US nuisance-call complaints in 2026: what the public data shows

We analysed 362,116 nuisance-call complaints that consumers filed with the US Federal Trade Commission between 13 August and 23 September 2026, plus the FCC's unwanted-call complaint data for January 2025 to August 2026. Most complaints are about robocalls (69.4%), debt-relief pitches lead the named subjects, and weekdays carry 93.4% of reported calls. Most reported numbers appear only once.

#What data did we use, and how?

We used two public US government datasets and published only aggregates.

FTC Do Not Call reported calls. The FTC publishes a daily file of complaints about Do Not Call and robocall violations, with the reported originating number, the call date, the consumer's city, state and area code, a subject and a robocall flag (FTC, 2026). We downloaded the 30 most recent files available on 25 September 2026, from DNC_Complaint_Numbers_2026-08-14.csv to …2026-09-24.csv (FTC daily files, 2026). Files are published on weekdays only, so those 30 files cover complaints created from 13 August to 23 September 2026.

FCC unwanted-call complaints. The FCC's open dataset holds informal consumer complaints about unwanted calls since 31 October 2014 (FCC, 2026). We queried it with server-side aggregate queries (counts by month, call type and service type) and did not download individual rows beyond one sample.

Caller numbers were used only in memory, to measure how often numbers repeat. They were never written to our output files. Area codes below belong to the consumers who complained, not to the callers.

#What are people complaining about?

Debt-relief calls lead the named subjects, and impersonation is second. The FTC's subject list is chosen by the consumer. More than half of the complaints fall into "Other", "No subject provided" or "Dropped call or no message", so read the named shares as a lower bound.

Debt relief stands out twice. It is the largest named subject, and 90% of those complaints are flagged as robocalls, the highest share of any large subject. Impersonation calls ("pretending to be government, businesses, or family and friends") are the second-largest group. That is the category that matters most for fraud teams, because these calls try to extract money or credentials rather than sell something.

#How many complaints are about robocalls?

About seven in ten. 251,123 of the 362,116 complaints (69.4%) have the robocall or recorded-message flag set to "Y". Another 87,639 say "N" and 23,354 leave it blank. Among complaints that answered the question, the robocall share is 74.1%.

The FCC data tells a similar story with its own categories. For calls dated in 2025, consumers labelled 35.2% as prerecorded voice, 28.2% as live voice and 14.8% as text messages, with 21.9% left blank (FCC, 2026). For January to August 2026, the shares are 40.9% prerecorded, 27.1% live voice and 15.7% text messages.

Text messages are worth noting. In the FCC data, roughly one unwanted-contact complaint in seven in 2025 and 2026 was about a text, not a call. Their share was higher in 2024 (24.8%), so it moves from year to year.

#Which days do unwanted calls happen on?

Weekdays. 93.4% of the FTC complaints report a call date from Monday to Friday. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the busiest days, each close to 20%. Weekends are quiet, especially Sunday.

This follows business hours. Telemarketing and robocall operations run like call centers, with shifts, dialler campaigns and weekday staffing. Monday is a little lower than mid-week. Part of that may be the Labor Day holiday on 7 September 2026, which falls inside our window.

People also complain quickly. The median gap between the reported call time and the complaint's creation time is 4.9 hours. A quarter of complaints are filed within 1.1 hours. Ninety per cent arrive within about five and a half days. For anyone who uses complaint data as a signal, that means a new abusive number can show up in the data within hours of its first calls.

#Where are the consumers who complain?

In the biggest states, as you would expect. Florida, California and Texas together account for 28.7% of the complaints. Florida leads even though California has the larger population. The area-code view shows the same Florida weight: five of the fifteen most frequent consumer area codes are Floridian (813, 407, 954, 561 and 904).

Treat this as a map of who complains, not of who gets the most calls. Complaint rates depend on population, age, awareness of the FTC and how many people are on the Do Not Call Registry. We did not adjust for population.

#Can you stop robocalls by blocking reported numbers?

Only partly, and the data shows why. Of the 344,714 FTC complaints that include a caller number, there are 297,872 distinct numbers. 92.5% of those numbers appear in exactly one complaint. The 100 most-reported numbers account for just 2.9% of complaints.

The FCC data looks the same. Of the 40,690 FCC complaints dated January to August 2026 that include a caller ID number, 96.6% of the numbers appear only once, and the top 100 cover 1.9%.

Abusive callers rotate through large pools of numbers and often display numbers they don't own. That is exactly the problem caller ID authentication tries to address: the FCC required voice providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN in the IP parts of their networks by 30 June 2021 (FCC, 2021). A blocklist of reported numbers catches repeat offenders. It cannot catch a number on its first day. Number reputation should therefore be one layer of a screening system, next to call authentication results, line type, call patterns and your own history with the caller.

#How has the volume changed over time?

Complaints to the FCC fell from a peak of 230,181 in 2018 to 96,716 in 2023, then rose again to 124,659 in 2025 (counted by the call date the consumer entered).

Monthly counts for 2025–2026 range mostly between 10,000 and 13,300. July and August 2026 (13,109 and 13,217) are the highest months in the period. October 2025 is an outlier with only 1,113 complaints, and November 2025 has 6,845. We didn't investigate the cause and treat it as a gap in collection, not a drop in calls.

The FTC's own yearly totals are much larger, because the FTC is the main place consumers report Do Not Call violations. In fiscal year 2025 it received over 2.6 million Do Not Call complaints, and the Registry held over 258 million active registrations (FTC, 2025). Our 30-file sample averages about 12,000 complaints per daily file (362,116 ÷ 30).

#What are the limits of this analysis?

Complaint data is useful, but it is not a measurement of all calls. Keep these limits in mind:

• Reports are unverified. The FCC says it does not verify the facts alleged in complaints (FCC, 2026). The FTC data is also consumer-reported.
• Caller numbers can be spoofed. A reported number may belong to an innocent person whose number was displayed by someone else.
• Categories are self-chosen. More than half of the FTC complaints use a generic subject.
• Short window. The FTC sample covers six weeks. Seasonal patterns can't be read from it.
• Dates are entered by consumers. The FCC data contains impossible dates (for example, years in the future), so we counted only calls dated 2015 to August 2026. In 55% of the 2026 FCC rows the caller ID field is empty.
• No population adjustment. State and area-code tables reflect where complainants live.

#What does this mean for businesses?

Three practical lessons come out of the numbers:

1. Screen for patterns, not just numbers. With more than nine in ten reported numbers seen only once, a static blocklist misses most new abuse. Combine number reputation with line type and call behaviour. Our spam reputation check (limited access; US, Canada and Germany) returns reasons, not just a score, and treats no_reports as "no negative signals", never as "safe". See screening inbound calls with spam reputation.
2. Protect your own outbound numbers. If you call customers, complaints about your numbers, even from spoofing, damage answer rates. Check the reputation of your own caller IDs regularly.
3. Plan for weekday peaks. Inbound screening, IVR capacity and fraud review should expect most abusive traffic from Tuesday to Thursday.

#How can you reproduce these numbers?

Download the FTC daily files for the dates above, count rows by Subject, Recorded_Message_Or_Robocall, Consumer_State, Consumer_Area_Code and the weekday of Violation_Date, and count distinct values of Company_Phone_Number without storing them. For the FCC, run aggregate queries ($select=…count(*)&$group=…) on dataset vakf-fz8e filtered by issue_date. Data retrieved on 25 September 2026. We plan to refresh this analysis periodically and will state the new date range each time.

#What are the key takeaways?

• 69.4% of FTC Do Not Call complaints in our sample are about robocalls. Debt relief (24.1%) and impersonation (11.4%) lead the named subjects.
• 93.4% of complaints report a call on a weekday. Complaints arrive fast, with a median of 4.9 hours after the call.
• 92.5% of reported caller numbers appear once. Number blocklists alone can't keep up, so reputation should be combined with other signals.
• Texts are a steady share of FCC unwanted-contact complaints (14.8% in 2025).
• Complaint data is unverified and spoofing-prone. Use it as evidence with reasons and dates, never as proof about a person.