One brand per tax ID

The requirementstatement

At most one brand may be registered against a given tax ID.

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.ein across the registry
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: BandwidthTelnyxBirdSignalWireAWSSinch
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

The tax ID is what the carriers attribute reputation and volume against, so a second brand on the same EIN splits the identity of one business in two and pools its allowances anyway (BRD-235). Businesses create the second one for entirely sensible reasons — a new division, a new agency, a fresh start after a rejection — and the duplicate is refused against a record they cannot see.

How to fix itremediation

Run several campaigns under one brand rather than several brands under one EIN — the campaign is the unit that describes a programme, and there is no penalty for having many. Where a second brand is genuinely needed, at least one provider will accept it with a written business justification; ask before submitting.

Provider rejection codescodes

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

Provider	Code	Resubmit
Bandwidth	711	Yes
Twilio	30898	Yes

Check this yourselfattestation

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

Does a brand already exist against this tax ID anywhere — at any provider, including one a former agency used?

1Ask the customer who has sent SMS on their behalf, ever. The refusal will not tell you where the existing brand is.
2Plan for one brand per legal entity and several campaigns beneath it — there is no penalty for many campaigns.
3Where a second brand is genuinely needed, at least one provider accepts it with a written business justification. Ask before submitting.

What wrong looks like: A new division, a new agency, or a fresh start after a rejection produces a second brand on the same EIN. It is refused against a record the business cannot see, and the allowances were pooled anyway.

Notesnotes

Absorbs BRD-176, the tenant-local case of the same uniqueness rule. The strictest model is kept: several providers allow exactly one brand per EIN, and one allows a second with written justification. What the user has to establish is whether a brand already exists on this EIN anywhere — including at a former agency — because the refusal will not say where the existing one is.

Rules you will hit next

One other rule reads brand.ein across the registry. 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-174Per-EIN brand counts are capped even where several are allowedHighHIGH 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

All brand rules

BRD-173 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.