What the federal Do-Not-Call list is and who has to filter against it

The federal Do-Not-Call list is an opt-in registry maintained by the FTC. As of early 2012, it contained over 209 million phone numbers, and it has grown since. Consumers register for free, and registration does not expire. Once a number is on the list, it stays there until the consumer removes it or the number is reassigned.

Any company that places outbound calls to solicit sales directly to consumers must filter its calling lists against the National DNC Registry at least once every 30 days. Penalties for calling a number that is on the list can reach thousands of dollars per violation — per call.

Who is covered

The core rule is straightforward: if you are calling consumers to sell them something, the DNC list applies. The 2024 TSR update extended this to include many business-to-business calls as well, so a B2B exemption that worked in 2020 may not work today.

Calls that are NOT covered by the DNC requirement include purely informational calls (no sales intent), political campaign calls (not fundraising), and calls on behalf of charities or nonprofits where no product is being sold. Survey and polling calls without any sales component are also excluded.

How the filtering requirement works

You must scrub your lead lists against the DNC registry before each monthly calling cycle. The FTC provides the list as a downloadable file after you register as a Seller. You download the file, run your leads through it, strip out any matches, and only then load the clean list into VICIdial.

The cost of accessing the full national list with all area codes was around $14,000 per year as of 2006, and pricing has changed since. You can also purchase access by area code if your calling territory is limited, which reduces cost. It is illegal to share your downloaded list with another seller or to offer filtering services to companies that do not hold their own FTC account.

Exemptions that let you call DNC numbers

• Prior business relationship within 18 months of a purchase, or within 3 months of a simple information inquiry.
• Nonprofit and charity calls with no product being sold.
• Surveys and polls with no sales component.
• Political campaign calls that do not solicit donations.

DNC filtering and VICIdial

flowchart LR
  A[Raw lead list] --> B[Scrub against federal DNC]
  B --> C{Number on DNC?}
  C -->|Yes| D[Remove from list]
  C -->|No| E[Check exemptions]
  E -->|Exempt| F[Keep with exemption flag]
  E -->|Not exempt| D
  F --> G[Load into VICIdial]
  D --> H[Do not load]

VICIdial has an Internal DNC list feature for your company-specific do-not-call requests. That is not a substitute for federal DNC filtering — it only catches consumers who have asked your specific company to stop calling. Federal DNC filtering must happen outside VICIdial before you load any Lead list into the system.

**Heads up:** Do not load the entire federal DNC file into VICIdial's internal DNC table. With over 209 million records, it will break the system's performance. The right workflow is to strip DNC numbers at the source before they ever reach VICIdial.

For a broader look at federal compliance obligations, see the VICIdial compliance overview. To understand why the full DNC list should never be loaded into VICIdial, see why you should never load the full federal DNC list into VICIdial.

Want a hosted dialer that makes compliance setup straightforward? See VICIfast pricing.