# BRD-013 — A brand must be a business, not a person

> Outside the sole-proprietor tier, the registered brand must be a business entity rather than an individual's personal identity.

- **Rule ID:** BRD-013
- **Layer:** Brand (`BRAND`)
- **Checks:** `brand.company_name + brand.entity_type`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the submitted form
- **Fix type:** Fix the field — a better value in the form clears it
- **Required by:** Twilio
- **Applies:** Applies when the brand is NOT a sole proprietor.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-013/

## Why this rule exists

A2P messaging is registered to businesses because the whole accountability chain — the tax record, the vetting report, the complaint route — hangs off a business existing. An individual registering under their own name outside the sole-proprietor tier has no such record, so nothing can be verified and the brand is refused. It happens honestly: consultants, coaches and creators genuinely trade as themselves, and the standard tier is the one the form defaults to.

## How to fix it

If the business is a registered entity, use its registered name and EIN. If it genuinely is you trading as yourself, switch to the sole-proprietor tier, which verifies by mobile OTP instead of by tax record and expects exactly a personal name. Done when the entity type and the name agree about what is being registered.

## Example of a compliant value

```text
company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC on the standard tier — or "Jane Doe" on the sole-proprietor tier, never a person's name on the standard one
```

## Common mistakes

- Adding "Consulting" to your own name does not create an entity. If there is no registration behind the words, the standard tier still has nothing to verify.

## Provider rejection codes

| Provider | Code | Resubmission allowed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Twilio | `30928` | yes |

## Notes

The inverse of BRD-068, which requires a personal name on the sole-proprietor tier. The two are tagged to opposite sides of the same dimension so exactly one fires per registration.