140 number series
The 140 number series is the phone prefix TRAI reserves for registered telemarketers making promotional calls, so recipients (and their phones) know what the call is before answering.
Definitions checked 2 September 2026.
Got a call from a number starting with 1600 or 1601 instead? Those are service calls, not promotion; see the 1600 series number, explained.
Running a business that calls its own enquiries and customers? You need no 140 number. Where ordinary business calling ends and regulated promotion begins is set out on the telemarketing software page.
Who calls from a 140 number, and can I block it?
A call from a number starting with 140 is a promotional call from a telemarketer registered with TRAI: banks selling cards or loans, insurers, real estate projects, brands running offers. You can answer or ignore it. To stop them, register on the national Do Not Disturb list by calling or texting 1909 from your mobile, or through TRAI’s DND app, where you can block all promotion or only some categories. Service calls about your own account from banks, insurers and government use the separate 1600 series, and since August 2026 utilities and couriers use 1601; neither is meant for promotion.
The 140 number series is the numbering range TRAI reserves for promotional calls from registered telemarketers. A call from a 140-xxxxxxx number announces itself: the recipient, and the recipient's phone, know it is a marketing call before it is answered, and can screen it accordingly. Service and transactional calls from banks, financial services, insurers and government were later given the separate 1600 series, and utilities, couriers and logistics firms the 1601 series, so that a genuine account or delivery call is not mistaken for promotion.
A business needs a 140 number only if it does what the series exists for: unsolicited promotional calling to people who have no relationship with it, at scale, which also requires telemarketer registration and DND scrubbing. A business calling its own enquiries, customers and people who asked to be contacted does not need one and should not want one, because a 140 prefix is a signal to ignore the call. Those calls belong on an ordinary business number that the customer recognises and can call back.
The practical question for most small businesses is therefore not "how do I get a 140 number" but "am I doing telemarketing at all". If the list is your own leads, you are not, and a business SIM in the caller's phone is the right number. RMDialer, which we make, dials from that SIM and is not a telemarketing platform. The linked post answers whether your business needs the series, with the registration route if it does.
Which terms are related to 140 number series?
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| 140 number series | The phone prefix TRAI reserves for registered telemarketers making promotional calls, so recipients (and their phones) know what the call is before answering. |
| Telemarketing | The cold-outreach slice of phone work: promotional calls to strangers: the part regulators register and caller-ID apps punish. Distinct from relationship telecalling. |
| UCC (Unsolicited Commercial Communication) | The regulatory term for promotional calls and messages to people with no relationship to the sender: the specific thing DND, DLT registration and the 140 series exist to control. |
| DND (Do Not Disturb) | TRAI’s registry letting any subscriber block promotional communication. It restricts unsolicited promotion: service calls to your own customers about their own business remain ordinary calling. |
| TCCCP / TRAI regulations | India’s telecom commercial-communication rules: the framework behind DND, telemarketer registration and the 140 series, aimed at unsolicited promotion, not relationship calling. |