TCPA Compliance for Contact Centers in 2026: What It Is, What It Means and What is Required to Stay Safe

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was passed in 1991 with a straightforward goal: to protect consumers from disruptive telemarketing and automated calls. While it was originally focused on protecting those with landlines, today, the focus has shifted entirely. Now, the TCPA is the primary defense against unsolicited cell phone calls, text messages and robocalls.

For contact centers, navigating TCPA compliance can feel like walking through a minefield. The biggest obstacle often involves understanding the rules around an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS), also known as an autodialer.

At its simplest, an ATDS is the technology that automatically stores, generates and dials telephone numbers. However, the legal definition under the TCPA is far more nuanced, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. In short, any dialing system that has the capacity to store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator is likely to be viewed as an ATDS. And if you use an ATDS, the compliance requirements and penalties skyrocket. This is why understanding what TCPA compliance is, what it means and what your contact center is required to do is essential for staying safe.

What does TCPA compliance mean?

Knowing what TCPA compliance means will save your business a lot of time and worry. Here are a few rules to keep in mind as you prepare your contact center to stay compliant:

Calling restrictions:

• Residential lines cannot be called before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time of the called party).
• Companies must clearly state their name and the name/contact information of the party they are calling on behalf of.
• You cannot use artificial or prerecorded voice calls without prior consent.

Do-not-call (DNC) list management:

• Must honor the national DNC registry.
• Must maintain and honor a company-specific DNC list for at least five years.

Prior express consent (PEC):

• The need for proper consent before contacting an individual, especially on a mobile phone, using an ATDS or prerecorded message.
• This consent must be written/recorded (ex. Reply YES to opt in) and customers must have the opportunity to easily revoke consent (ex. Reply NO to opt out).

If these rules are not complied with, there are consequences, including potential financial risks, which include fines up to $500-$1,500 per violation. Not to mention the risk of proliferating class-action lawsuits. In short, TCPA guidelines cannot be ignored. While the basic rules are clear, the legal landscape surrounding them is anything but.

What is required to stay compliant?

Sometimes consent feels a little ambiguous. For example, is providing a cell phone number implied consent, or is express written consent explicitly required?

There’s a risk that comes from legal opinions resting on minute nuances of the English language. This is where the famous ATDS debate came into practice, with court rulings that distinguish between a dialer’s potential capacity to auto-dial and the actual manual use of the equipment. So the question remains, how can technology be used without triggering the ATDS classification? The path to feeling secure lies in your dialing technology and your process.

How to avoid compliance traps in your contact center

To meet the requirements for TCPA compliance, your contact center needs a dialing strategy that balances speed with safety. While there are several ways to approach this, they generally fall into two categories. The “safest” way is manual dialing (where an agent physically enters every digit), which is the gold standard for safety. Because it lacks any automated “capacity,” it is generally the only way to contact cell phones without PEC. The downside? It’s slow, expensive and kills agent productivity.

Alternatively, the TCN way is Manually Approved Calling (MAC) – a blended approach. MAC gives you the efficiency of a high-powered dialer without the legal risks of a robocall. How it works is instead of a computer deciding when to dial, a human agent reviews the contact data and manually approves or rejects each individual call before the system engages. This matters for compliance because by requiring human intervention for every single call, you effectively negate the ATDS risk. You aren’t just trusting an algorithm; you are demonstrating a documented, manual process that proves your center is not using full automation.

Partnering with technology for future compliance

Clearly, TCPA compliance requires a combination of strict process, agent training and smart technology. Therefore, there’s an extreme benefit to using technology that offers built-in, automatically updated compliance features to help you stay ahead of the ever-changing legal requirements. Thankfully, TCN is equipped with all the solutions you need to conquer these compliance challenges. Download our Complete Guide to TCPA Compliance for more information!