The country of registration must be on the permitted list

The requirementstatement

A brand registered in a country outside TCR's permitted-country list cannot be registered at all.

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.country + brand.ein_issuing_country
Where it liveslayer: BrandBRAND
How Ekas settles itdetectability: External recordEXTERNAL_DATA; The fact that settles it lives in a register we cannot query, such as the IRS file, a postal database, or another provider’s tenant. Reported as a warning with the evidence to check, not as a pass.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: TCR
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

This is an eligibility gate rather than a data problem: some countries are excluded from the US A2P framework entirely, usually for sanctions or fraud-rate reasons, and no amount of correct paperwork moves a brand from the wrong side of it. Finding out late is expensive because everything else in the onboarding will have succeeded first.

How to fix itremediation

Check the country against TCR's current permitted list before collecting anything else from the customer. Where the country is excluded, the only route is a US or otherwise permitted entity that genuinely owns the customer relationship — not a nominee registration under someone else's name.

Provider rejection codescodes

The code you get back when this rule is what failed, and whether that provider lets you resubmit.

Provider	Code	Resubmit
TCR	529	No

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

Is the country of registration on TCR's current permitted-country list?

1Check the country against the list TCR publishes and revises, before you collect anything else from the customer.
2Where the country is excluded, the only legitimate route is a US or otherwise permitted entity that genuinely owns the customer relationship.

What wrong looks like: Everything else in the onboarding succeeds first and the eligibility gate is discovered last. Registering under a related entity in a permitted country to get around it is a fabricated registration, which is a far worse outcome than a refusal.

Notesnotes

TCR publishes and revises the list; we do not hold it. The user has to check their country against the current published list before starting, and must not work around an exclusion by registering under a related entity in a permitted country — that is a fabricated registration (BRD-286) and carries a much worse outcome than a refusal.

Rules you will hit next

Other brand rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

BRD-001A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietorBlockingBLOCKING BRD-002Legal name must match the IRS record for the EINBlockingBLOCKING BRD-003Legal name must carry its exact entity suffix as filedBlockingBLOCKING BRD-008Legal name must not carry an appended personal name or roleBlockingBLOCKING BRD-009The legal name field takes the legal name, not the trading nameBlockingBLOCKING BRD-011A legal business name may back only one brand across the whole registryBlockingBLOCKING

All brand rules

BRD-035 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.