Oman's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) issued Decision No. 2026/36/2/1152-10 on August 16, 2026, enacting binding regulations governing promotional and service calls, text messages, and value-added services (VAS). Published by the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs in the official decisions register, the instrument converts long-standing consumer-protection expectations into enforceable secondary legislation that every Omani telecom licensee and commercial sender must now meet.
The decision is the awaited issuance that the TRA flagged in February 2026, when it told trade media that a regulation to curb intrusive and fraudulent promotional messages was imminent. It lands as one of two sibling TRA instruments gazetted the same day: Decision 1152-10 sets the promotional-message and VAS rulebook, while the separate Decision 1152-11 amends the subscriber-rights regulation. They are distinct instruments and must be read together by any licensee mapping its consumer-facing obligations. The full text is available on the MJLA decisions register.
Who must comply, and what does the regulation cover?
The rule binds two layers of the messaging ecosystem. The first is telecommunications licensees: Omantel, Ooredoo Oman, Vodafone Oman, Awaser and Majan, which carry the traffic and are accountable for the conduits they operate. The second is the commercial senders that use those conduits: marketing teams, VAS providers, and any party sending promotional or service messages to Omani numbers.
Three traffic types fall inside the scope. Promotional calls and messages cover direct-marketing outreach. Service messages cover transactional and account-related communications. VAS covers subscription and premium-content services delivered over telecom infrastructure. The regulation treats each category separately, because the consent and opt-out mechanics that apply to a marketing SMS do not map cleanly onto a transactional service message or a VAS subscription flow.
What changed for consent, opt-out and message delivery?
The instrument codifies the direct-marketing, consumer-consent and message-delivery requirements that the TRA had previously enforced only through guidance and complaint-driven action. For promotional traffic, the through-line is that senders must ground outreach in valid consumer consent and give recipients a working opt-out path, rather than relying on inferred or bundled consent. For VAS, the focus shifts to how subscriptions are entered into and exited: the regulation tightens the subscription mechanics so that a user must affirmatively sign up, and must be able to stop a service without navigating friction designed to retain them.
For service messages, the rule draws the boundary between transactional and promotional content, preventing senders from relabeling marketing as "service" to dodge the consent regime. Licensees remain responsible for the delivery chain they operate, which means the compliance burden does not stop at the commercial sender but runs through the carrier that terminates the traffic.
Before and after: where the obligations shift
| Area | Before Decision 1152-10 | Under Decision 1152-10 |
|---|---|---|
| Promotional calls and SMS | Guidance and complaint-driven enforcement | Binding consent and opt-out rules in secondary legislation |
| Service messages | No sharp transactional-vs-promotional boundary | Boundary codified; "service" label cannot bypass consent |
| Value-added services | Subscription mechanics set by carrier terms | Regulated subscription entry and exit, friction-free stop |
| Licensee accountability | Senders primarily liable | Conduit carriers accountable for the delivery chain |
What should compliance teams do now?
The decision is gazetted and sits in the secondary-legislation layer, which under Oman's hierarchy enters into force on publication unless the instrument fixes a later date. Compliance, product and marketing-operations teams at the affected licensees and senders should treat the rulebook as live and move to close the gap between current practice and the codified requirements, rather than wait for the TRA's first enforcement letter.
Continuous, per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring surfaces this kind of change the moment it publishes in the official register, before trade press catches up.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
For practitioners, the immediate checklist is concrete. Pull the gazetted text and map each article to your current call, SMS and VAS flows. Audit consent records for promotional traffic and confirm an opt-out path that actually stops the messaging. Review every VAS subscription journey for an affirmative sign-up and a friction-free stop. Reclassify any message currently labelled "service" to confirm it is genuinely transactional. Brief marketing, product and carrier-relations teams on the new boundary, and document the compliance mapping against Decision 1152-10 before the TRA begins active supervision under the new rulebook. Obsidian tracks this instrument as it moves from gazette to enforcement.
