DNC Registry Singapore: check a number before you call or text

The DNC Registry is Singapore's list of phone numbers whose owners don't want marketing calls, texts or faxes. Before you send a marketing message to a Singapore number, you check it on the registry at dnc.gov.sg, unless that person gave you a clear yes you can show later. A check is good for 21 days, then you run it again.

Sellers have had to check it since 2 January 2014. The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) runs it under the Personal Data Protection Act, at dnc.gov.sg. It has three registers: one for voice calls, one for text messages and one for faxes. A person picks one, two or all three, for a mobile, home or office number. Registering costs them nothing and never runs out.

It isn't a short list. PDPC's monthly figures on data.gov.sg put the cumulative count of registered consumer numbers at 1,254,216 in September 2026, and organisations checked 28.84 million numbers that month alone. Treat every lead list you didn't build yourself as one with listed numbers in it.

The duty isn't only a company's. PDPC's Advisory Guidelines on the Do Not Call Provisions (revised 1 February 2021) say the rules bind individuals as well as companies. If you sell on your own account, the check is yours to run.

A message needs a check when any part of it sells. PDPC's guide for organisations calls it a specified message: anything that advertises, promotes or offers goods, services, property, or a business or investment opportunity, or promotes whoever supplies them. Mixed messages count too, and PDPC's own example is a delivery update with a discount code in it.

The app you send it on doesn't change the answer. PDPC's guide for individuals says the rules cover WhatsApp and Telegram, because both find a person by their phone number. A cold WhatsApp to a new lead is read against the No Text Message register, the same as an SMS. Calls, live or recorded, go against the No Voice Call register.

Find the message you're about to send in the left column:

Referrals sit in between. If a client tells you a friend asked to hear from you, the Advisory Guidelines let you contact the friend to confirm the request, then answer it. If the friend never asked, your client's enthusiasm isn't the friend's consent, so the number gets checked first.

Some messages fall outside the rules on PDPC's list for individuals: market research that sells nothing, fundraising from registered charities, and messages about a public agency's own schemes. Few sellers send those, so assume yours needs a check.

You can skip the check for someone who gave you clear and unambiguous consent to receive marketing at that number, kept in writing or another form you can pull up later. The Advisory Guidelines look at two things. Did you tell the person plainly that marketing would come to their number? And did they act to say yes, with a tick, a signature or a reply of their own? Staying quiet when you offer an opt-out doesn't count as that act.

Three things catch sellers out:

• Asking for consent by WhatsApp or SMS is itself a marketing message, so that number needs a check first. Ask by email, on a signed form, or on a call to a number that's already cleared.
• Keep the proof for as long as you rely on it. The Guidelines treat a saved message plus the person's reply as evidence. For a web form, keep their choice, the date and time, the form they saw and the words they agreed to.
• A yes given to you survives a later registration. Under the Act, someone who consented and then joins the registry hasn't withdrawn their consent. To stop you, they tell you, and you then have 21 days to stop.

PDPC's page on checking numbers sets out four steps:

1. Open an account on dnc.gov.sg. Companies sign up with their UEN through a staff member's Corppass. Selling on your own with no UEN, as many property agents do? Use Singpass. Overseas companies send their registration papers and a bill. Set-up is a one-time S$32.70, or S$65.40 from overseas, GST included.
2. Add sub-accounts if more than one of you checks numbers; credits move between them.
3. Pick the method that fits the list, from the table below.
4. Message only the numbers that come back clear on the register for your channel, whether that's calls or texts.

A bulk upload is a CSV with one column of 8-digit numbers. You get four files back: Filtered Numbers (each number's status on each register), a Summary, an On Behalf List of the organisations you checked for, and Rejected Numbers with the reason each one failed. Save the Filtered Numbers file and the Summary together, because those two are your record that the check happened.

Run checks on dnc.gov.sg itself. Lookalike services aren't linked to or approved by PDPC, the registry's home page warns. If a third-party aggregator misses a listed number, the liability is your organisation's. A list sold to you as "DNC-cleaned" is no different: PDPC's guide for organisations says the checker has to give you the date it got the results and how long they're valid, and you can't rely on its word when there's reason to think either has lapsed.

What a check costs

Each main account gets 1,000 free credits a year, and one credit checks one number. Checking a number you checked last month costs a credit again. Once the free credits run out, PDPC's prices as of October 2026, GST included, are:

• Pay per use: 2.73 Singapore cents a number for batches of up to 4,999, 2.51 cents for larger ones, with a S$10 minimum charge.
• Prepaid credits: from S$109.00 for 5,000 (Tier A) up to S$10,900.00 for 1,000,000 (Tier F).

A solo seller who checks 80 new numbers a month stays inside the free credits all year.

A result is good for 21 days from the day you get it. PDPC's checking page says so, and its Advisory Guidelines set the 21 days for every result received from 1 February 2021. After that, check again before any marketing message, even to a number that was clear last time.

Some pages still say 30 days. That rule ended in February 2021, so a 30-day figure, like the one in the Council for Estate Agencies' article for property agents from 28 December 2020, is out of date.

The same 21 days turn up twice more. When someone joins the registry, organisations get 21 days to stop marketing to that number. When someone withdraws a yes they gave you, you get 21 days to stop.

So plan the outreach around the check, and write the recheck date down the day the results arrive: results that land on Monday 9 November are good until Monday 30 November. If your sales cadence to cold numbers runs five touches over three weeks, check the list the day before the first touch, and check again for any touch that falls after day 21.

A cleared number doesn't clear the message. The Advisory Guidelines, reading sections 44 and 45 of the Act, ask for three things:

1. Who's sending. Use a real name or your company's name. "Message me for details" names nobody, and neither does a nickname, while "Daniel Lim, Brightwater Solar" does.
2. How to reach you, in a form that still works for at least 30 days after you send.
3. Your number, showing on every call, because hiding caller ID breaks the rules by itself.

On WhatsApp, sign the first message with your name and company, even when your profile already shows them. Once someone picks up, use the cold calling guide for what to say. Selling on WhatsApp? WhatsApp for business in Singapore shows what a customer's yes has to look like there.

Of her 140 names, 124 were open to her that first week, by WhatsApp or by phone, and each one carries a check date or a signed yes she can show. Most of the work was the tick box on the sheet. The replies then go through her usual sales follow-up process.

Your own phone gets sales calls too, and putting it on the registry is free. PDPC's registration page and dnc.gov.sg list three ways:

• Online at dnc.gov.sg, where you add or remove a number and check its status any time.
• SMS "DNC" to 78771 from the number you're registering. It works for mobiles only, and normal SMS charges apply.
• Call 1800 248 0771 from that number, free, with caller ID switched on. From overseas, call +65 6248 0771.

The registration never expires, and organisations get 21 days to stop marketing to you. It's tied to the number itself, so if you change numbers, you register again.

Your prospects have the same three options. A listed number is a person who said no in advance, so find another way in: an email asking whether they'd like offers by text, a client who tells you their friend wants to hear from you, or an event sheet with a clear tick box.

Section 48J of the Personal Data Protection Act lets PDPC order anyone who breaks the DNC rules intentionally or negligently to pay a financial penalty: up to S$200,000 for an individual and up to S$1 million for anyone else. Skip the "10% of annual turnover" figure some pages quote for DNC breaches. In section 48J that cap covers an organisation's data protection breaches, and the DNC ceiling stays at S$1 million.

PDPC weighs how long the breach ran, whether you gained from it, what you did to fix it and whether you had compliance measures in place. A rep with a dated check for every number is in a very different spot from one with none.

Got a marketing call you never agreed to? Complain through the link on dnc.gov.sg. PDPC's guide for individuals says a new registration takes up to 21 days to take full effect, so wait that long before you report a message to a newly listed number.

PDPC's guide for organisations is blunt that appointing a data protection officer isn't enough. It expects a set routine for checking numbers before marketing, staff trained on the rules, a way to record consent, and regular checks of your lists. For a rep or a small team, that comes down to five things on every lead:

1. The number, and the date you checked it.
2. Which registers you checked: voice, text or both.
3. Where you saved the registry's result file.
4. Any yes: their words, the date and how they gave it.
5. Any stop: the date they asked, so you're done within 21 days.

A spreadsheet column does it, and so does a sales call log with a date field. If your leads live in ActivityTracker's CRM, import the cleared numbers from the bulk result file, and undo the import if you picked the wrong file. Tick Do not contact on anyone who asks you to stop. Then set the card's follow-up date to the recheck day.

If you manage a team, check the dates on each list in your weekly pipeline review. A list checked six weeks ago is a list nobody can market to today.

• Personal Data Protection Commission, Do Not Call (DNC) Registry home page (registers, checking accounts, third-party checkers), read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission, Organisation's guide to Singapore's Do Not Call (DNC) provisions, read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission, How to check numbers against the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry (accounts, methods, 21-day validity, fees), read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission, Individual's guide to the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry, read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission, How to register with the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry for individuals, read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission, Advisory Guidelines on the Do Not Call Provisions, revised 1 February 2021, read 28 October 2026
• Singapore Statutes Online, Personal Data Protection Act 2012, section 48J (financial penalties), read 28 October 2026
• Personal Data Protection Commission on data.gov.sg, Do Not Call Registry figures (cumulative and monthly, to September 2026), read 28 October 2026
• Council for Estate Agencies, Check the Do Not Call Registry before sending marketing messages (accurate as at 28 December 2020), read 28 October 2026