TCPA Exemptions for Nonprofit and Political Calls: Where They Stop

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act gives charities and political campaigns a few real breaks, and most of them end at the cell phone. A tax-exempt nonprofit’s calls fall outside the National Do Not Call Registry rules, and both may send a few prerecorded calls to home landlines without consent. An autodialed or prerecorded call or text to a mobile number still needs prior express consent, whether a charity or a campaign sends it. When a claim comes, the defenses usually sit in platform data and consent records.

Which TCPA rules don’t reach a tax-exempt nonprofit?

The National Do Not Call Registry rule and the calling-hours rule, because a nonprofit’s call isn’t a “telephone solicitation.”

The statute defines a telephone solicitation as a call or message meant to encourage a purchase, rental, or investment, and it carves out any call or message “by a tax exempt nonprofit organization” in 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4). The FCC’s rule goes further and excludes calls “By or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization” in 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f)(15).

That definition matters because the FCC’s Do Not Call protections in § 64.1200(c) apply only to telephone solicitations. Those protections are the National Do Not Call Registry (the government’s list of numbers whose owners don’t want telemarketing calls) and the ban on calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. When the FCC built the Registry rules, it said it would “decline to extend the national do-not-call requirements to tax-exempt nonprofit organizations or entities that telemarket on behalf of nonprofit organizations,” in paragraph 37 of its 2003 TCPA order.

Political calls get there because a call asking someone to vote isn’t encouraging a purchase. The FCC’s guidance for campaigns, last updated March 5, 2025, says “campaign calls and texts are exempt from the National Do Not Call Registry requirements” on its political robocall rules page.

The break removes Registry and calling-hours claims, not the consent rules in § 227(b).

How many prerecorded calls can a charity or campaign make to a home landline?

Three in any 30-day period without consent, and only with an opt-out.

A “prerecorded” call plays a recorded or artificial voice instead of connecting a live person. The statute bars prerecorded calls to residential lines without prior express consent, apart from emergency calls and a few other exceptions, including FCC-created ones, under § 227(b)(1)(B). The nonprofit exemption now covers a call that “Is made by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization and the caller makes no more than three calls within any consecutive 30-day period to the residential line and honors the called party’s request to opt out of future calls” under § 64.1200(a)(3)(iv). The exemption for calls not made for a commercial purpose, paragraph (a)(3)(ii), has the same cap, and the FCC’s campaign guidance applies that three-call limit to political robocalls to landlines.

The FCC adopted those limits in a 2020 order under the TRACED Act, and its Federal Register notice says the amendments “are effective July 20, 2023.” Before then, these exemptions had no cap, so I’d check any calling script written before mid-2023.

The conditions are where exempt calls turn into claims. Every prerecorded message must identify the caller at the start and give a callback number, and an exempt message must offer an automated voice or key-press opt-out within two seconds of that identification, under § 64.1200(b). Exempt callers must also keep an internal do-not-call list under paragraph (d). Nonprofits used to be excused from that list, but the 2020 order states: “Section 64.1200(d)(7) is deleted in its entirety.” For opt-outs, “This period may not exceed ten (10) business days from the receipt of such request,” under § 64.1200(d)(3).

Live calls don’t count, since “the numerical limitations only apply to artificial or prerecorded calls to residential numbers, and not live agent calls,” according to paragraph 19 of the 2020 order. A caller that wants more recorded calls can get consent first, and a 2022 reconsideration order gives callers “the option of obtaining either oral or written consent” for calls above the limits, according to its Federal Register summary.

Do campaign and nonprofit texts to cell phones need consent?

Yes, if they’re autodialed or use a prerecorded or artificial voice. Neither exemption reaches cell phones.

The cell-phone rule in § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) bars calls to a mobile number made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice, unless it’s an emergency or the caller has prior express consent. The FCC’s handful of industry exemptions, such as package delivery, don’t cover nonprofits or campaigns. The FCC’s campaign guidance says “Political campaign-related autodialed or prerecorded voice calls, including autodialed live calls, autodialed texts, and prerecorded voice messages, are prohibited to cell phones, pagers, or other mobile devices without the called party’s prior express consent,” on its political robocall rules page. And in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, the Supreme Court noted it was undisputed that a text to a cell phone counts as a call under this provision. Our post on autodialer claims after Duguid covers what still counts as an autodialer.

Nonprofits do get a lighter standard for marketing robocalls. For an autodialed or prerecorded marketing call to a cell phone, most businesses need prior express written consent, a signed agreement authorizing marketing calls to a specific number. A tax-exempt nonprofit needs only “the prior express consent of the called party when the call is made by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization,” under § 64.1200(a)(2). The FCC has long said that “persons who knowingly release their telephone numbers” for a purpose “have in effect given their invitation or permission to be called at the number which they have given” for that purpose, “absent instructions to the contrary,” as its staff repeated in the 2020 P2P Alliance ruling.

Consent can be taken back. Under the FCC’s codified rule, in effect since April 11, 2025, a person may revoke “by using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender,” and a reply such as stop or unsubscribe counts automatically, under § 64.1200(a)(10). Revocations “must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request.” The FCC’s staff delayed one piece, the requirement to treat a revocation as covering unrelated messages too, “until April 11, 2026,” in an April 7, 2025 order. I’d still let a STOP reply end every consent-based text from the organization, because separating message streams after a complaint is hard to prove.

What did Barr v. AAPC decide for political callers?

It left the cell-phone robocall ban standing and struck the exception for government-debt calls.

In 2015, Congress exempted calls made solely to collect debts owed to the United States or backed by it. Political and nonprofit groups that wanted to robocall cell phones sued, arguing that the exception favored debt collectors’ speech. In July 2020, six Justices agreed it violated the First Amendment, and seven agreed the cure was to sever the exception, not to strike the whole ban. Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion announcing the judgment put the result this way: “plaintiffs still may not make political robocalls to cell phones, but their speech is now treated equally with debt-collection speech,” in Barr v. American Ass’n of Political Consultants.

The debt language still appears in printed versions of § 227, but it’s no longer a live exception for cell phones. For a campaign or its vendor, Barr makes a First Amendment challenge to the cell-phone ban a poor bet. The plaintiffs won the free-speech point and still lost on the remedy they wanted. I wouldn’t build a calling program on the idea that political speech gets a pass from § 227(b).

Is a peer-to-peer texting platform an autodialer after Duguid?

Usually not, but it depends on how the platform works.

Peer-to-peer platforms are designed, their industry group told the FCC, so that a person sends each message. In June 2020, the FCC’s consumer bureau said a platform that “requires a person to actively and affirmatively manually dial each recipient’s number and transmit each message one at a time,” and can’t send more than one message without that, isn’t an autodialer, while adding, “We do not rule on whether any particular P2P text platform is an autodialer,” in the P2P Alliance ruling. That was a staff ruling, issued before the Supreme Court weighed in.

The Court then narrowed the definition. In Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid (2021), it held that an autodialer must have “the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to either store or produce phone numbers to be called.” The Ninth Circuit, which covers California, rejected the theory that a generator used only to pick the order of stored numbers is enough. It held in Borden v. eFinancial, LLC (2022) that an autodialer “must generate and dial random or sequential telephone numbers.”

My reading of those decisions is that, in the Ninth Circuit, a platform that can only send to numbers people provided isn’t an autodialer, whether or not a human clicks send. For a texting vendor sued in federal court in California, I think Borden is the most useful precedent it has. There are two limits. Duguid left the prerecorded and artificial voice ban alone: “Our decision does not affect that prohibition,” the Court said, so a prerecorded call to a cell phone still needs consent. And the autodialer question is factual. Before a campaign launches, I’d get the vendor’s written description of how its platform loads numbers and sends messages, and keep it with the send logs.

Does the exemption cover a for-profit vendor calling for the charity?

For the charity’s own fundraising, yes, under the FCC’s rule. For the vendor’s own sales pitch, no.

The FCC said in 2003 that “a tax-exempt nonprofit organization that conducts its own fundraising campaign or hires a professional fundraiser to do it, will not be subject to the restrictions on telephone solicitations,” in paragraph 128 of its 2003 TCPA order. The same paragraph draws the line: “If, however, a for-profit organization is delivering its own commercial message as part of a telemarketing campaign,” then “that call is not by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.” A seller that promises part of its proceeds to charity “must still comply with the TCPA rules on commercial calls,” and a footnote in the same order denies the exemption to a nonprofit’s affiliate that isn’t itself tax-exempt.

The statute carves out calls made by a nonprofit, and the language covering calls made for one comes from the FCC. A hired fundraiser’s defense rests on that reading, so I’d want the contract to say the charity approves the script and the call list.

Liability also runs back to the nonprofit. For calls covered by the internal-list rule, if a vendor keeps the do-not-call list, “the person or entity on whose behalf the call is made will be liable for any failures to honor the do-not-call request,” under § 64.1200(d)(3). A vendor’s borrowed protection also has limits. In Campbell-Ewald, a marketing firm whose subcontractor sent Navy recruiting texts claimed the government’s immunity from suit. The Court asked, “Do federal contractors share the Government’s unqualified immunity from liability and litigation? We hold they do not.” It also noted that the firm allegedly broke both federal law and the Navy’s instructions. A vendor that strays from its client’s terms shouldn’t expect the client’s protection to follow it.

A hired fundraiser may also answer to the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, covering interstate telemarketing “conducted to induce the purchase of goods or services or a charitable contribution” under 16 C.F.R. § 310.2. Charitable calls are exempt from its registry provision under § 310.6(a), but not from its 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. calling window in § 310.4(c). The telemarketer must also honor a request not to receive calls “made on behalf of the charitable organization for which a charitable contribution is being solicited.” And under § 310.4(b)(1)(v), a prerecorded charitable solicitation qualifies only when it seeks a contribution “from a member of, or previous donor to, a non-profit charitable organization on whose behalf the call is made,” and only if it meets the provision’s other conditions, including an automated opt-out. The TCPA’s three-call allowance doesn’t change that. Our post on the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the TCPA covers how the two rules overlap.

Claims nonprofit and political callers face

What a charity, campaign, or vendor should pull together when a claim arrives

1. Put a litigation hold on call and text logs, platform send data, and consent records for every number in the complaint.
2. Pull the internal do-not-call list and every opt-out and STOP reply, with the date each was received and the date it was honored.
3. Pull proof of tax-exempt status, or for a campaign, records showing the messages weren’t selling anything, plus any Registry scrubs and their dates.
4. Collect the vendor contracts, scripts, recorded messages, and the vendor’s description of how its platform loads numbers and sends messages.
5. Talk to a lawyer before answering a demand letter, contacting the person who complained, or offering anything to settle.

The firm’s page on TCPA litigation defense explains how claims involving fundraising robocalls and political text campaigns move from a demand letter to a lawsuit.

Questions nonprofits and campaigns ask about TCPA claims

Do political campaigns have to scrub against the Do Not Call Registry?

Not under the federal rules, which reach only telephone solicitations, and the FCC’s campaign guidance treats campaign calls and texts as exempt. That doesn’t excuse an autodialed or prerecorded call or text to a cell phone without consent, and state law can be stricter.

Can a charity text donors who gave it their cell number?

Usually, if the texts match the reason the donor gave the number and the donor didn’t say otherwise. A tax-exempt nonprofit needs prior express consent for autodialed texts, but not written consent, even when a message markets something. I’d keep a record of how and when each number was collected. Once a donor replies STOP, stop promptly, and no later than ten business days.

Does the three-call limit apply to live callers?

No. The FCC said the limits on exempt calls apply only to artificial or prerecorded voice calls to residential lines, not to live agents. Volunteers and staff can make live calls to landlines without counting them against the three-call cap, though cell-phone calls placed through an autodialer still need consent.

Defending claims over fundraising and campaign messages

If your organization, or the vendor that sends its messages, is accused of robocalling or texting cell phones without consent, the platform records and consent logs usually decide the case. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving fundraising robocalls and political text campaigns. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The statute is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act at 47 U.S.C. § 227. The FCC’s rules are at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule is at 16 C.F.R. Part 310, both as published in the eCFR on June 15, 2025.

The FCC materials are FCC 03-153 (2003), FCC 20-186 (2020), the Federal Register notices of the effective date and reconsideration (Jan. 20, 2023), DA 20-670 (2020), DA 25-312 (2025), and the FCC’s campaign guidance (updated Mar. 5, 2025).

The court decisions are Barr v. American Ass’n of Political Consultants, Inc., 591 U.S. 610 (2020); Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021); Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153 (2016); and Borden v. eFinancial, LLC, 53 F.4th 1230 (9th Cir. 2022).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of June 15, 2025. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Courts and the FCC change the rules in this area often, and the outcome of any claim depends on its facts. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.