Is this government text real? Four bodies told us, on their own pages, what they will never send.

"Vehicle tax refunds are issued automatically – never via an email with a link!"

I sold for a living before I did this, and the government text is the easiest sale in the whole scam economy, because the seller never has to build trust. The trust is already there. Nobody wonders whether HMRC exists, whether DVLA has their registration, whether the NHS has their number. The message borrows all of that for free and spends it on one small ask: confirm, pay, claim, log in. The ask is the tell, and the four bodies below all say so in their own words.

What none of them publish is a US-style short code you can match. Nine US banks do, and even there the code turned out to belong to the messaging vendor rather than the bank. UK government bodies mostly describe the sender by name, or not at all, and an alphanumeric sender name is typed by whoever sends the message. So the register below is built on content, not on numbers: what each body says a genuine text can contain, and the one thing it says a genuine text never asks.

The four seals: what each body says about its own texts

Every line on every seal comes from the body's own page, read on 15 September 2026, and carries that page's own update date. Where a body publishes nothing about a sender name, the seal says so rather than inventing one.

HMRC: the only one of the four that publishes a calendar

HMRC is the body that texts most, and the only one that lists what it is texting about. Its GOV.UK page on genuine text messages, updated 24 August 2026, describes the branded message, shown as HM Revenue and Customs with the HMRC logo on phones that support it, and states the rule that matters: HMRC will never ask for personal or financial information when it sends text messages. It adds a specific warning not to open links or reply to any text that offers a tax refund in exchange for personal or financial details. We keep the full campaign list, twelve types on the day we read it, on a page of its own. Suspicious texts go to 60599, and HMRC notes that network charges apply.

DVLA: the refund that arrives by itself

DVLA's guidance is the bluntest of the four. It says fraudsters often send emails or text messages asking people to confirm personal details such as bank or payment information, that DVLA will never ask you for your bank account details or ask you to confirm payment details, and that if you receive one of these emails or texts you should not click on any links. The line about refunds is the one to memorise: vehicle tax refunds are issued automatically, never via an email with a link. That sentence kills the two commonest DVLA fakes, the overpayment refund and the failed payment, in one move. DVLA points reports to the National Cyber Security Centre and to Report Fraud, the service that replaced Action Fraud on 4 December 2025; DVLA's page was updated on 12 December 2025 to point at it.

DWP and Universal Credit: check the journal, not the text

Universal Credit does contact claimants, and GOV.UK's guidance on managing a claim, updated 3 September 2025, says what that contact will never contain: we will never text or email you asking for your personal information or bank details. It lists the numbers genuine calls come from, 0800 0232 635 and 0800 640 4999, and warns that calls can also come from a withheld or unknown number, which is why the number alone cannot clear a call either. The page's own advice is the useful part: do not share information if you think a call, text message or email might not be from Universal Credit. It could be a scam. Anything real about your claim is also in your journal, and the journal cannot be spoofed by a text.

The scale is not small. A GOV.UK release on 15 October 2025 warned pensioners that Winter Fuel Payment scam referrals had risen 153% in the final week of September compared with the week before, restated that the DWP will never ask for bank details via text message, and asked people to forward suspicious texts to 7726.

NHS: one sender name, and every look-alike blocked

The NHS is the one body that solved the sender problem directly. Guidance published on NHS Networks on 23 October 2024 asked primary care organisations using SMS to use the NHSNoReply sender ID only, and said all other variations, such as nhs noreply, NHS NOREPLY and NHS-NoReply, would be blocked from 5 November 2024. The reason given is the one every other body should borrow: too many sender names made it hard for patients to tell a genuine message from a fake. So a GP text shown as NHSNoReply, about a practice or service you already use, fits. A text from a variant spelling, or from an ordinary mobile number, does not, and the check is a call to the practice on the number on your appointment letter.

Where a fake goes, in order

1. 1.Forward the text to 7726. Ofcom's guidance, read 15 September 2026, says the service is free and alerts your mobile provider to investigate and potentially block the number. On an iPhone, hold the message, tap More, then the forward arrow, and send it to 7726. On Android, hold the message, tap Forward, and send it to 7726. The number spells SPAM on a keypad. Messages that arrived through WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal cannot usually be forwarded to 7726; report those inside the app.
2. 2.Send a screenshot to report@phishing.gov.uk. The NCSC's page on scam texts says most providers are part of the free 7726 scheme, invites screenshots to that address, and reports 40.9K scams removed across 93.3k URLs as of July 2026 as part of the 7726 service.
3. 3.HMRC fakes can also go to 60599, HMRC's own number, or to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk. Network charges apply to the text.
4. 4.If money left your account, report it to Report Fraud, the City of London Police service that replaced Action Fraud on 4 December 2025, and call your bank on the number on your card first.
5. 5.Then delete the text. Do not reply to it, even with STOP, because a reply confirms the number is live and moves it up the list.

Why TV Licensing is not on the register

TV Licensing texts are among the most-faked in the country, and we wanted a fifth seal. On the day this page was built its own guidance page could not be read at source: the site returned nothing to two different readers. The rule of this site is that a seal quotes the body's own words or does not exist, so there is no TV Licensing seal today. The general rule still applies to it: a text about a licence that wants a payment or a login through its link asks for something, and that is the tell.

The sender name is the easy part to fake and the hard part to check. The ask cannot be faked, because a genuine government text does not have one.