> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.orbit.devotel.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# TCPA Posture Across SMS and Voice

> Assemble your full TCPA posture in one reference: the federal 8 AM–9 PM window across channels, state mini-TCPA overlays, timezone and DST fail-safe behavior, content gates, the consent taxonomy, known-litigator screening, and opt-out suppression — hand it to counsel as the map of your tenant-owned controls.

# TCPA Posture Across SMS and Voice

This page assembles the TCPA-relevant controls into one ordered
reference you can hand to counsel. The TCPA pieces on the live docs are
spread across a voice-statute table, a quiet-hours operator guide, a
content scanner, and a litigator screen — the goal here is the one
posture a single reading covers.

<Warning>
  Every control below is **yours as the tenant**, written into your own
  organization settings and defaults — with exactly one exception: the
  campaign/dialer federal voice window, which the platform always
  enforces on US recipients. This page is not legal advice; have counsel
  re-verify obligations and citations.
</Warning>

## 1. The federal window across channels

The federal TCPA dialing window is **8 AM–9 PM recipient-local** (47
U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(B), 47 CFR § 64.1200(c)(1)). How strictly it bites
depends on the channel and the send path, so read this section per
lane.

**Campaign and dialer voice (US recipients): always hard-blocked
outside the federal window.** Predictive, progressive, preview, and
agentless dialer modes, scheduled callbacks, and the pre-dial gate are
refused with `422 TCPA_FEDERAL_DIALING_WINDOW_BLOCKED` outside the
federal window regardless of your tenant settings — this is the one
platform-owned, fail-closed control in the quiet-hours stack. There is
no tenant toggle that relaxes it. The read-only check behind it is the
same one the send path runs — you can preview it before launch with
`GET /api/v1/compliance/quiet-hours/preview?phone=<E.164>&channel=voice`.
A blocked result carries a DST-safe `next_allowed_at` ISO timestamp;
schedule to it instead of retrying.

**Ad-hoc 1:1 voice: advisory until you opt in.** Dashboard and
softphone dials dispatch outside the window with a decision logged —
until you enable the `voice` channel on your org quiet-hours gate,
which turns the same evaluation into a hard hold
(`422 TCPA_DIALING_WINDOW_BLOCKED`).

**SMS and other messaging: your org gate, plus the content scanner.**
The org gate's enabled-channel default for `sms`, `mms`, `rcs`,
`viber`, `telegram`, and `voice` is 08:00–21:00 recipient-local
(09:00–21:00 for WhatsApp and Meta channels). On top of that, the
pre-send policy scanner checks TCPA quiet hours on the SMS and
WhatsApp marketing lane for US `+1` recipients and returns an advisory
finding in the default `warn` mode — while your org runs `strict`
mode, the same finding rejects the send with `422 POLICY_VIOLATION`.
Transactional traffic (OTPs, alerts, account notifications) is exempt
from both layers.

Resolution order for a campaign send: the campaign row's own window,
then the org fallback window, then the platform default 21:00 → 09:00.
Fallbacks can only narrow an enabled channel gate, never widen it.
Full mechanism on
[Quiet hours configuration](/guides/quiet-hours-configuration) and
[Pre-send policy scanner](/compliance/policy-scanner).

## 2. State mini-TCPA overlays

Seven US states layer a stricter mini-TCPA statute on top of the
federal hours. Federal law expressly permits stricter state rules (47
U.S.C. § 227(e)), so the binding window for a US recipient is the
**most-restrictive-wins** intersection: the earlier end hour, the
union of all banned weekdays. The overlay can tighten; it never
widens.

| State              | Window (recipient-local)    | Blocked days | Resulting overlap with federal             |
| ------------------ | --------------------------- | ------------ | ------------------------------------------ |
| Florida (FL)       | 8 AM–8 PM                   | Sunday       | Federal end cut to 8 PM; no Sunday dialing |
| Oklahoma (OK)      | 8 AM–8 PM                   | —            | Federal end cut to 8 PM                    |
| Mississippi (MS)   | 8 AM–7 PM                   | Sunday       | Federal end cut to 7 PM; no Sunday dialing |
| Louisiana (LA)     | 8 AM–8 PM                   | Sunday       | Federal end cut to 8 PM; no Sunday dialing |
| Alabama (AL)       | 8 AM–8 PM                   | Sunday       | Federal end cut to 8 PM; no Sunday dialing |
| Arkansas (AR)      | 8 AM–9 PM (matches federal) | Sunday       | Federal hours unchanged; no Sunday dialing |
| West Virginia (WV) | 8 AM–9 PM (matches federal) | Sunday       | Federal hours unchanged; no Sunday dialing |

Mississippi's statutory 7:30 PM cutoff is rounded conservatively to
the 7 PM hour boundary. The recipient's state is resolved from the
NANP area code; a state-driven block returns `reason`
`outside_state_window` or `state_blocked_day` with the statute
`citation` (e.g. `Fla. Stat. § 501.059`) in the error details so
counsel can trace the decision without reading platform code. The
full derivation, resolution chain, and per-row statute citations live
on [US state calling windows](/compliance/state-calling-windows).

## 3. Timezone, DST, and fail-safe behavior

The gate works in **recipient-local** time, and the fail posture when
the recipient's timezone can't be resolved is deliberately different
per path:

* **Campaign and dialer voice: fail-closed, always.** A US recipient
  whose timezone resolves nowhere (no area-code mapping, no hint) is
  refused before any window math — an unresolved timezone is never
  treated as "in window".
* **Ad-hoc and messaging sends: your `unknown_timezone_policy`.**
  `skip` passes (fail open), `deny` blocks with
  `422 QUIET_HOURS_TIMEZONE_UNKNOWN`, and `enforce_utc` evaluates
  against UTC for a deterministic window. The voice channel ships with
  `deny` as its default for US recipients; every other channel default
  is `skip`.

The durable fix for an unresolved timezone is data, not policy: set
the contact's timezone or pass a `timezone_override` hint to the
preview call when your CRM knows better than the area code implies
(relocated numbers). Blocked timestamps are DST-safe — `next_allowed_at`
is a UTC ISO instant you can hand straight to your scheduler, so clock
transitions reopen a window in wall-clock hours, never split seconds.
Both failure postures are worked end-to-end in
[Troubleshooting: resolve dialing-window blocked
calls](/troubleshooting/tcpa-window-blocked-calls) and [Troubleshooting:
state mini-TCPA blocked voice
calls](/troubleshooting/tcpa-state-mini-tcpa-window-blocked-calls).

## 4. Content and copy gates

Quiet hours are time-of-day; the content side of the TCPA is what the
copy itself must carry. The pre-send policy scanner runs on every
outbound message before dispatch and collapses its rules into a
`pass` / `warn` / `block` verdict:

* **Missing opt-out** — a message that reads as promotional but
  carries no opt-out phrase (STOP keyword coverage across 14 locales).
* **TCPA quiet hours on SMS/WhatsApp** — marketing sends outside
  08:00–21:00 recipient-local, advisory in `warn` mode and enforceable
  in `strict` mode.
* **SHAFT, spam score, and sender-registration gates** — adjacent
  carrier-contract rules in the same scan.

Your organization's scan mode decides the consequence of a `block`
verdict: `warn` (default) records the finding on the message and in
the `X-Policy-Violations` response header; `strict` rejects the send
with `POLICY_VIOLATION`; `off` skips the scan entirely. Lint a draft
before launch with `POST /api/v1/messages/lint` — same scanner, same
verdict, nothing sent. Full rule table and mode semantics on
[Pre-send policy scanner](/compliance/policy-scanner).

## 5. Consent: the prior-express-written-consent taxonomy

The TCPA distinguishes **transactional** messages (requires prior
express consent) from **marketing** messages (requires prior express
*written* consent — a signed or recorded agreement naming the
disclosure the recipient agreed to). Orbit's consent ledger records
the distinction on every grant:

* `consent_type` — `marketing`, `transactional`, or your own purpose
  category.
* `lawful_basis` — the GDPR Art 6 basis, mirrored so one ledger
  answers both regimes.
* `consent_text_version` and `consent_proof_url` — which disclosure
  the recipient agreed to and where your proof of it lives.

Record a grant once with
`POST /api/v1/compliance/consent` per `(contact, channel)` pair; read
a pre-send gate from `/lookup`; and answer a discovery request with
the tenant-wide `/export` (CSV or JSON, owner/admin keys). Where your
evidence tier needs a recorded **recipient reply** — the form TCPA
written consent usually takes — drive the managed double opt-in
handshake instead of a bare record. Time-bounded consent
(`valid_until` / `expires_in_days`) carries an `expired` flag on
lookups so an old grant stops relaxing gates by itself. Mechanics on
[Consent management](/compliance/consent-management) and
[Double opt-in](/compliance/double-opt-in).

Two places consent surfaces move gates directly: with your
`consent_overrides_quiet_hours` flag `true` (the default), a recipient
you hold a consent record for passes your org quiet-hours gate on
**non-voice** channels; and a consented recipient flows past the
known-litigator gate under a bypass audit trail (next section). Neither
carve-out applies to voice — voice gates on window math alone.

## 6. Known-litigator screening

A single non-consented A2P SMS to a professional TCPA plaintiff costs
$500–$1,500 per message. The known-litigator gate flags recipients on
the platform's litigator list (contact pre-flag, cache, live lookup,
seed — cheapest first) **before** billing and blocks the send with
`403 TCPA_KNOWN_LITIGATOR_BLOCKED`. The gate is scoped to US `+1` SMS
and MMS traffic and is **off by default** — you opt in per
organization with `tcpa_check_enabled` in general settings. A
recipient with an `opted_in` consent record for the channel passes
through under a `consented_bypass` audit entry instead of a block,
so your own permitted lists keep working. The check fails open on a
lookup outage. Voice is deliberately out of scope — the
troubleshooting levers there are the dialing windows above.
Mechanics on [TCPA known-litigator
gate](/compliance/tcpa-known-litigator).

## 7. Opt-out and suppression under the TCPA

The TCPA requires honoring revocation on every channel. A contact who
replies **STOP** (or opts out through the Preference Center or the
Consent API) lands on the suppression list with scope `all` — the
voice and dialer gates read that same list, so an SMS opt-out also
stops calls to the number. Bulk-import a legacy list with
`POST /api/v1/compliance/suppression-list/import` (phone rows also
mirror onto the DNC list and flag the matching contacts) and export
the ledger back out for an audit. Suppression is a hard gate at every
send site — campaign, contact import, or API send alike, dropped
before dispatch. Mechanics on [Opt-out & suppression
lists](/compliance/opt-out-suppression).

## Assemble the checklist

One page, end to end, in the order your lanes run:

1. **Federal voice window** — campaign/dialer hard block, ad-hoc
   opt-in gate; the layer nothing relaxes.
2. **State overlays** — the seven mini-TCPA states above; your own
   gate can narrow them further, never widen.
3. **Fail-safe posture** — unresolved timezone behavior per path;
   DST-safe `next_allowed_at` on every hold.
4. **Content gates** — scan mode (`warn` / `strict`), missing-opt-out,
   and the quiet-hours SMS rule; lint before launch.
5. **Consent taxonomy** — marketing vs transactional records with
   `consent_text_version` + proof; double opt-in for the written tier.
6. **Litigator screening** — `tcpa_check_enabled` on US SMS/MMS with
   the consented-bypass audit trail.
7. **Suppression** — STOP keywords, Preference Center, Consent API, and
   CSV imports converge on one scope-`all` list.

<Warning>
  This page is an operational map of tenant-owned controls, not legal
  advice. The federal statute citations (47 U.S.C. § 227; 47 CFR
  § 64.1200) and the seven state citations are the audit trail — hand
  this page to counsel with those, in their own text, before a
  commercial campaign.
</Warning>

## See also

* [Quiet hours configuration](/guides/quiet-hours-configuration) —
  the org gate, campaign fallback, and `unknown_timezone_policy`
  knobs.
* [US state calling windows](/compliance/state-calling-windows) — the
  overlay table and the statutes each `citation` points back to.
* [Troubleshooting: resolve dialing-window blocked
  calls](/troubleshooting/tcpa-window-blocked-calls) — the triage hub
  for the 422 family.
* [Troubleshooting: state mini-TCPA blocked voice
  calls](/troubleshooting/tcpa-state-mini-tcpa-window-blocked-calls) —
  the per-state overlay variant end-to-end.
* [Pre-send policy scanner](/compliance/policy-scanner) — scan modes,
  the TCPA SMS rule, and the compose-time linter.
* [Consent management](/compliance/consent-management) — the ledger
  the consent taxonomy records.
* [TCPA known-litigator gate](/compliance/tcpa-known-litigator) — the
  opt-in screen and its bypass audit trail.
* [Opt-out & suppression lists](/compliance/opt-out-suppression) — the
  hard gate every opt-out path converges on.
* [Send gates](/compliance/send-gates) — the full gate stack
  (DNC, RND, emergency stop) the window layers share.