# Countries & regulations

Messaging rules are set country by country and often cross channels. This section collects the per-country specifics for senders and delivery.

**Language:** en
**Audience:** platform
**Translation key:** platform.channels.countries.overview
**Search keywords:** countries, country, regulation, regulations, local restrictions, sender registration, pre-registration, carrier, cnmc, agcom, toll-free, sending hours
**Related pages:** /platform/es/channels/countries, /platform/en/channels/countries/spain, /platform/en/channels/sms/senders-registration, /platform/en/channels/rcs/senders-verification
**Docs index (every page):** https://docs.instasent.com/llms.txt
**This zone's index:** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/llms.txt
**This page:** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/channels/countries/ (HTML) · https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/channels/countries.md (Markdown)
**Other language (es):** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/es/channels/countries.md

There's no single messaging rule for the whole world: each country sets its own, and
that rule often covers more than one channel at once — a single sender registration
can work for both SMS and RCS to the same country. This section gathers those
per-country specifics. The ones that need more than a note get their own page, and
the list grows as we add coverage.

## Why rules are per country

Who decides how your sender behaves is each country's carriers and regulators. In
practice you'll meet a few patterns that keep coming up:

- **Pre-registration** — some countries require a sender (and sometimes its URLs)
  to be registered and approved before it can deliver.
- **Sender replaced by a number** — in some countries an alphanumeric sender is
  swapped for a number on delivery; you can keep your brand visible with a
  [brand prefix](/platform/en/channels/sms/sms-essentials#how-your-sender-appears-abroad).
- **Restricted sending hours** — some countries don't allow promotional messages
  at night or on certain days.

## Countries with their own page

- [Spain](/platform/en/channels/countries/spain) - CNMC sender registration — mandatory for SMS and RCS to Spanish numbers.

For example, the United States and Canada require a registered toll-free number,
and Italy restricts alphanumeric senders. These and other destinations are added
as dedicated pages over time.

{/* VERIFY: before turning US/Canada (toll-free) and Italy (AGCOM) into their own pages, confirm the current v3 requirements — the source detail comes from the SMS-only v1 Help Center. */}

## Where to check requirements for your sender

The requirements that apply to *your* sender are shown in the panel: open a sender
to see which destinations are approved and which need registration, and use
**Request country** to add one. See
[SMS senders & registration](/platform/en/channels/sms/senders-registration) and
[RCS senders & verification](/platform/en/channels/rcs/senders-verification). If a
country you need isn't listed, contact support.

---

This is one page of the Instasent documentation. For the complete machine-readable index of every guide and API reference, fetch https://docs.instasent.com/llms.txt — start there for full context.