WASHINGTON, DC, February 27, 2025— The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new rules to protect consumers against illegal robocalls. The Report and Order expands the Commission’s efforts to combat scam calls by broadening the use of reasonable do-not-originate lists to block calls that are highly likely to be illegal, for example, government phone numbers that do not make outbound calls. The new rules will also ensure that legitimate callers learn when their calls are blocked to better correct erroneous blocking and help consumers continue to receive the calls that they want.
Illegal robocalls continue to annoy and, in some instances, defraud consumers. The Federal Trade Commission reports a median loss of $1,480 for fraud by phone call ($850 million total each year) and one industry estimate indicates that the average U.S. consumer receives 13 spam or fraud calls per month. To combat these calls, the FCC has worked to improve blocking of suspicious calls, enhance robocall traceback and caller-ID authentication, and implement additional mitigation strategies such as the Robocall Mitigation Database and know-your-customer-style rules.
To stop more scam calls before they reach consumers, the new rules expand the use of do-not-originate lists, a proven tool for effectively blocking illegal calls. Providers use do-not-originate lists to spot suspicious phone calls that appear to come from numbers that do not originate calls – such as unused, unallocated, and invalid numbers. The new rules will require all voice service providers in a call path to block calls purporting to come from numbers appearing on a reasonable do-not-originate list.
In addition to bolstering blocking tools to protect consumers, the Commission has worked to ensure callers who are wrongfully blocked are made aware of the blocking and have the information needed to prevent future calls from being blocked. To further this effort, the Commission today designated Session Initiation Protocol Code 603+ as the exclusive code to notify callers when calls on IP networks are blocked based on reasonable analytics. This industry-developed code will consolidate three different codes currently in use and provide callers with greater clarity.
Action by the Commission February 27, 2025 by Report and Order (FCC 25-15). Chairman Carr, Commissioners Starks, Simington, and Gomez approving. Chairman Carr and Commissioner Starks issuing separate statements.
