If you run a business in Australia and you send text messages to your clients — booking reminders, launch drops, promo alerts, or just a friendly “we’ve got a spot this week” — new rules just kicked in.
From 1 July 2026, ACMA rolled out a mandatory SMS Sender ID Register. It sits alongside the Spam Act 2003, which has been quietly governing marketing texts for years, but which most small business owners have been half-following without realising.
Here’s the plain-English version of what you need to know, and what to actually do about it this week.
Two sets of rules, not one
There are two frameworks in play now.
1. The Spam Act 2003
This applies to any commercial or promotional message you send. It has three requirements:
Consent. You need opt-in consent before you send. Express consent is safest, and you have to keep records of who opted in, when, and how. The burden of proof sits with you.
Identification. Every message has to identify your business — legal name, or business name plus ABN — and that info has to stay accurate for at least 30 days after sending.
Unsubscribe. Every commercial message needs a working unsubscribe option — something like “reply STOP” — that’s free of extra hurdles. No logins, no accounts, no asking for extra personal info to opt out. You have five business days to action opt-out requests.
Purely factual messages — say, an appointment reminder with no promotional content — are exempt. But be careful. ACMA has fined businesses whose so-called factual messages contained marketing. If you tack “and don’t forget our Mother’s Day special” onto a booking reminder, you’ve just made it a commercial message. Penalties for repeat breaches run into the millions.
2. The new SMS Sender ID Register (mandatory 1 July 2026)
This is what actually changed this month.
If you send SMS that shows a branded sender name — something like “BizBeauty” or your salon name instead of a phone number — that sender ID now has to be registered with ACMA. Registration has been open since 30 November 2025, either directly with ACMA (if you have an ABN) or through your SMS provider.
Sender IDs have to be 2 to 11 characters and clearly linked to your business — a company name, trademark, or domain.
If you send texts from a plain mobile number instead of a branded sender ID, the register doesn’t apply to you. Only the Spam Act rules do. But if you’re serious about brand recognition, a plain mobile number isn’t doing you any favours long-term.
What happens if you don’t register
If your branded sender ID isn’t registered, texts sent from that name now get over-stamped with “Unverified” on the recipient’s phone. Worse, they get lumped into a generic Unverified thread alongside every other unregistered sender — right next to actual scam texts.
You don’t have to imagine what that does to your open rates.
The five-minute audit to do this week
If you send marketing SMS to your list, run this quick check:
Check your consent records. Can you prove, right now, that every person on your SMS list gave you express consent to text them? If not, start collecting properly from today. Every time.
Check your message template. Does it identify your business by name or ABN? Does it include a working “reply STOP” unsubscribe? Fix it if not.
Check your sender ID. If you’re using a branded name, register it with ACMA or via your SMS provider today. If you’re on a mobile number, you’re fine on this one.
Check the last 30 days of “factual” messages you’ve sent. Did any of them sneak in a promotional line? If so, treat them as commercial from here on.
The bottom line
These aren’t paperwork rules. They’re the difference between your text landing in front of a client, and getting flagged as spam and dropped into a scam thread they’ll never open.
If you were already following best practice, this is a five-minute check-in. If you weren’t, this is the nudge to fix it before ACMA fines catch up.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you’re not sure whether your current SMS practice complies, check with a lawyer or your SMS provider.