The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026

TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE OF INDIA, EXTRAORDINARY,
PART III, SECTION 4

TELECOM REGULATORY AUTHORITY OF INDIA
NOTIFICATION
New Delhi, the 18^th September, 2026

TELECOM COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATIONS CUSTOMER PREFERENCE (THIRD AMENDMENT)
REGULATIONS, 2026
(05 of 2026)

No. RG-25/(25)/2023-QoS: - In exercise of the powers conferred upon it by section 36, read with sub-clause (v) of clause (b) and clause (c) of sub-section (1) of section 11, of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act 1997 (24 of 1997), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India hereby makes the following regulations further to amend the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (6 of 2018), namely:-

1. Short title, extent and commencement. —

• (1) These regulations may be called the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026 (05 of 2026).
• (2) These regulations shall apply throughout the territory of India.
• (3) These regulations shall come into force after thirty days from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette except-
• (a) regulation 4, regulation 6, regulation 8(a) and regulation 18, which shall come into force after sixty days; and
• (b) the amendments listed in Annexure, which shall come into force after ninety days, from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette, respectively.

2. In regulation 2 of the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (6 of 2018) (hereinafter referred to as the "principal regulations"), --

• (a) after clause (e) the following clause shall be inserted, namely:-

  "(ea) "Application-to-Person call or A2P call" refers to a voice call that is initiated by an application, software system, or automated platform without direct human dialling and delivered to an individual telecom subscriber, including using autodialling, robo-calls and/ or pre-recorded/ artificial voice technologies;";

• (b) for clause (k), the following clause and explanation thereto shall be substituted, namely:-

  "(k) "Consent" means any voluntary permission, either explicit or inferred, given by the customer to Sender to receive Commercial Communication related to specific purpose, product or service.

  Explanation 1.- For the purposes of these regulations, the expression 'consent' is limited to the voluntary permission given by the customer to the Sender for the establishment of communication channel between the Sender and the customer for Commercial Communications, as agreed to between them.

  Explanation 2.- For the purposes of these regulations, the expression 'revocation of consent' is limited to the withdrawal of the voluntary permission referred to in Explanation 1, by the customer.

  Explanation 3.- Nothing contained in these regulations shall exempt the Sender from its obligations, or liability under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023;";

• (c) for clause (y), the following clause shall be substituted, namely: -

  "(y) "Explicit Consent" means consent which has either been verified directly from the Recipient in a robust and verifiable manner and recorded by Consent Registrar; or, obtained by the Sender through any verifiable means prior to or outside the Consent Registration Function framework, and subsequently registered in the Consent Register in accordance with the procedure specified by the Authority from time to time;";

हरिन्द्र कुमार/Harinder Kumar, ITS
सचिव/Secretary
भारतीय दूरसंचार विनियामक प्राधिकरण
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
नई दिल्ली/New Delhi

• (d) in clause (ah), the first proviso, "Provided that such consent shall not extend beyond duration / discharge of the contract between the Sender and the Recipient:" shall be deleted;
• (e) in clause (ai), for the words "clause (3) of section 3 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (13 of 1885)", the words "clause (g) of section 2 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023 (44 of 2023)" shall be substituted;
• (f) for clause (ba), the following clause shall be substituted, namely:-

  "(ba) "Regulatory Sandbox" means a live testing environment where new products, services, processes, regulatory technology solutions and business models may be deployed for a limited set of customers, for a specified period of time, with certain relaxations in the extant regulatory provisions, in order to encourage and facilitate innovation and technological development in telecommunication; development and refinement of Code(s) of Practice; and provide inputs for regulatory interventions and modifications;";

• (g) for clause (bb), the following clause shall be substituted, namely: -

  "(bb) "Relationship" means a prior or existing relationship—

  • (i) for business or commercial reasons, between a person or entity and a subscriber with or without an exchange of consideration;

  • (ii) on the basis of an inquiry for goods or products or services, submitted by the Recipient to Sender within seven days immediately preceding the date of the receiving of communication, which relationship has not been previously terminated by either party:

    Provided that such an inquiry shall be made in writing or through digital means, and shall be maintained in a verifiable form by the Sender;

  • (iii) on the basis of application regarding products or services made by or submitted by Recipient to Sender within the three months immediately preceding the date of the receiving of communication, which relationship has not been previously terminated by either party;";

• (h) for clause (bh), the following clause shall be substituted, namely:-

  "(bh) "Service message or Service Call" means a message sent or voice call made by a Sender to –

  • (i) its Customer to provide information pertaining to a product or service procured by such customer, its warranty or service, product recall, software upgrade alerts, safety or security of the product used or purchased by the Customer, periodic balance alerts, information regarding delivery of goods or services, OTPs for authentication, such as app login, password reset, two-factor authentication etc., and such messages or voice calls are not promotional in nature and do not require Explicit Consent; or

  • (ii) a Recipient to facilitate a commercial transaction involving the ongoing purchase or the use by the Recipient of the product or services offered by the Sender after obtaining Explicit Consent from the Recipient and such messages or voice calls are not promotional in nature:

    Provided that such Explicit Consent shall be valid for a period of seven days or until revoked by the customer, whichever is earlier, and it may be renewed at the instance of the customer for an additional period of seven days at a time:

    Provided further that the Authority may specify the validity period of such Explicit Consent from time to time:

    Provided also that a transactional Message or transactional Voice Call containing information pertaining to service shall be treated as a Service Message or Service Voice Call;";

• (i) in clause (bn), for the words "a telecom service provided by an Access Provider" the words "any service for telecommunication" shall be substituted;
• (j) after clause (bm) the following clauses shall be inserted, namely:-

  "(bma) "Spam" means Unsolicited commercial communication as defined in clause (bw) of this regulation;

  (bmb) "Spammer" means a Sender or Telemarketer engaged in sending Unsolicited commercial communication;";

• (k) in clause (bo), for the word "telegraph", the words "telecommunication equipment and/or telecommunication identifier, as defined under the Telecommunications Act, 2023 (44 of 2023)," shall be substituted;

हरिन्द्र कुमार/Harinder Kumar, ITS
सचिव/Secretary
भारतीय दूरसंचार विनियामक प्राधिकरण
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
नई दिल्ली/New Delhi