How many robocall complaints does the FTC receive?
The FTC received about 2.6 million Do Not Call complaints in fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30, 2025. That was up on the year before but still about 48% lower than fiscal year 2021, when it received roughly five million. Complaints about robocalls made up most of them.
Do Not Call complaints, FTC
These figures are from the FTC's National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for fiscal year 2025, released on December 11, 2025. The data book counts complaints people chose to file, so it measures annoyance and reporting, not the total number of unwanted calls, which is far higher.
We track these numbers for one reason. Every call and text a business sends lands in the same phone as this noise. The data explains why people ignore unknown numbers, and what a legitimate business has to do so its reminders, callbacks and AI calls still get answered.
How many numbers are on the Do Not Call Registry?
About 258.5 million phone numbers were actively registered on the National Do Not Call Registry as of September 30, 2025. That is roughly 1.9% more than a year earlier and nearly 6% more than in fiscal year 2021, and more than 4.7 million numbers were added during fiscal year 2025.
| Measure (FTC, fiscal year 2025) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Do Not Call complaints | About 2.6 million |
| Change vs fiscal year 2021 | About 48% lower (FY2021: roughly 5 million) |
| Active registrations, September 30, 2025 | About 258.5 million |
| Numbers added in the year | More than 4.7 million |
| Highest complaint rate by state | Arizona, 1,028 per 100,000 people |
For a business, the registry figure is the practical one. A number on the registry cannot receive telemarketing calls unless the person has given you consent or has an existing business relationship with you. With over 258 million numbers registered, any cold list of US mobile numbers is mostly registered numbers. Our page on whether AI calling is legal explains the consent that AI voice calls need on top of that.
What are people complaining about?
The FTC says calls about reducing debt, impostors, and medical and prescription topics remained among the subjects consumers reported most in fiscal year 2025. Robocalls, meaning calls with a recorded or artificial voice, continued to make up most Do Not Call violation complaints, ahead of live callers.
Two of those categories matter directly to the businesses we work with. Healthcare practices share the "medical" label with prescription and insurance scams, so a patient's first instinct on an unknown call can be to ignore it. And an AI voice agent is an artificial voice under the law, the same category most complaints are about, which is why consent, clear identification and an easy opt-out are not optional in an AI calling agent build.
How much do people lose to text message scams?
Consumers reported losing $470 million to scams that started with a text message in 2024, according to the FTC. That was five times the amount reported in 2020, even though the number of reports went down. The most common text scams were fake package delivery problems, bogus job offers, fake bank fraud alerts, fake unpaid toll notices and "wrong number" messages.
The FTC data at a glance
The source is the FTC's April 16, 2025 data spotlight, New FTC data show top text message scams of 2024. The FTC's advice to consumers is to not click links in unexpected texts and to forward spam to 7726. That advice is sound, and it also affects honest senders: a reminder with an unfamiliar short link and no business name looks exactly like the scams on that list.
What does this mean for businesses that call and text customers?
It means trust has to be designed in. Customers screen unknown calls and distrust unexpected texts, so the messages that still work are ones the customer expects, from a name they recognise, sent from a registered number, with no pressure and an easy way to reply or opt out.
- Get the number saved. The first text after a booking or enquiry says who you are and asks the customer to save the number.
- Name the business in every message, first words, not the signature.
- Avoid scam patterns: no urgent payment demands, no shortened links from unknown domains, no "click here to avoid a fee".
- Register your texting. Unregistered business texts are blocked or filtered by carriers; our A2P 10DLC registration guide covers GoHighLevel.
- Send at sensible hours, covered in what time businesses can text customers.
- Let people reply. A two-way number that a person or an AI chat agent answers is more trusted than a no-reply sender.
Speed still matters. The fastest reply to a new enquiry wins more often, as our speed to lead research shows, but only if the reply is recognised as coming from the business the customer just contacted. The Realeshome case study shows a lead follow-up system built around that.
Unwanted texts also lead to lawsuits. In Florida, federal dockets citing the state's Telephone Solicitation Act peaked at 224 in 2022; see our FTSA lawsuit statistics for the count by year.
How should you read these statistics?
As signals of consumer behaviour, not as counts of all unwanted calls. Complaint numbers depend on how many people bother to report, and loss figures depend on what victims report to the FTC. Both undercount the real total, and neither says how any one business's calls are received.
- Complaints are not calls. Most people who get an unwanted call never report it, so the true number of calls is much higher.
- Fiscal years run October to September, so fiscal year 2025 is October 2024 to September 2025.
- Loss figures are self-reported through the FTC's Consumer Sentinel network.
- The best measure for your business is your own: answer rate on outbound calls, reply rate and opt-out rate on texts, by message type.
Questions about robocall and spam text data
Is the Do Not Call Registry still growing?
Yes, slowly. Active registrations rose about 1.9% in fiscal year 2025 to roughly 258.5 million, with more than 4.7 million numbers added during the year.
Do Do Not Call rules apply to texts?
The FCC applies its calling rules, including the Do Not Call protections for telemarketing, to text messages as well as voice calls. Consent from the person, or an existing business relationship, is what makes a marketing message to a registered number lawful.
Are robocall complaints going up or down?
Up in fiscal year 2025 compared with 2024, but still about half the level of fiscal year 2021, according to the FTC's data book.
Sources and further reading
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC releases annual Do Not Call Registry Data Book (fiscal year 2025), December 11, 2025.
- Federal Trade Commission, National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for fiscal year 2025.
- Federal Trade Commission, New FTC data show top text message scams of 2024; overall losses to text scams hit $470 million, April 16, 2025.
