Canadian 10DLC A2P registration in GoHighLevel (2026)

A Canadian 10DLC number needs A2P Brand and Campaign registration the moment it texts a U.S. recipient, new number or old, with no purchase-date exemption. For Canada-only texting, registration depends on age: numbers bought on or after March 26, 2025 need A2P or Persona verification; older ones don’t. Toll-free is exempt.

The short version

Whether a Canadian 10DLC number needs to register comes down to two questions: who are you texting, and when did you buy the number. GoHighLevel’s own policy splits it this way (GHL: Canadian 10DLC A2P registration requirements):

The rest of this guide is the detail behind each row, the errors you hit if you skip a step, and where the copy-review work starts once registration is on the table.

Texting a U.S. recipient: registration is required

This is the row that catches Canadian agencies off guard. If a Canadian 10DLC long-code number sends SMS to a U.S. phone, GHL requires full A2P Brand and Campaign registration, and it applies to “all Canadian 10DLC numbers (new and existing)” (GHL). There is no grace period tied to when you bought the number and no Persona shortcut for cross-border sends. A number you’ve been texting from for two years is in the same position as one you bought this morning the first time it messages someone in the States.

GHL’s broader messaging guidelines put it in one line: any domestic message between the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, including CA to US, “must originate from a registered A2P number” (GHL: updated U.S. & Canada messaging guidelines).

For a GHL agency this shows up constantly, because the client list rarely respects the border. A Toronto real-estate team follows up with a lead who moved to Buffalo. A cross-border e-commerce brand texts order updates both ways. The moment even one U.S. number sits in the send, the Canadian sending number needs to be registered. Practically, if any of your contacts are in the U.S., register.

Texting Canadian recipients: it depends on when you bought the number

Canada-only traffic is where the March 26, 2025 date matters. GHL draws the line by purchase date (GHL):

• Bought the number before March 26, 2025: A2P registration is not required for Canada-only messaging. You can keep texting Canadian numbers as you were.
• Bought the number on or after March 26, 2025: you have to complete A2P registration, or complete Persona verification if you’d rather not run the full A2P process.

So for domestic Canadian texting, the newer your number, the more likely you need to do something before you send. This is the softer of the two rules, because it gives you the Persona alternative. The cross-border rule above does not.

What Persona verification is, and when it’s enough

Persona is an identity check, and GHL offers it as a lighter alternative to full A2P registration for the cases where it’s allowed. Instead of registering a Brand and a Campaign with sample messages, opt-in copy, and the rest, Persona confirms the sender’s identity, and GHL describes it as authenticating “that the sender’s details have been authenticated” (GHL).

Where Persona is accepted:

• Canada-only messaging on a number bought on or after March 26, 2025 (A2P or Persona, your choice).
• International messaging from a U.S. or Canadian number to other countries, where GHL says A2P registration is not required and the send “relies on the sender’s verified identity rather than A2P registration.”

Where Persona is not enough: texting U.S. recipients. That path needs full A2P Brand and Campaign registration, full stop. Persona does not substitute for it.

Toll-free numbers sit outside all of this

If you send from a Canadian toll-free number, none of the 10DLC rules above apply to it. GHL is explicit that “these requirements apply to Canadian 10DLC long code numbers. Toll-free numbers are not affected” (GHL). Toll-free messaging runs on its own carrier verification track with its own rules, separate from A2P 10DLC. It is not a way to skip verification, and it is not what this guide covers. Just know that the March-26 date and the CA-to-US trigger are 10DLC long-code rules and don’t govern a toll-free sender.

The errors you’ll see if you skip a step

GHL surfaces the gap through specific error codes rather than a silent failure, which is useful because the code tells you which rule you tripped (GHL):

• Error 30034 fires on a domestic send from an unregistered number. GHL’s label for it reads “Number not A2P compliant. Please register for A2P.” That is the CA-to-US or CA-to-CA (post-March-26) case where registration is missing.
• Error 1002 fires on an international send without identity verification, labeled “Message blocked. A2P or persona verification needed.”

If your Canadian number is throwing 30034 on a message to a U.S. lead, the fix is not a copy tweak. It is that the number needs A2P Brand and Campaign registration before it can carry that traffic.

Once you need to register, the copy still has to hold up

Everything above is a routing question: which numbers, which recipients, which date. It tells you whether you have to register. It says nothing about whether your registration will pass.

That second part is where the work moves once a Canadian agency lands in the “must register” column, most often because their client texts across the border. A Canadian brand registers the same way a U.S. one does: a Brand, then a Campaign with a description, an opt-in flow description, two sample messages, the consent checkboxes, an opt-in confirmation, and the SMS clauses in your Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Ten Trust Center sections in total. The carrier review chain judges that copy against the same rejection triggers no matter which side of the border the sender is on, and picking the wrong use case or writing an opt-in flow that doesn’t match the site is a rejection whether you’re in Toronto or Tampa. The full list of TCR rejection reasons applies to a Canadian brand line for line, and choosing the right use case is the same decision.

A Canadian client with no formal entity is on the Sole Proprietor path too, since GHL’s Sole Prop tier accepts U.S. and Canadian individuals. The registration fee is the same $24.50 one-time regardless of country.

This is the point where Easy A2P is useful. Once you know a Canadian number has to register, paste the copy you wrote into Easy A2P and run a Review. It runs a pattern check against known rejection triggers across all ten sections and hands back findings plus specific remediation for each one. Fix My Copy returns paste-ready corrected text, and Draft writes fresh copy from scratch. Easy A2P does not decide whether your number needs to register, and it does not approve anything; the carriers and their review chain do that. It gets the copy review-ready before you submit, which is the part that determines whether the registration passes on the first try. Ship it Clean!