How Does TPS Work?

What does it mean to register?

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service.
It is the official central register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls to your landline or mobile.
It is a legal requirement that all organisations do not make calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.

Reduce those unwanted sales and marketing calls. It's a free service and only takes a minute to register.
Register your landline or mobile numbers online.

TPS registration will reduce the number of live unsolicited sales and marketing calls you receive e.g. an organisation calling to sell its products or services using a live agent, not an automated call.
Organisations are required by law to screen their data against the TPS register every 28 days, but many do it more often.
Organisations will still be able to call you if you have given them permission to do so, or for non-sales or marketing issues, such as market research or service calls.

First week

Second week

Third week

Fourth week

Numbers registered with TPS are placed on the central register, and organisations that make unsolicited sales and marketing calls are obliged under law (Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003) to screen their data against the TPS. They must not make any calls to any number registered with TPS.
Although the TPS register is updated daily, the legislation allows companies a maximum of 28 days to update their databases.

There are thousands of nuisance calls made every day. Some are made by mistake, but others by companies that ignore the law. They intentionally call people who are on the TPS register.
It’s important to tell us about the companies who call you without your consent or who ignore the TPS register.

We act on every complaint we receive. We will contact the company and ask them why they phoned you. We will remind them of their legal obligations, and ask them to add your number to their own ‘Do Not Call’ list so you don’t receive any further calls.
All complaint information is reported to The Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the body that takes enforcement action against organisations making nuisance calls.

The TPS provides a valuable free service to everyone who wants to reduce the amount of unsolicited sales and marketing calls they receive.