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Texting rules: A2P 10DLC, consent and quiet hours

What US carriers and the law expect from a business that texts customers — 10DLC registration, consent, STOP, quiet hours and content — and what MoveBoard does for you.

2 min readChecked October 4, 2026
Owner & adminSales

Texting customers is fast and they read it — which is why carriers and the law set rules on business texting. Breaking them can mean blocked messages, carrier fines or, under the TCPA, lawsuits.

A2P 10DLC registration

A2P means "application to person": texts sent by a business system. 10DLC means an ordinary 10-digit long code number. US carriers require every business that texts from 10-digit numbers to register its brand and its use case (for example "customer care and appointment reminders") through The Campaign Registry. Unregistered texts are filtered or blocked. Registration takes days to a few weeks.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act requires consent before you text:

  • Transactional texts — about a move the customer asked for (quote, booking, crew on the way): the customer giving you their number for the move is generally consent.
  • Marketing texts — promotions, review requests, "book now" offers: need clear written consent, which can't be a condition of buying.

Keep a record of how and when each customer gave their number.

STOP

Every customer can opt out by replying STOP. Once they do, you must not text them again unless they opt back in (usually by replying START). Carriers enforce this.

Quiet hours

Telemarketing rules forbid marketing messages before 8 AM and after 9 PM in the customer's time zone, and some states are stricter. A reminder the customer expects is safer, but courtesy says: no texts in the night.

Content

Name your company in the message, don't use link shorteners carriers distrust, and avoid wording that looks like spam (all caps, "FREE!!!"). Never text sensitive data such as card numbers.

In MoveBoard

  • MoveBoard registers your company for texting and shows where your registration stands; no text goes until it is complete. See Texting registration.
  • A STOP reply puts the number on your opt-out list at once — nothing more is texted to it, by you or a workflow — and START puts it back. See Texting rules and opt-outs.
  • Workflows keep quiet hours (no messages between 8 PM and 8 AM on your branch's clock) unless you untick them. See When messages go out.
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