Most countries put regulations in place to protect customers from unsolicited SMS messages. To be able to send your SMS messages and have them delivered to your recipients, you must follow these regulations to avoid suspensions. Depending on the country where you are sending your SMS marketing communication, there are different types of guidelines to follow and restrictions.
To help you out, we've gathered those guidelines and restrictions for our top-sending countries:
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Before you start
- Understand and follow the SMS marketing regulations in your recipient country.
- Register a Sender ID for each country in which you send SMS messages. If you send to the USA or Canada, this also registers your toll-free number.
- Numbers-only Sender IDs (with or without a leading "+") are not allowed in any country, unless the number is provided by Brevo or ported into Brevo. Emojis are never allowed in a Sender ID, in any country.
- Only send campaigns to contacts who consented to receive your SMS and are expecting to receive and open them. Remember that opt-in is mandatory for every country. To learn more, check our dedicated article Best practices for SMS deliverability.
- Always include an unsubscribe option in your SMS messages. To learn more, check our dedicated article Include an unsubscribe option in your SMS messages.
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The message length limit depends on the encoding used to write the SMS content:
Encoding used Single message Long message GSM or ASCII 160 153 (per message) Unicode and emojis 70 67 (per message) Latin 140 134 (per message) ➡️ To learn more, check our dedicated article Is there a limit on the number of characters used in an SMS message?.
🌍 International sender ID rules
Beyond the top-sending countries detailed below, many other destinations restrict what a Sender ID can contain. Use the table below as a quick reference, or download the international Sender ID requirements PDF for the complete country-by-country list:
| Restriction | Applies in |
| Digits not allowed in the Sender ID | Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Rwanda |
| Spaces not allowed in the Sender ID | Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Croatia, Ecuador, Gambia, Myanmar, Namibia, North Macedonia, Peru, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tanzania, Thailand, Uzbekistan |
| Special characters not allowed in the Sender ID (letters and digits only) | Austria, Belarus, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Kenya, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam |
| Digits and special characters not allowed (letters only) | Bulgaria, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda |
Download international Sender ID requirements PDF
🇫🇷 France
Marketing SMS messages sent to France are limited to certain regulatory conditions. Any SMS identified as marketing content will be subject to the conditions listed in the sections below.
Transactional SMS messages are not subject to those regulations.
Prohibited content
| ❌ Prohibited content topics | |
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Time restrictions
Marketing and promotional SMS messages can be sent between 8 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. (any day of the week). Any marketing or promotional SMS sent outside those hours will be blocked and sent again at the next authorized time slot.
| Alphanumeric Sender ID |
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|---|---|
| Numeric Sender ID |
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| Generic Sender ID | Use a representative brand or business name to ensure delivery. Generic sender IDs such as VERIFY, INFO, SMS, NOTICE, etc are prohibited. |
It is mandatory to add the STOP au [STOP_CODE] mention as an unsubscribe instruction at the end of your marketing SMS messages for France. To learn more, check our dedicated article SMS opt-out keywords (HELP, STOP, START, INFO).
🇺🇸 United States of America (USA) and 🇨🇦 Canada
SMS messages sent to the United States of America are limited to certain regulatory conditions. Any SMS identified as marketing content will be subject to the conditions listed in the sections below.
Organization prefix
Your business name or any word or phrase that could help your customers identify your business is mandatory in marketing SMS messages for US recipients. To learn more, check our dedicated article Comply with the United States SMS marketing regulations with our compliance feature.
Restricted content
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It is prohibited to use public URL shorteners default domains such as bit.ly or tinyurl. Custom domains on these services are allowed.
❗️ ImportantDeactivate the Automatically shorten links option when creating your SMS campaign for the USA or Canada from Brevo to prevent it from returning a soft bounce. To learn more, check step 5 in our dedicated Message content: create your SMS content section in the Create an SMS campaign article. - The Euro symbol (€) is not supported.
Prohibited content
| ❌ Prohibited content topics | |
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Marketing SMS messages have to be sent with a Sender ID, which for the USA and Canada also registers your toll-free number, short, or long code. To learn more, check our dedicated article Register a Sender ID to send SMS messages.
Toll-free number registration
Registering a Sender ID for the USA or Canada is mandatory and it registers your toll-free number at the same time. If you send an SMS campaign without complying with these regulations, your campaign will not be sent and will be suspended.
Adding unsubscribe instructions at the end of your marketing SMS messages is mandatory. To learn more, check our dedicated article Comply with the United States SMS marketing regulations with our compliance feature.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
SMS messages sent to the United Kingdom are limited to certain regulatory conditions. Any SMS identified as marketing content will be subject to the conditions listed in the sections below.
Restricted content
If you are sending adult or gambling content, you have to ensure that your recipients are age-verified in compliance with the PSA & Ofcom guidelines.
Prohibited content
| ❌ Prohibited content topics | |
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| Alphanumeric Sender ID |
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| Numeric Sender ID |
International numeric senders are prohibited. Only the following numeric Sender IDs are supported:
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| Generic Sender ID | Use a representative brand or business name to ensure delivery. Generic Sender IDs such as VERIFY, INFO, SMS, NOTICE, etc are prohibited. All variations of generic Sender IDs are also prohibited. |
Add a Send STOP to [STOP_CODE] mention as an unsubscribe instruction at the end of your marketing SMS messages. To learn more, check our dedicated article Include an unsubscribe option in your SMS messages.
🇮🇹 Italy
SMS messages sent to Italy are limited to certain regulatory conditions. Any SMS identified as marketing content will be subject to the conditions listed in the sections below.
Prohibited content
| ❌ Prohibited content topics | |
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| Alphanumeric Sender ID |
In compliance with the regulator AGCOM, the code of compliance states that international alphanumeric senders are prohibited. Only the following numeric Sender IDs are supported:
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| Numeric Sender ID | Numeric sender IDs are not supported unless offered by Brevo. |
| Generic Sender ID | Use a representative brand or business name to ensure delivery. Generic sender IDs such as INFO, SMS, NOTICE, etc are prohibited. |
Add a Invia STOP a [STOP_CODE] mention as an unsubscribe instruction at the end of your marketing SMS messages. To learn more, check our dedicated article Include an unsubscribe option in your SMS messages.
🇪🇸 Spain
SMS messages sent to Spain are limited to certain regulatory conditions. Any SMS identified as marketing content will be subject to the conditions listed in the sections below.
Prohibited content
| ❌ Prohibited content topics | |
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| Alphanumeric Sender ID | Alphanumeric Sender IDs are supported. |
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| Numeric Sender ID | Numeric Sender IDs are supported. Long Virtual Numbers (LVNs) may also be offered by Brevo. |
| Generic Sender ID | Use a representative brand or business name to ensure delivery. Generic sender IDs such as INFO, SMS, NOTICE, etc, are prohibited. |
Add a Envíe STOP a [STOP_CODE] mention as an unsubscribe instruction at the end of your marketing SMS messages. To learn more, check our dedicated article Include an unsubscribe option in your SMS messages.
🕛 About sending time restrictions for SMS
Sending time restrictions apply almost exclusively to marketing and promotional SMS with advertising or sales content, which are subject to quiet hours and opt-in requirements. Transactional SMS—like order confirmations, alerts, and passwords—are generally exempt and can be sent 24/7 in most jurisdictions since they're informational and essential. Many countries exempt transactional SMS from DND restrictions.
Open the accordion below to have an overview of the time and day-based sending restrictions enforced in some countries:
These rules define when marketing SMS messages are allowed to be delivered to protect recipients from unwanted or intrusive communications:
Country/Region |
Days and hours allowed (local time) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| France | 8 am - 9:30 pm | Marketing SMS allowed every day of the week |
| India | 10 am - 9 pm | DND (Do-Not-Disturb) users only; send limit also applies |
| USA (federal) | 8 am - 9 pm | Must comply with CTIA/TCPA |
| USA (Florida, Oklahoma, Washington) | 8 am - 8 pm | State-level restrictions stricter than federal and varies depending on the state |
| Canada | 8 am - 9 pm | No explicit federal time restriction but US-style best practices apply |
| Brazil |
Monday to Friday Saturday |
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| Colombia | 8 am - 9 pm | |
| UAE | 7 am - 9 pm | |
| Saudi Arabia | 8 am - 10 pm | |
| Vietnam |
Monday to Friday Saturday & Sunday |
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| Kazakhstan | 9 am - 9 pm | Possible operator blocking outside hours |
| Morocco | 10 am - 8 pm |
⏩ What's next?
- Best practices for SMS deliverability
- FAQs - Supported countries and pricing for SMS messages
- Comply with the United States SMS marketing regulations with our compliance feature
🤔 Have a question?
If you have a question, feel free to contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account. If you don't have an account yet, you can contact us here.
If you’re looking for help with a project using Brevo, we can match you with the right certified Brevo Agency partner.