Will your dealership's texts get flagged as 'Unverified'? The 1 July 2026 sender ID deadline

Your dealership runs on the text message. Service reminders, finance-maturity calls to action, trade offers, "your car is ready": most of it now lands as an SMS with your business name at the top. From 1 July 2026, that little name at the top of the message comes with a new rule, and getting it wrong could see your texts quietly pushed into the scam pile.

Here is the plain-English version of what is changing, what has always applied, and what it costs dealers who get it wrong.

The new rule: register your branded sender ID before 1 July 2026

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has set up an SMS Sender ID Register as part of the national push against scam texts. The headline for dealers is simple: from 1 July 2026, if you send texts that show your business or organisation name at the top instead of a phone number, that name needs to be registered.

The ACMA's guidance is direct. Businesses and organisations that send branded text messages, including small operators, must contact their telco or message provider to register those sender IDs before 1 July 2026. If they do not, the ACMA warns those messages may be labelled 'Unverified' and grouped together with other unverified messages, including scam messages, on customers' phones.

For a dealership, that is a real revenue problem, not just a compliance footnote. A service customer who sees "Unverified" next to a reminder is far less likely to open it, let alone book in.

Two practical points. First, if a third party sends SMS on your behalf, a booking tool, a CRM, or a marketing platform, do not assume someone else has handled registration. The ACMA's advice is to check with that provider directly. Second, the ACMA notes that to register a sender ID against an Australian Business Number, your authorised contact or service of notice details in the Australian Business Register need to be current, so it is worth confirming those are up to date now rather than in June.

Three things every dealership message still has to do

The sender ID change sits on top of rules that have applied for years under the Spam Act 2003. The ACMA breaks commercial electronic messaging into three obligations, and all three apply to dealership texts and emails.

Get consent first. The ACMA states that if you plan to send marketing messages or emails, you must first have consent from the person who will receive them, and that this holds even if a third party sends the messages for you.

Identify your business. Every commercial message has to say who sent it. The ACMA's guidance is to use the correct legal name of your business, or your name and ABN, and that this information must remain accurate for at least 30 days after the message is sent.

Make unsubscribe easy. Under the Spam Act, the ACMA states every commercial message must contain an unsubscribe option, and that option must not require the person to give extra personal information or to log in to, or create, an account in order to opt out. The ACMA also flags a trap that catches a lot of dealers: alphanumeric SMS headers generally cannot receive return messages, so a "reply STOP" instruction does not work if your texts come from a branded header that cannot accept replies.

A useful test the ACMA puts to businesses: if a message includes marketing content or direct links to marketing content, it is a commercial message and must carry an unsubscribe option. "Your car is ready" with a trade-in offer underneath is marketing.

What it costs to get this wrong

The penalties are not hypothetical. The ACMA found that Pizza Hut Australia sent close to 5.94 million texts and emails between January and May 2023 to customers who either had not consented or had withdrawn consent, and the business paid a $2.5 million penalty along with a three-year court-enforceable undertaking.

The unsubscribe rule carries the same weight. The ACMA reported that the Commonwealth Bank paid a $7.5 million penalty after sending more than 170 million marketing emails that did not include a way to unsubscribe, with 34.8 million of those also going to people who had not consented or had withdrawn consent. The ACMA noted this was the bank's second major breach, after a $3.55 million penalty in May 2023 for sending 65 million emails without working unsubscribe arrangements.

No dealer group is sending 170 million emails. The point is the principle, not the volume: the regulator treats a missing or broken unsubscribe, and messages to people who never opted in, as serious breaches worth millions.

Do not forget the Privacy Act

The Spam Act governs the message. The Privacy Act governs the customer data behind it. Under Australian Privacy Principle 7, the OAIC explains that organisations covered by the Australian Privacy Principles generally must not use the personal information they hold for direct marketing, subject to some exceptions. Where marketing is allowed, the OAIC's guidance is that organisations must provide a simple means for the individual to opt out, must stop using or disclosing their information for marketing if asked, and must respond to a request within a reasonable period, generally within 30 days.

For most dealerships, that means a clean record of where each customer's details came from, a simple opt-out that actually works, and a process that removes someone the moment they ask.

The good news is that none of this stops you from talking to your owner base. It just sets the guardrails. Get your sender ID registered, keep consent and unsubscribe tidy, and your messages keep landing where they should: in front of a customer who trusts the name at the top.

Sources: ACMA: Sending text messages with your business or organisation name (SMS Sender ID Register), ACMA: Avoid sending spam, ACMA: Pizza Hut Australia pays $2.5 million penalty for spam, ACMA: Commonwealth Bank pays $7.5m for more spam breaches, OAIC: Direct marketing (Australian Privacy Principle 7). Figures are industry findings, not Dealerloop results.