On 5 April 2024, Colombia’s CRC issued an official announcement. To enforce Ley 2300 de 2023 (Dejen de Fregar Anti-Harassment Law), the upgraded RNE Excluded Number Registry went live on 10 April. Consumers can register their numbers voluntarily to refuse commercial advertising calls and SMS.
RNE is the national opt-out registry operated and maintained by the CRC. After registering a mobile number, users may select which marketing channels to block, including commercial SMS, in-app messages, emails and marketing outbound calls. Goods and service providers (PCA/IT integrators) are subject to mandatory lookup obligations: they must call the RNE API to verify numbers before sending commercial messages and shall not deliver advertising content to users who have opted out.
Enterprises must complete registration on the RNE platform in advance. The corporate account registration portal opened on 3 April, and number lookup functionality became available on 10 April. Consumers may file complaints with the SIC (Superintendence of Industry and Commerce) against unlawful marketing communications sent to registered opted-out users, and the SIC will conduct investigations and impose sanctions.
This platform constitutes mandatory compliance infrastructure for A2P services in Colombia. For inbound cross-border marketing SMS and outbound calls, RNE validation must be performed by locally registered PCA/IT integrators. Non-marketing notifications such as transaction alerts and verification codes are exempt from this requirement. Overseas service providers operating in Colombia should require their local partner integrators to provide proof of RNE API access and blacklist validation execution.
