The 1600 series is a number range allocated by the Department of Telecommunications for service and transactional voice calls made by government bodies and the BFSI sector. It gives customers a verified, recognisable caller identity so they can tell a genuine call from their bank or insurer apart from a scam. It is not available to general businesses or telemarketers.

They are sub-ranges of the same series. The 1600 range is generally used by government, regulatory and public-sector organisations, while the 1601 range is designated for private financial institutions regulated by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA — such as banks, NBFCs, insurers, asset management companies and broking firms. We confirm the correct range for your entity type during matching.

No. After the migration deadline, regulated entities cannot make service or transactional calls from ordinary 10-digit, virtual or masked numbers — and this applies even where you hold explicit customer consent. The compliance obligation stays with the principal BFSI entity even when calls are made by a third-party vendor or call centre.

Yes. DLT registration of your entity, headers and voice templates is mandatory before a 1600 number can be activated, and numbers are whitelisted at the telecom switch level. That registration is exactly what makes the series safe: every call is traceable to a verified organisation, so any misuse can be tracked back and acted on.

TRAI set a phased rollout in consultation with the regulators — insurers, mutual funds and AMCs by 15 February 2026, remaining NBFCs, co-operative and regional rural banks by 1 March 2026, and qualified stockbrokers by 15 March 2026. These dates have now passed, so non-1600 service calls are non-compliant; on a UCC complaint, entities can face enforcement applied to unregistered telemarketers, including call blocking and penalties. If you haven't migrated yet, we can fast-track a compliant setup — talk to a specialist below.