The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has submitted its biennial report to Congress on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry, indicating that over 258 million telephone numbers were registered by the end of fiscal year 2025. This figure marks an increase of more than 4.8 million from the previous year.
According to the report, consumers filed more than 2.6 million complaints about unwanted calls in fiscal year 2025, a rise compared to the prior year. Most of these complaints involved robocalls rather than live telemarketing. The most common types of unwanted calls reported included debt reduction schemes, impersonators pretending to be government or business representatives, and medical or prescription-related inquiries. Other frequently reported categories were calls related to energy services, home improvement, and cleaning services.
The FTC continues to monitor how advancements in technology impact both consumers and telemarketers using the DNC Registry. Automated dialing systems have allowed telemarketers to make large volumes of robocalls at low cost, which has contributed to a significant number of illegal telemarketing calls in recent years. Although complaints about illegal robocalls had been decreasing from fiscal year 2017 through fiscal year 2024, there was an uptick in such reports during fiscal year 2025. However, complaint levels remain much lower than their peak in 2017.
The agency attributes this decrease in part to enforcement efforts targeting Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers that facilitate illegal calling operations. The FTC has also taken legal action against companies providing software platforms used for robocalling activities.
Since launching the Registry in 2003, the FTC has filed 173 lawsuits against a total of 570 companies and 449 individuals alleged to have made billions of unwanted telemarketing calls. These actions have resulted in nearly $400 million collected from violators.
In addition to enforcement measures, the report outlines collaborative efforts between the FTC and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) aimed at stopping caller ID spoofing and developing strategies against technologies that enable illegal calls. The FTC supports new call-blocking and call-filtering technologies offered by major voice service providers and shares daily data on DNC and robocall complaints with analytics firms and telecom companies. Several firms have noted that access to this data has enhanced their ability to detect abusive or fraudulent calls.
The Commission also releases an annual Do Not Call Registry Data Book containing detailed statistics on registrations and other relevant information.
The decision approving submission of this report was unanimous among commissioners present, with a vote of 2-0.
Ami Dziekan from the Bureau of Consumer Protection served as lead staffer for this matter.
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