Legal name must carry its exact entity suffix as filed
The requirementstatement
The registered legal name must include the entity suffix exactly as filed — no abbreviation, expansion, or omission.
- 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
- AI · formAI_FORM
- A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria.
- 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
- TCRTwilioTelnyxBandwidth
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
Vetting matches your legal name against the IRS record as a string, so "Acme Coffee Company" does not match "Acme Coffee Co" and neither matches "Acme Coffee". Businesses reliably enter the name they use day to day rather than the one on their formation documents, and the resulting mismatch reads as a failed identity check rather than a typo.
How to fix itremediation
Copy the legal name character for character from your IRS CP-575 letter or formation documents, including the suffix and its punctuation. Put the everyday name in the brand display name field instead.
A compliant exampleexample
Legal name: "Acme Coffee Co, LLC" · Display name: "Acme Coffee"
Common mistakespitfalls
- Dropping the comma before LLC, or writing "Incorporated" where the filing says "Inc.", are both real mismatches.
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-001A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietorBlockingBLOCKINGBRD-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-003 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.