FCC Robocall Scorecard: What It Means for Your Business Phone Provider

What Is the FCC Robocall Scorecard?

As of September 2026, the FCC Robocall Scorecard is a proposed consumer tool that would publicly rate voice service providers, including VoIP companies, on how effectively they prevent illegal robocalls from reaching their customers. The FCC released a Public Notice on September 2, 2026, in CG Docket No. 26-239, seeking comment on the design and criteria before publishing the scorecard. Comments are due September 22, 2026, with reply comments due October 2, 2026.

A public rating, not a private audit. The scorecard would be published by the FCC for consumers to access, letting businesses compare providers before signing up or deciding whether their current provider is meeting the bar.

Conduct and outcome metrics. The FCC is considering two types of measurements: what providers do to fight robocalls (conduct-based) and how well those efforts actually work (outcome-based), giving businesses a clearer picture than compliance checkboxes alone.

Part of a broader enforcement push. The scorecard proposal was released the same day the FCC removed 14 voice providers from the Robocall Mitigation Database, signaling that the agency is tightening both accountability and transparency for phone service providers.

What the FCC Proposed on September 2

On September 2, 2026, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau released Public Notice DA-26-932, formally seeking public comment on the creation and structure of a Robocall Scorecard. The proposal comes from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who framed it as the latest action in a broader campaign to attack illegal robocalls at every point in the call path. The comment period closes on September 22, 2026, with reply comments due October 2, 2026.

The Public Notice outlines several guiding principles the FCC wants the scorecard to follow. First, it must be easy to understand and accessible to consumers, meaning it needs to work for a business owner who has no background in telecommunications infrastructure. Second, the rating criteria need to be relevant, accurate, and transparent about the limitations of the underlying data. Third, the FCC wants an iterative process that improves over time as data sources and measurement methods mature.

The FCC is drawing from data it already collects through systems like the Robocall Mitigation Database, consumer complaint filings, STIR/SHAKEN attestation records, and traceback data from the Industry Traceback Group. If you have been following the FCC’s work on the Robocall Mitigation Database overhaul proposed in July 2026, the scorecard is the consumer-facing extension of that infrastructure. The database tells the FCC which providers are compliant. The scorecard tells you which providers are actually effective.

This is not just a transparency exercise. The same day the scorecard was proposed, the FCC Enforcement Bureau removed 14 voice service providers from the Robocall Mitigation Database for non-compliance, effectively disconnecting them from U.S. phone networks. Together, these two actions signal that the FCC is pairing enforcement with consumer empowerment in a way the agency has not done before with robocall data.

Who Does the Robocall Scorecard Affect?

The scorecard directly affects every voice service provider that handles calls in the United States, including VoIP companies, wireless carriers, traditional wireline providers, and the intermediary carriers that route calls between networks. These are the entities that will be rated and publicly ranked.

For small businesses, the effect is indirect but significant. If you use a VoIP phone system to run your business, the scorecard gives you a comparison tool that did not exist before. Right now, there is no standardized, public way to evaluate how well your provider blocks robocalls, verifies caller IDs through STIR/SHAKEN, or cooperates with FCC enforcement. You either trust the marketing claims on the provider’s website, or you wait until your phone rings 15 times a day with spam calls and draw your own conclusions.

The businesses that will benefit most are those in industries where phone credibility matters for revenue. Medical practices, law firms, real estate agencies, and any business that relies on inbound calls from new customers need a phone system that does not bury legitimate calls under a flood of robocalls and does not get their outbound calls flagged as spam. In our experience, the most common complaint we hear from business owners switching to a new phone provider is that their old system let too many junk calls through, and their outbound calls were being labeled as potential spam by carrier algorithms. The scorecard would give those businesses a way to verify the claim before making the switch.

Why the FCC Is Rating Phone Providers Now

The timing of the scorecard proposal is not accidental. It arrives at the peak of the most aggressive robocall enforcement push in FCC history. Since the beginning of 2026, the FCC has launched multiple rulemakings targeting robocalls at every stage of the call chain: Know Your Customer requirements for providers, Know Your Upstream Provider obligations, expanded Robocall Mitigation Database filing rules, and now a consumer-facing transparency tool.

The underlying problem the scorecard addresses is an information gap. The FCC already has substantial data on which providers are doing well and which are not. Consumer complaint volumes, traceback cooperation rates, STIR/SHAKEN attestation percentages, and RMD filing quality all paint a picture that the agency can see but that consumers cannot. The scorecard closes that gap by making provider performance data accessible in a format a non-technical business owner can use.

There is also a competitive dynamic at play. According to the TNS 2026 Robocall Investigation Report, 85 percent of voice traffic between Tier 1 carriers was signed and verified with STIR/SHAKEN protocols in 2025, with 93 percent at the highest A-level attestation. But among smaller carriers, only 17.5 percent of traffic was signed. The scorecard would make that disparity visible to consumers, creating market pressure on underperforming providers that regulation alone has not fully resolved.

For a business evaluating whether to switch phone providers or stick with its current service, the scorecard represents the first time the FCC is putting provider-level performance data directly in the buyer’s hands. If you are exploring your options, our guide to choosing the best business phone system in 2026 covers the full comparison framework beyond robocall protection.

How Will the Scorecard Rate VoIP Providers?

The FCC’s Public Notice distinguishes between two categories of metrics: conduct-based and outcome-based. Conduct metrics measure what a provider does. Outcome metrics measure how well those efforts work. The FCC has not finalized the criteria, but the Public Notice lays out the framework clearly enough to understand what the scorecard will likely evaluate.

Conduct-based metrics would look at whether a provider has implemented STIR/SHAKEN call authentication, whether it maintains a compliant Robocall Mitigation Database filing, whether it cooperates with the Industry Traceback Group when illegal calls are traced through its network, and whether it uses analytics to identify and block suspicious traffic patterns. Outcome-based metrics would look at results: the volume of consumer complaints filed against the provider, the percentage of robocall traffic attributed to its network, and the rate at which legitimate calls are incorrectly blocked.

Metric Category	What It Measures	Why It Matters to Your Business
STIR/SHAKEN implementation	Whether the provider signs and verifies caller IDs	Reduces spoofed calls reaching your line and protects your outbound caller ID
RMD compliance	Filing status and quality in the Robocall Mitigation Database	A removed provider cannot route calls; your service stops working
Traceback cooperation	Whether the provider helps trace illegal call origins	Providers that refuse tracebacks are more likely to route bad traffic
Consumer complaint volume	Number and rate of robocall complaints from customers	High complaints signal the provider is not effectively blocking spam
Legitimate call blocking rate	How often real calls are incorrectly flagged or blocked	Your customers might not reach you if the provider over-blocks

The FCC has acknowledged in the Public Notice that data sources have reliability limitations and that no single metric tells the whole story. The agency is seeking comment specifically on how to ensure the scorecard does not inherently disadvantage a particular type of provider simply because of scale or call volume. This matters for smaller VoIP companies, which handle fewer total calls and may generate fewer complaints simply because they have fewer customers, not because they are more effective at blocking robocalls.

What Should You Look for in Your VoIP Provider Right Now?

The scorecard is still in the proposal stage, which means it will not be published for months. But the criteria the FCC is considering tell you exactly what to evaluate in your current provider today. Here is a practical checklist any business can use right now.

Confirm STIR/SHAKEN compliance. Ask your provider whether they implement full STIR/SHAKEN authentication on your outbound calls with A-level attestation. This is the highest verification level and tells receiving carriers that the call is legitimate.

Check their Robocall Mitigation Database status. The FCC’s RMD is public. Search for your provider at the FCC’s database portal to verify they have a current, compliant filing.

Ask about call blocking and analytics. A compliant provider should be able to explain what tools they use to identify and block suspicious inbound traffic before it reaches your phone.

Review your spam call volume. Count how many robocalls or spam calls hit your business lines in a typical week. If it is more than a handful, your provider’s filtering is underperforming.

Verify your outbound caller ID reputation. If customers report that your calls show up as “Spam Likely” or “Scam Risk,” your provider may not be properly authenticating your caller ID.

Confirm contractual flexibility. If the scorecard reveals that your provider scores poorly, you need the ability to switch without paying an early termination fee. Month-to-month service protects you.

One question we hear constantly from small business owners evaluating phone providers is whether robocall protection is a real differentiator or just a marketing talking point. The scorecard is the FCC’s answer to that question. Until it launches, the checklist above is the closest proxy you have for evaluating the same factors the FCC will measure. If you want to see how the most affordable VoIP phone services for small businesses compare on these criteria, we have written a detailed comparison.

Common Misconceptions About Robocall Protection

Robocall protection is one of the most misunderstood aspects of business phone service. Many small business owners assume that their provider handles it automatically or that caller ID systems like CNAM and STIR/SHAKEN do the same thing. Neither assumption is accurate, and both lead to business owners paying for a service that lets spam through.

The first misconception is that STIR/SHAKEN stops robocalls. It does not. STIR/SHAKEN verifies that the caller ID displayed on an incoming call has not been spoofed. It proves the call is coming from the number it claims to come from. It does not determine whether the call is legitimate or wanted. A robocaller who uses their own real number, rather than a spoofed one, passes STIR/SHAKEN authentication without issue. Stopping those calls requires a separate layer of call analytics and blocking that sits on top of STIR/SHAKEN.

The second misconception is that CNAM, the Caller Name database that shows a business name on caller ID, is the same as STIR/SHAKEN. They are entirely different systems. CNAM is a carrier database record. STIR/SHAKEN is a cryptographic authentication framework. Neither one places your logo on a recipient’s smartphone, and neither one removes a “Spam Likely” label. Branded calling, which does display your business name and logo on the recipient’s device, is a separate paid service that most providers offer as an add-on.

The third misconception is that all VoIP providers offer the same level of robocall protection. They do not, and that is exactly the problem the FCC scorecard is designed to expose. Across the providers we work with, we see meaningful variation in how aggressively providers filter inbound spam, how consistently they authenticate outbound calls at the A level, and how quickly they respond when a customer reports persistent robocall issues. The scorecard will put those differences on the record.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next Steps

Check your VoIP provider’s Robocall Mitigation Database status at the FCC’s public search portal to verify compliance.

Run through the six-point evaluation checklist in this post against your current phone service to see where your provider stands before the scorecard launches.

If your provider cannot answer basic questions about STIR/SHAKEN attestation or inbound call blocking, treat that as a signal to start comparing alternatives.