Trestle does not offer Do Not Call (DNC) checks, and we don’t currently have plans to add them. We focus on providing identity and risk intelligence for outbound teams.
For teams interested in DNC checks, we encourage you to also look at our Litigator Check Add-on, which flags phone numbers tied to The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and consumer protection lawsuits. This is a category of risk that standard DNC checks don’t catch.
This article covers what a DNC check is, why we don’t offer them, how DNC checks differ from Litigator Checks, and where to go if you do need DNC information.
What Is a DNC Check? #
A DNC check (sometimes called “DNC scrubbing”) compares a list of phone numbers against the National Do Not Call Registry maintained by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), plus any applicable state registries. Numbers that appear on those lists are suppressed from a dialing list so that the seller or telemarketer doesn’t call consumers who have opted out of telemarketing.
The registry is large and growing. According to the FTC, more than 4.7 million additional phone numbers were added to the Registry in FY 2025, bringing the total to about 258.5 million active registrations. The FTC also received more than 2.6 million Do Not Call complaints, most of them tied to robocalls rather than live telemarketing. DNC checks and subsequent list scrubbing is important for most outbound sales calls to residential numbers.
Why Trestle Doesn’t Offer DNC Checks #
It comes down to where we invest our resources. We build products around our customer’s use cases, and we focus on identity intelligence and risk signals where we can deliver real, differentiated value to teams.
DNC scrubbing sits in a different category. The National DNC Registry is a public database that any registered business can access directly from the FTC, and the workflow around it is well-served by compliance platforms purpose-built for that job.
Since this is a regulated database, our goal is to provide features that offer incremental value, such as flagging numbers tied to known TCPA plaintiffs, or scoring phone activity. Our Litigator Check Add-on is a good example of what this focus looks like in practice. It catches a category of risk that a DNC check doesn’t (i.e., serial plaintiffs whose numbers usually aren’t on the DNC Registry at all). It’s sourced from court-filing aggregators that monitor every relevant case daily, and it’s available in the same API call our customers already make for validation and verification.
DNC Check vs. Litigator Check: What’s the Difference? #
The two checks protect against different problems:
| DNC Check | Litigator Check | |
| What it identifies | Consumers who have opted out of telemarketing calls by registering on the National (or state) DNC Registry. | Phone numbers tied to plaintiffs and attorneys in TCPA and other consumer lawsuits, plus additional numbers associated with known serial litigators. |
| Source | The FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry and state registries. Public. | Aggregators that monitor federal and state court filings daily. |
| Who manages it | Federal Trade Commission (and individual state agencies for state lists). | Trestle, sourced from court-filing aggregators. |
| Primary risk it addresses | TSR and TCPA violations from calling consumers who explicitly opted out. | TCPA and consumer protection lawsuits filed by professional plaintiffs. |
| Does Trestle offer it? | No. | Yes, as an add-on to Phone Validation API, Real Contact API, and Caller Identification API. |
A DNC check tells you whether a consumer has opted out. A Litigator Check tells you whether a number belongs to someone who has demonstrated a pattern of filing lawsuits against telemarketers. A number can fail one check without failing the other. Many serial litigators are not on the DNC Registry because their goal is to receive marketing calls in order to file complaints.
Both checks have a place in a complete outbound compliance program. Many of our customers with this use case will run DNC checks through a dedicated compliance vendor or in-house using their Subscription Account Number (SAN), and run Litigator Checks through Trestle as part of the same API call they use for identity verification and phone validation.
Does a DNC Check Protect Me From TCPA Lawsuits? #
Not on its own. The DNC Registry and the TCPA are related but distinct. The Telemarketing Sales Rule, enforced by the FTC, prohibits calls to consumers on the Do Not Call Registry. The TCPA, enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), separately governs the use of autodialers, prerecorded voices, and consent for telemarketing calls and texts. A consumer can sue under the TCPA whether or not they are on the DNC Registry, and serial TCPA plaintiffs frequently are not.
A DNC check helps with one piece of the picture. It keeps you from calling numbers that have formally opted out. It will not flag a plaintiff who has filed twenty TCPA cases in the last two years and whose number isn’t registered. That’s the gap our Litigator Check Add-on is built to close.
How Do I Scrub My List Against the DNC Registry? #
If you need DNC scrubbing, here is the standard path. It’s important to note, Trestle is not part of any of these steps:
- Register with the FTC. Sellers and telemarketers register at donotcall.gov and obtain a SAN.
- Pay the access fee. Data for up to five area codes is free. Beyond that, the FY 2026 fee is $82 per area code per year, with a maximum annual fee of $22,626 for nationwide access. Additional area codes added during the second half of a subscription year are prorated to $41 each. Exempt organizations like charities and political callers can access the full list at no cost. Rates are set by the FTC and updated each October.
- Download the registry and scrub your list at least every 31 days. This is one of the requirements, along with maintaining written DNC procedures and an entity-specific DNC list.
- Honor state DNC requirements where they apply. 11 states maintain independent registries with their own registration and access requirements.
Many sellers use a third-party compliance platform to handle the mechanics. That’s a reasonable choice, especially for teams that don’t want to manage downloads and recordkeeping in-house. Trestle does not recommend specific vendors, but the FTC’s Q&A for Telemarketers and Sellers is a good starting point for understanding the requirements before you choose one.
Does the DNC Registry Apply to B2B Calls? #
For the most part, no. The Telemarketing Sales Rule’s DNC provisions are written around residential consumers. The 2024 TSR amendments did expand prohibitions on misrepresentations to business-to-business telemarketing calls, but they did not extend the DNC scrubbing requirements to B2B. The picture gets less clear when an individual uses a personal cell phone for business, or when a B2B list contains consumer numbers that slipped through. In those cases, the conservative position is to scrub.
State laws, however, can be stricter. If your outbound program touches consumer numbers in any state with its own DNC framework, check that state’s requirements separately.
What Trestle Recommends Instead #
If you’re an outbound team trying to reduce TCPA and consumer-protection risk, the most useful combination is:
- DNC scrubbing, handled by you with your own SAN or through a dedicated compliance platform.
- Litigator Checks, layered into the same real-time API call that runs your phone validation or contact verification. In Real Contact API, any numbers associated with known litigators or consumer protection litigation are automatically set to contact grade F, so that the lead can be filtered before it gets dialed.
- Identity verification upstream. Real Contact API’s name matching helps catch reassigned numbers and wrong-party contacts, adding another layer of confidence to your outbound dialing flow.
That stack covers a different risk than DNC scrubbing does, and it covers the risk that turns into the most expensive lawsuits.
Want to See How Many Litigators Are in Your List? #
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