TPS and CTPS screening for UK outbound calls

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) are statutory registers of people and organisations who do not want live marketing calls. The ICO says they work the same way, and that CTPS is the register for corporate subscribers. It is free to add a number, including a mobile number.

PECR uses “subscriber” for the customer named on the bill. The ICO splits subscribers into corporate subscribers and individual subscribers, and the marketing rules can differ between them. For live calls, both registers matter. The ICO's business-to-business guidance says that before live business-to-business marketing calls you need to screen against both CTPS and TPS, and against your own do-not-call list.

Silent and abandoned calls are a separate Ofcom question. They are covered in the persistent misuse guide.

The ICO classes some businesses as individual subscribers, and PECR then treats them the same as individuals. That list is sole traders, certain partnerships (the ICO gives non-limited-liability partnerships and other English, Welsh and Northern Irish partnerships as examples), and other unincorporated bodies of individuals.

The TPS corporate site describes the same split in operational language: individuals are consumers, sole traders, and partnerships except in Scotland. It says TPS holds consumer numbers and business numbers, and that if you are only calling individuals, residential customers, sole traders and those partnerships for sales and marketing, you screen against the TPS file.

Scottish partnerships are not in that TPS group. They are corporate subscribers, covered below.

The ICO says a corporate subscriber is a corporate body with its own legal status. The examples it gives are companies, corporation soles, limited liability partnerships, Scottish partnerships, some government bodies, and any other body corporate or entity that is a legal person distinct from its members. An employee's number at a company is still a corporate subscriber for PECR, because the subscriber is the employer.

The TPS registration page for businesses says CTPS is the opt-out register for organisations, and lists limited companies, PLCs and limited liability partnerships in the UK, any partnership in Scotland, schools and hospitals, government departments and agencies, and other public bodies. The TPS corporate site adds limited companies, limited liability partnerships in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and any partnership in Scotland, and also schools, government departments and agencies, hospitals and other public bodies.

Because sole traders and some partnerships use TPS, and companies and Scottish partnerships use CTPS, a mixed business list is screened against both. The ICO states that directly.

Registration is not effective the moment a number is added. The ICO says the number must feature on the register for 28 days for it to take effect. The CTPS registration page says the same thing: as with TPS for residential numbers, it takes 28 days for the registration to become fully effective.

The TPS corporate site ties screening to that period. It says data should be cleaned as frequently as possible, so that anybody who has been on either register for 28 days or more is not contacted, and it describes that as their legal right. A number that has been on the register for fewer than 28 days is not yet protected by that registration.

For most live marketing calls, the ICO says you do not need consent in advance. You can make unsolicited live marketing calls to numbers that are not on the TPS or CTPS, provided the person or business has not already objected to your calls. The registers act as a general objection.

You may still call a number that is on a register in some circumstances. The ICO's business-to-business page says you cannot call a CTPS or TPS number unless the business has consented to your marketing calls, and you cannot call a business that has previously objected. For an individual, the same structure applies: a specific notification that they do not object to calls from you is what overrides the register for ordinary live marketing. Agreeing to hear from you does not, in the ICO's words, make the call “solicited”. Most of the live-call rules still apply. A call is solicited only where the person specifically asks you to call them with marketing.

Two types of live call are stricter, and a general “do not object” notification is not the test the ICO describes. Claims-management marketing calls require the person's specific consent, and the ICO says you do not screen those against TPS or CTPS because consent is required anyway. Pension-scheme marketing calls are allowed only in a narrow case: the caller is a trustee or manager of an occupational or personal pension scheme, or is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, and either has consent or meets the existing-client conditions the ICO sets out. The ICO also says the FCA has its own rules banning certain cold calls, and that you need to know the rules that apply to your campaign.

Someone can withdraw consent or object later. The ICO says that if they withdraw consent you can no longer make live marketing calls to that number. Keep a record of what they agreed to, and when. 626Dialler can store consent against the contact where you capture it. The record is only as good as what you put in.

The ICO says that if you want to make live marketing calls, you must check numbers against the TPS and CTPS before you call, so that you do not call a listed number. It does not publish a clock such as “every Friday”. The TPS corporate site's good-practice line is to clean lists as frequently as possible, so that a number which has reached 28 days on the register is not dialled.

A practical reading of those two pages is to screen on a cycle short enough that a number cannot pass the 28-day mark between checks, and to screen again before a campaign uses a list that has been sitting. Your own do-not-call list is separate and has to be applied as well. A TPS or CTPS file does not replace it. The glossary entries for TPS and CTPS use the same distinction.

The live-call rules the ICO describes are regulation 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. In short, for ordinary unsolicited live marketing you do not call a subscriber who has told you they object, and you do not call a number that has been on the TPS or CTPS for 28 days, unless that subscriber has notified you that they do not object to your calls. Regulation 21 is enforced by the ICO, not by Ofcom. Ofcom's persistent-misuse powers are in sections 128 to 131 of the Communications Act 2003.

The ICO also requires you, on a live marketing call, to display your number, or another number on which you can be contacted, to say who is calling, and to give contact details or a freephone number if asked. You must not withhold the number. That sits alongside the CLI points in the Ofcom statement, which are about persistent misuse rather than PECR.

On 5 February 2026 the ICO said the next phase of the Data (Use and Access) Act had commenced, and that the Act gives the ICO power to issue fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover under PECR. Schedule 13 of the Act, which aligns those enforcement powers, was brought into force on that date by SI 2026/82. That figure is a maximum the ICO has described. It is not a fine that applies to every breach, and this page does not estimate a penalty.

The ICO's live-call and business-to-business pages both say they are under review because of the Data (Use and Access) Act and may change. The register rules above are taken from those pages as they stood when this guide was reviewed.

626Dialler can screen numbers against TPS and CTPS before dialling. TPS and CTPS suppression is listed on Starter, and the pricing page says it is included on every plan. Manual dialling can still run that suppression. A screen does not replace your own do-not-call list or a record of what the person agreed.

626CRM, our own hosted CRM, is included on Growth and Enterprise, and is where consent and do-not-call notes can sit with the record. 626Dialler can also connect to an existing Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics or Zendesk, with call activity written back after each call. A documented REST API is available. Alveus hosts 626Dialler for every customer.

See pricing for what each plan includes, and book a demo to watch a list being screened before a campaign dials.