops or say special magic words to stop this junk from reaching them and those who send this nonsense need to honor your request."

When it was amended on September 30, 2026, Chairman Brendan Carr wrote in his statement on FCC 26-67: "As we have learned from experience, the Commission’s 2024 “revoke all” rule did not align with consumer expectations and, in many cases, made it harder for them to get the calls they do want."

Frequently asked questions

What is the TCPA consent revocation rule?

It is 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10), the FCC rule under which a called party may revoke prior express consent to autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts. The text in force in October 2026, effective since April 11, 2025, allows any reasonable method and gives the caller at most ten business days to honor the request.

Does a TCPA text message opt-out also stop a lender's prerecorded calls?

Under the FCC's 2024 order, a consumer who revokes consent by reply text is deemed to have revoked it for robocalls from that caller as well; only the extension to unrelated matters is waived until January 31, 2027. The order adopted on September 30, 2026 will let a caller limit an informational revocation to its category, which it does not define.

When does the FCC's September 2026 consent revocation order take effect?

FCC 26-67 was adopted on September 30, 2026, and its amendments become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. As of October 13, 2026 it had not been published there. Until it is effective the 2024 text remains the rule, with the apply-to-all requirement waived until January 31, 2027.

Is a dialer that calls from a stored list an autodialer under the TCPA?

In Facebook v. Duguid (2021) the Supreme Court held that an autodialer needs the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to either store or produce phone numbers to be called. Whether a platform has that capacity is a question for the lender's counsel and its vendor; calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice are prohibited separately.

What does the TCPA mean for auto lenders that outsource servicing calls?

The consent record stays the lender's. In a 2008 declaratory ruling the FCC said the burden will be on the creditor to show it obtained the necessary prior express consent. TEKS agents work inside the lender's systems under the lender's name, and how an engagement is classified is determined with the lender's counsel.

The bottom line

As of October 2026 a servicing floor works under three layers: a 2024 rule in force (any reasonable method, seven keywords, ten business days), one requirement waived until January 31, 2027, and a September 30, 2026 order that replaces it 30 days after a Federal Register publication that has not yet happened.

None of those dates changes the record: a consent with its number, date and source, and a revocation with its date, channel and scope, on the account in the lender's system. If a dedicated team working inside your systems is an option worth evaluating, tell us about your portfolio.