SMS Regulations You Must Know to Send SMS in The UK

UK mobile networks are introducing additional restrictions in respect of SMS sender IDs in order to reduce the risk of spam/spoofed messages.
As of 1st June 2023 the following amended rules shall apply

Messages containing sexual/adult content are prohibited.
Marketing messages should also have a clear opt-in and opt-out procedure.

The use of International Numbers for A2P messages is being blocked by the UK Mobile Network Operators.
In addition, unauthorized variants of legitimate SenderIDs, i.e. Sender IDs belonging to banks and government agencies as well as generic, non-branded Sender IDs (eg. “Verify”, ”OTP”, ”Code”, etc.), are also being filtered.

Therefore it is required to use a branded, Alphanumeric Sender ID and/or UK Domestic numbers for your A2P messages.

Sender ID allowable characters to include only:
A to Z (Uppercase),
a to z (Lowercase),
0-9,
Maximum of 11 allowable characters
Sender ID’s needs to be to pre-registered

Sender ID Registration

From June 1st, 2023, Smstools will start BLOCKING all NEW unregistered SMS Sender IDs going to the United Kingdom.
If you would like to continue sending SMS to the United Kingdom, you will need to submit an approval request and whitelist all the Sender IDs that you use.
You are able to request an approval via support@smstools.com

URL Registration

From June 1st, 2023, Smstools will start BLOCKING all NEW unregistered URLS going to the United Kingdom.
If you would like to continue sending SMS with URLS to the United Kingdom, you will need to submit an approval request and whitelist the URL that you use.
You are able to request an approval via support@smstools.com
Not allowed: link shortener services

Updated on: 08/06/2023