The Second Circuit Enters the Chat: Texts Treated as Calls Under the TCPA

For the first time in the Second Circuit, a federal court has squarely decided whether a text counts as a “telephone call” under the TCPA for purposes of the National Do Not Call Registry. In Wilson v. Better Mortgage Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 251694 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2025), the Southern District of New York held that it does.

This decision follows our recent post, The Text Tug of War: How Courts Are Splitting on the TCPA, which highlighted the growing split among courts. Judges in Illinois, Indiana, and Florida have said texts are not calls, while courts in the Ninth Circuit and parts of the Seventh Circuit have said they are. Several cases are even on hold until appellate courts weigh in, leaving businesses without clear guidance.

Wilson provides some clarity. The court examined how Congress used the word “call” in 1991, when it enacted the TCPA. At that time, a call meant any communication made by telephone, not just a voice conversation. Under that definition, a text qualifies. The court emphasized that Congress wrote the statute broadly to reach new forms of telephone communication as technology evolves.

The court noted that every federal appeals court interpreting Section 227(b)—which governs autodialed and prerecorded calls—treats texts as calls. Because Congress used the same term in Section 227(c), which requires checking the National Do Not Call Registry before making marketing calls (absent an established business relationship or consent), the court saw no basis to treat texts differently. It added that allowing texts to escape Do Not Call rules while remaining subject only to the narrower autodialer provisions would be illogical. The court also relied on longstanding FCC guidance reaching the same conclusion.

Some Florida courts have found otherwise by focusing on how people use the word “call” today. The Wilson court rejected that approach and relied instead on the meaning Congress applied when it wrote the law.

For businesses that send marketing texts, especially to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the message is clear. In the Second Circuit, texts are calls. More than one unwanted text in a 12-month period can trigger a lawsuit and statutory damages. And even though courts in the Eleventh Circuit have adopted a narrower reading, the safest approach remains the same: treat texts as fully covered by the TCPA. The cost of compliance is predictable. The cost of getting this wrong is not.