The FCC Adopted Its Opt-Out Rewrite. Here Is What Moved Since the Draft

What the FCC adopted on 30 September#

The FCC adopted Report and Order FCC 26-67 at its 30 September 2026 open meeting and released it on 1 October. It is the same docket as the draft we covered on 12 September, CG Docket No. 02-278.

We called that draft a draft for a reason. Most of it held. Two sentences changed between circulation and adoption, and we read both versions side by side so you do not have to.

Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty issued separate statements. The order lists no dissenting statement.

• Rule change one: a sender may treat an opt-out from an informational text as covering only that category of informational message (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10), as adopted).
• Rule change two: a sender may designate one or more of three methods as the exclusive way to revoke consent, and then need not process requests made any other way.
• Rule change three: financial institutions may send fraud alerts to a number from a reliable source, such as one supplied by an authorized family member, not only one the customer typed in.
• The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau also gets delegated authority to rewrite section 64.1200 in plain language, with no change to substance (FCC 26-67, para 23, read 2 Oct 2026).

Change one: the disclosure is now a single word#

FCC 26-67 keeps the draft's condition that a designated opt-out method must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously in the call or text itself.

The adopted rule then adds a sentence the draft did not have. If reply text is your exclusive method, including at least one of the standardized words in each message satisfies the disclosure.

So "Reply STOP to opt out" is enough. Twenty-one characters. Our 12 September post warned that disclosure would cost characters on every send; the final rule shrank that cost to almost nothing.

• Rule text, 64.1200(a)(10) as adopted: text senders can satisfy the disclosure obligation by including at least one standardized word in each text, so long as the sender recognizes any of the standardized words as a valid revocation.
• The condition is the trap. Disclose only STOP, and you still have to act on stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel and unsubscribe. A system that only parses STOP fails the rule you just relied on.
• Who asked for it: the American Bankers Association in a 23 September ex parte and Vibes Media in a 22 September filing, both cited in paragraph 17 of the order. The FCC agreed that listing all seven words would make texts too long.

Change two: no 12-month runway#

Vibes Media also asked the FCC to push the effective date out as far as 12 months after Federal Register publication. FCC 26-67 says no in paragraph 24.

The amendments take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, and the FCC will issue a Public Notice naming the exact date. The order was not yet in the Federal Register when we checked on 2 October 2026.

Once effective, the new text replaces the revoke-all provision that the FCC had delayed to 31 January 2027. That January date will not arrive.

• Until the effective date, the current rule stands: honor a revocation made by any reasonable method, within ten business days.
• The Further Notice comment window runs 30 days after Federal Register publication, with replies due at 60 days (FCC 26-67, caption).
• Our estimate, not the FCC's: plan for late November or December, not next year. The FCC chose speed on purpose, saying it wanted senders using the new methods as soon as possible.

Sales texts still get the narrow version#

FCC 26-67 limits the category relief to informational messages. A revocation in reply to an advertisement or telemarketing text revokes consent to all future marketing texts and calls from that caller.

Most B2B outbound is marketing under that definition. A prospect who replies STOP to your third sequence step has opted out of your second campaign, your webinar invite and your renewal promo too.

Paragraph 14 adds a reminder that do-not-call requests reach affiliated entities when the consumer would reasonably expect them to be included.

• One suppression list for everything you sell. Per-campaign opt-out lists were risky before this order and remain wrong after it.
• The category split helps banks, clinics and utilities that mix fraud alerts or appointment reminders with marketing. It barely touches a pure sales program.
• If your sequences mix a meeting reminder with a pitch, treat the whole message as marketing. A mixed text does not earn the informational carve-out.

What the exclusive method does and does not buy#

Designating reply text under FCC 26-67 means a sender is not required to process opt-outs made by other means. Skip the designation, and section 64.1200(a)(11) keeps you on any reasonable means.

Under (a)(11), a request outside the listed methods creates a rebuttable presumption that consent was revoked, and a court weighs the totality of the circumstances. The designation removes that exposure.

Here is our position anyway: a prospect who writes "please take me off your list" has told you what they want. Legal permission to ignore it is not a reason to keep texting them.

• Blue Reacher catches the seven keywords and plain-language requests like "not interested, don't text again", and suppresses the contact on every line within seconds (bluereacher.com/features/opt-out-handling).
• Suppression sits on the contact, not the channel, so an opt-out over SMS also blocks iMessage, and every event lands in an exportable audit trail with the reply text and timestamp.
• The adopted rule keeps the confirmation text safe harbor in 64.1200(a)(12): one reply confirming the opt-out, with no marketing, sent within five minutes, is presumed to fall within prior consent.

The proposal aimed at one-way texting#

The Further Notice in FCC 26-67 asks whether to delete the clause that lets senders use a texting protocol that cannot receive replies.

Today a one-way sender can comply by saying in each text that replies are not supported and giving another way to opt out, such as a phone number or website. The proposal would end that and require reply-text revocation.

The idea came from a joint letter filed on 30 June 2026 by the American Bankers Association, the National Consumer Law Center and ACA International. Banks and consumer advocates rarely sign the same page.

• The FCC asks whether one-way texting could survive for informational messages only, with two-way required on anything carrying an advertisement or telemarketing (paras 32 to 34).
• Schools and public institutions that use no-reply services are named as the groups to protect from compliance burden.
• For a sales team the question is already answered by the channel. A thread on an iMessage line takes replies by design, so the reply is the opt-out path and the conversation at once.

Seven days, revoke-all and affiliates: still open#

FCC 26-67 leaves four more questions open for comment, and two of them would change how fast your stack has to move.

The joint letter proposes cutting the processing deadline from ten business days to seven, unless a longer delay was reasonable. The FCC asks whether senders with an automated method could move faster.

• Processing time: seven business days proposed, with a question on whether the limit should differ for senders that designate an exclusive method (paras 30 and 31).
• Revoke-all method: whether category-limited revocation should be allowed only if the sender also offers a one-step way to stop everything, and whether that must be automated (para 35).
• Per-number scope: the Edison Electric Institute asked the FCC to confirm that a revocation applies to the number it came from, not every number on the customer's account.
• Affiliates: a proposed new 64.1200(a)(13) would treat an affiliate that collects its own consent and identifies itself as that affiliate as a separate sender (para 37 and footnote 84).
• Smaller items: shrinking the list of seven standardized words, and letting a confirmation text ask which category the person meant to leave (para 39).

What to change before the Public Notice lands#

FCC 26-67 gives you roughly a month from Federal Register publication. Five changes cover a sales program, and none of them needs a lawyer to start.

Get counsel to sign off before you designate anything. This post reads the rule text; it is not legal advice.

• Add one standardized word to every template that goes to a contact under consent rules. "Reply STOP to opt out" is the cheapest compliant version.
• Test that your system acts on all seven words, not just STOP. Send each one to a test line and confirm suppression.
• Keep honoring free-text opt-outs until the effective date, and decide in writing whether you will keep honoring them after it. We recommend yes.
• Measure your real processing time today. If it is over seven business days, fix it now rather than after the Further Notice closes.
• Collapse per-campaign suppression lists into one list per contact. A sales STOP covers all of your marketing, so your data model should too.

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