SMS marketing outside the US: Australia, UK, Canada and Gulf rules

US texting rules are a stack: TCPA for consent, carrier 10DLC registration for the number, and state laws on top. When you send across borders, that stack does not travel with you. Every country builds its own, and the layers differ. Some regulate consent and leave sender IDs alone. Others regulate the sender ID tightly and say little about send times. A list that is perfectly compliant in Ohio can break three rules the moment the same message goes to Sydney or Dubai.

This post compares the four questions that matter in each region: what counts as consent, what the message has to contain, what you can send from, and when you can send. It also says plainly where we fit. Ready is built for US traffic, and an account can also add a local number in Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom. If your list is mostly Gulf numbers, you need a different provider for that traffic, and we explain how to pick one below. None of this is legal advice. Regulators update these rules, so confirm the current text before a launch.

The short version: four regions side by side

The rest of the post works through each column in turn.

Australia: the Spam Act and a sender ID register

Australia regulates commercial texts under the Spam Act 2003, enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Three requirements apply to every commercial message:

1. Consent. Express consent (the person said yes) or inferred consent (a clear existing relationship where they would reasonably expect the message). Inferred consent is narrower than most marketers assume. A purchased list has neither kind.
2. Identification. The message must say who sent it.
3. A functional unsubscribe. An opt-out has to work and be honored within five business days.

ACMA has issued penalties in the millions of dollars against well-known brands, usually for unsubscribe failures or for texting people after they opted out. The pattern is worth noting. The fines rarely came from the first message. They came from systems that kept sending after a STOP.

Sender IDs

Australian businesses commonly send from an alphanumeric sender ID (your brand name in place of a number). Because scammers impersonate brand names, Australia is introducing an ACMA-run SMS Sender ID Register. Once it is fully in force, messages from unregistered alphanumeric IDs are expected to show a warning or be blocked. Check the current status with your provider before launch.

Timing

The Spam Act does not set quiet hours for texts. The voice telemarketing rules do set calling hours, and sending inside a similar daytime window is the sensible default. A 6 AM promo is legal in a narrow sense and still a fast way to collect complaints.

United Kingdom: PECR, GDPR and the soft opt-in

In the UK, marketing texts fall under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), with UK GDPR governing the personal data behind them. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) enforces both, and it regularly fines companies for unsolicited marketing texts.

Consent and the soft opt-in

The default is opt-in consent: freely given, specific, and recorded. The main exception is the soft opt-in, which lets you text existing customers when all of these are true:

• You got their number during a sale, or a negotiated sale.
• You are marketing your own similar products or services.
• You gave them a clear chance to opt out when you collected the number.
• Every message after that includes a simple, free way to opt out.

The soft opt-in does not cover prospects, does not cover third-party offers, and generally does not cover charities soliciting donations. Teams get caught when they stretch "existing customer" to cover anyone who once filled in a form.

Sender IDs and timing

Alphanumeric sender IDs are widely used. The UK runs a voluntary SMS SenderID Protection Registry through industry bodies, which blocks scammers from using registered brand names. Registration is not a legal requirement, but banks and large retailers increasingly use it. PECR sets no statutory send window for texts. Industry codes and basic common sense point to daytime sends.

Canada: CASL is stricter than the TCPA in places

Canada matters most for us, because Ready supports Canadian traffic. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) covers every "commercial electronic message," and texts are included. The CRTC enforces it, and the maximum penalty for a business runs up to $10 million (CAD) per violation.

Consent comes with expiry dates

CASL recognizes two kinds of consent:

• Express consent, given through an active opt-in. It does not expire until the person withdraws it.
• Implied consent, which generally comes from an existing business relationship and has time limits. In general, it lasts two years after a purchase and six months after an inquiry.

The expiry is the trap. A contact whose implied consent came from a 2023 purchase may no longer be textable today. If you sell into Canada, move implied-consent contacts to express consent while the window is still open, and record when and how each opt-in happened. Our guide on documenting SMS consent covers what to keep.

Message content

Every CASL message must identify the sender, include contact information, and include an unsubscribe mechanism. Opt-outs must be honored within 10 business days, and the mechanism must keep working for at least 60 days after the message.

Numbers and timing

Canada does not use the US 10DLC registration system. Canadian carriers run their own vetting, and our post on 10DLC in Canada and Australia explains what applies. Alphanumeric sender IDs are not supported, so you send from a long code, a toll-free number or a short code. The CRTC's telemarketing rules set calling hours for voice calls. Many senders follow the same daytime window for texts because the complaint risk is similar.

UAE and Saudi Arabia: the regulator controls the sender name

Gulf markets work differently from the others. The focus is less on consent paperwork and more on control of who can send at all.

• Registered sender names. In both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, alphanumeric sender IDs must be pre-registered, usually through a licensed local provider. Supporting documents are often required, such as a trade license and an authorization letter. Unregistered IDs are typically blocked or replaced with a generic ID.
• Promotional labeling. Promotional traffic is commonly marked with an "AD" tag in the sender name and handled separately from transactional traffic.
• Time windows. Promotional sends are commonly restricted to daytime hours, and many providers simply hold traffic outside the window. Schedules also often shift during Ramadan, which affects both the rules and audience behavior.
• Opt-in and opt-out. Promotional messages need opt-in consent and a working opt-out, often a keyword reply.

The practical consequence: plan for a lead time of days to weeks before your first Gulf send, mostly spent on sender name registration.

Where Ready fits, and where it doesn't

We make Ready for US traffic, with local numbers in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. That covers the US 10DLC registration stack and North American numbers, with these protections built in:

• Automatic STOP handling. Opt-outs propagate across campaigns, so a contact cannot be texted again.
• Quiet-hours enforcement. Sends are held outside permitted local hours, based on the recipient's area, and are charged only when they actually go out. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is refused and must be resent; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.
• Litigator and DNC scrubbing. Available as a standalone scrub at $0.005 per contact, or as a per-segment add-on on sends. The lists are US only: UK and Australian numbers are not scrubbed, and Canadian numbers are checked against the US lists, not Canada's National DNCL.
• Sender-side attestation. We record who sent, to how many, and when.

One limit matters for CASL and PECR in particular. Our attestation is not a per-contact consent record. The opt-in time, wording and page for each contact have to live in your own store.

Pricing is the Standard rate of $0.0075 per segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee, for sent and received segments alike. Texts abroad cost more: each segment to Canada, Australia or the United Kingdom also carries an overseas carrier fee, billed as its own line: $0.0143 to Canada, $0.0305 to Australia and $0.0615 to the UK. A local number is $5 a month in Canada, $10 in Australia and $6 in the UK. Here is a worked example for a 2,000-contact US promo:

• The message is 150 plain characters with no emoji, so it is 1 segment.
• 2,000 contacts × 1 segment × $0.0075 = $15 in Standard rate.
• Carrier fee is 2,000 × $0.0045, itemized separately on the bill.

That all-in figure excludes the compliance surcharge. Scrubbing and landline validation each add $0.003 per segment if you switch them on, and both are off by default.

To be honest about price: raw CPaaS APIs such as Twilio cost less per segment. What we include is the registration flow, the compliance layer and the inbox. The Messages API docs show how a send works.

What to use for Gulf numbers, and UK or Australian sender IDs

Ready sends to Australia and the UK from a local number on your account. If you need an alphanumeric sender ID there, or any Gulf traffic, use a provider with local coverage, meaning one that can:

• register your alphanumeric sender ID in each country, and
• show you per-country delivery reports.

Large CPaaS platforms cover most of these countries. Local aggregators are often better at Gulf sender name registration. Split your traffic by country code at the list level so each number routes to the right provider. We'd rather say that up front than have you discover it after a failed send. For other markets, see our notes on business SMS in Nigeria, India and Kenya.

A pre-send checklist for cross-border lists

Run these steps before any campaign that crosses a border:

1. Segment by country code. Never send one message to a mixed list.
2. Map consent to the strictest rule for each contact. Check CASL implied-consent dates and UK soft opt-in conditions in particular.
3. Localize the footer. Include the sender name, contact details where CASL requires them, and an opt-out that works in that country.
4. Confirm the sender ID. Register it in the Gulf, and register it with Australia's register when that applies.
5. Schedule in the recipient's local time, not yours. A 10 AM Toronto send lands between midnight and 2 AM in Sydney, depending on the time of year.
6. Keep per-contact consent records. Store the timestamp, wording and source for every contact.

For the US side of the same list, our plain-English overview of US SMS laws covers TCPA and state rules.

The takeaway

Consent, sender identity and timing are regulated everywhere, but each country weights them differently:

• Canada puts expiry dates on consent.
• The UK has a narrow carve-out for existing customers.
• Australia is tightening control of sender IDs.
• The Gulf gates the sender name and the send window.

Build your process around the strictest rule each contact falls under. Then send each region's traffic through a provider built for it. If your traffic is in the US, Canada, Australia or the UK, you can try Ready: sign up, and use the first 20 one-to-one texts before you register.