GOV.UK Notify Incident History

We have decided not to block text messages to the +86 country code (for now). We are still working on a long-term solution. We will not make any changes to the GOV.​UK Notify website or API without contacting you first. If possible, you should stop sending text messages to the +86 country code. Any messages you do send may be rejected by the mobile phone networks in China. You will still be charged for sending them. This is our last planned update about this incident.

We’ve had to delay the changes that would block you from sending text messages to the +86 country code. We ran into some technical difficulties when updating GOV.​UK Notify. We are working on a solution and hope to make this change next week instead. If possible, stop sending text messages to the +86 country code. Any messages you do send to Chinese mobile phone numbers may not be delivered. GOV.​UK Notify will still charge you for sending them. We’ll publish another update on Monday 20 July.

You can no longer send text messages to Chinese mobile phone numbers (+86). Some mobile phone networks in China are rejecting text messages sent by GOV.UK Notify. This is due to China’s strict regulations about text message sender IDs. Until we find a solution, we will stop you from sending text messages to the +86 country code. If you try to send a text message to a Chinese phone number, you’ll see the following error on the Notify website: Country code for China not found If you use our API, you’ll get a 400 error code: Not a valid country prefix We hope that this is a temporary situation, but we cannot say how long it will last. We’re working with our providers to find a solution. If you need to contact a recipient in China, please send them an email instead, if you can. We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause. We’ll publish an update by Thursday 23 July.

We’ve identified the cause of the problem and fixed it. Earlier today we made some code changes to another part of GOV.UK Notify. The changes had unintended consequences. This stopped the Notify website from previewing some letter templates. We have now reverted the changes and tested the Notify website. Letter template previews are working as expected.

We have identified a problem when getting ready to send letters on the Notify website. Notify is unable to load a preview of the letter template on the pages where you’re asked to enter the recipient’s address and other personalisation. You can still fill in these fields and select ‘Continue’ without any problems. Once you have completed these steps, Notify will load the final preview of your letter correctly. This means you can still send your letter. This issue does not affect bulk letter sending (uploading a spreadsheet), or letters sent using the Notify API.