The Federal Communications Commission has rewritten part of its robocall consent rules so that a person who tells a company to stop sending one kind of automated message no longer has to lose every other message from that company. The order, numbered FCC-26-67, was adopted at the commission’s September 30, 2026 meeting and released October 1.
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Chairman Carr, in a statement on the vote, said the action is meant to “empower consumers to stop specific categories of robocalls” while leaving alone the informational calls people still want, such as a fraud alert from a bank.
The revoke-all rule and how FCC-26-67 narrows it
The change targets a rule the commission adopted in 2024. As Greenberg Traurig’s analysis of the draft explains, that rule treats an opt-out sent by any reasonable method as revoking consent for all previously authorized future robocalls from the caller. Under the new order, a caller may treat a revocation of an informational call as applying only to the category it targeted. A customer who stops payment reminders, in the firm’s example, could still receive fraud alerts or account security notices.
The rule is a trade. Consumers get finer control, and callers get permission to read a “stop” narrowly rather than as a blanket instruction. The 2024 revoke-all provision was scheduled to take effect on January 31, 2027, and the new order changes what that provision requires before it arrives.
The commission’s page on the vote hosts Carr’s statement on the order. The item moved quickly: the draft report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking was released with a fact sheet dated September 9, 2026, circulated under the number FCC-CIRC 2609-05 in CG Docket No. 02-278, and put on the agenda for the September 30 open meeting. The sources read for this article give no vote tally or commissioner-by-commissioner breakdown.
Marketing calls keep the broad opt-out
The narrowing applies to informational messages, not sales pitches. Day Pitney, a law firm that summarized the order on October 2, reports that revocations of telemarketing robocalls or texts still cover all future telemarketing robocalls and texts from that caller, even though informational messages may continue. The FCC’s own fact sheet for the draft says the same: revoking consent in response to advertising or telemarketing calls still applies to all future calls of that type from the caller.
That line is what keeps the change from becoming a loophole for marketers. A person who answers a promotional text with a stop request is protected across that caller’s promotions, while a person who opts out of one type of account notice is not automatically cut off from fraud alerts.
Exclusive opt-out methods and the bank exemption
The order also lets callers designate one or more exclusive ways to revoke consent. According to the commission’s draft order and fact sheet, the options are an automated voice or key-press opt-out, specific standard reply-text words, or a designated website or phone number, and the method must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed. If a caller designates none, the older rule that a consumer may revoke by any reasonable means still applies. Under 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10), revocation requests must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days, and replying “STOP” to a text counts as reasonable per se.
Financial institutions get a separate change. The 2015 exemption covers fraud and identity-theft alerts, data-breach alerts, breach remediation options and notices about pending money transfers, and it required that the phone number come from the customer. The order lets banks use numbers from three other reliable sources: an authorized spouse or family member on the account, the customer’s own call to the institution, or records from another financial institution.
What stays open after the vote
The commission paired the order with a further notice seeking public comment. It asks whether to shorten the ten-business-day deadline for honoring revocations, with one joint letter proposing seven business days, whether to require two-way texting so consumers can revoke by reply, whether to require a single revoke-all method, and how revocations should apply across affiliates and separate business lines. Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication and replies 60 days after. Separately, the order directs the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, working with the Enforcement Bureau, to review Section 64.1200 of the commission’s rules and seek comment on organizational and plain-language revisions, with substantive changes excluded from that review. The rules are dense enough that the commission itself is asking whether they can be made easier to read.
The order itself takes effect 30 days after Federal Register publication, which had not happened as of the October 2 summary; the sources read for this article do not show a later date. Day Pitney advised callers to “examine and potentially modify their processes and procedures.” Greenberg Traurig added that the revised rules “may not, however, conclusively determine liability in private TCPA litigation,” because courts can independently assess whether the commission’s approach fits the statute.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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