A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietor
The requirementstatement
The legal company name field must be populated for every entity type except sole proprietor, where TCR wants it omitted and the person's name used instead.
- Severityseverity
- BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- brand.company_name
- Where it liveslayer
- BrandBRAND
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- DeterministicDETERMINISTIC
- Settled in code from the values you submitted. No model involved, no judgement call, same answer every time.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
- A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
- Who requires itauthorities
- TCRAWSBandwidthTwilio
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
The legal name is what every downstream check keys on — the IRS match, the duplicate-brand check, the vetting report — so an empty one does not fail politely at the end, it makes the whole registration unverifiable. The sole-proprietor carve-out is the part that catches people: submitting a company name there is as wrong as omitting one anywhere else.
How to fix itremediation
Enter the legal entity name exactly as it appears on the IRS CP-575 or 147C letter. For a sole proprietor, leave this field empty and populate the first and last name fields instead. Done when the name here matches the tax record character for character.
A compliant exampleexample
company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC
Common mistakespitfalls
- A sole proprietor who types their trading name here is routed into the wrong verification path and fails an identity check that was never meant to run.
Rules you will hit next
6 other rules read brand.company_name. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.
BRD-003Legal name must carry its exact entity suffix as filedBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-008Legal name must not carry an appended personal name or roleBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-011A legal business name may back only one brand across the whole registryBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-068Sole proprietor brand name must be a person, not a companyBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-160Register the message sender, not the agency or platformBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-006Submit every name line above the address on a multi-line IRS recordHighHIGH
BRD-001 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.