Brazil’s anti-spam database names the payer, not the price

Brazil named who pays for its anti-spam database. The price is still blank

Why it matters

The new call-authentication law puts telecom providers on the hook to build and run a central number registry, while leaving Anatel to decide whether business callers share the bill. The first deadline arrives before the regulator’s rulebook is due.

Mara Voss27 October 2026Reading Time 2 minLast update: 27 October 2026

Concept illustration of number identities moving through a shared telecom registry.

Summary

Brazil’s MPV 1.396 assigns telecom providers the cost of implementing and operating a central numbering database, while allowing Anatel to authorize charges to companies that originate calls.
The statute names the payer but supplies no fee, cost estimate or allocation formula; Anatel’s urgent rulemaking is still at pre-consultation legal review.

Analysis

Brazil has put a price tag on responsibility, then left the number off it.

Provisional Measure 1.396, published on 13 October, creates a central database of telephone-number holders, company names and logos. Telecom providers must supply and update the records. Providers will manage the database themselves or use a technical entity designated or accredited by Anatel. The statute is unusually clear about the first invoice: providers pay to implement and operate the system. It also lets Anatel set a way to charge legal entities that originate calls.

That is a cost-allocation rule, not a price list. The law states no amount, billing unit, split among providers or formula for business callers. Anatel gets the pricing pen along with the technical rulebook.

The clocks are already running on different tracks. Thirty days after publication, the blocking duty tied to the per-access call limit and the rule against using numbering codes contrary to Anatel’s requirements become enforceable. The limit is more than 1,000 calls from an access in one day, with at least 85% short calls; short calls include failed calls, voicemail calls and calls lasting six seconds or less. A separate 60-day deadline gives Anatel time to issue or amend the regulation.

Authentication, blocking unauthenticated calls, displaying company identity and the database duties take effect with that regulation and its implementation timetable.

Anatel’s 24 October agenda lists the rulemaking as urgent. Its current phase is pre-consultation review by the agency’s legal office; the preparatory impact report and proposal remain restricted until the Board deliberates. Congress’s tracking page still showed the measure awaiting installation of its joint committee on 26 October.

For carriers, the immediate commercial question is not whether they have a role in the registry. The statute has answered that. It is how much of the system’s cost they must carry, how an accredited operator may be paid, and what call-originating businesses will be charged. The document that could answer those questions is still being written.