Unsupported Use Cases

Shorter contact use cases with calls averaging under three minutes (one-time passwords (OTPs), voice alerts, etc.) are incompatible with these new regulations. Customers with these unsupported use cases will not be able to place calls to China, but may be better served using Programmable Messaging for these communications. For the full details on enabling messages to China, and the local sending limitations, see China SMS Template Pre-approval Requests.

Additionally, users should not transmit data, content or information into China that:

• is contrary to the principles of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China;
• contains content prohibited by Law and/or any regulatory or administrative requirement of the People's Republic of China;
• is detrimental to China’s security, state secrecy, state power as well as national unification, state honour and interests;
• disseminates rumours, obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, murder, terror, fraud, crime, or disrupts social order and stability;
• humiliates or slanders others and infringing upon the lawful rights and interests of others

New Chinese Call Pricing Changes

Starting on February 28th, 2019, Twilio is implementing a minimum connection charge of two minutes for all voice calls to China. This means that any calls that are 119 seconds long or shorter will be charged for two minutes of call time by default. Calls that remain connected past 120 seconds will continue to be billed in one minute (60 second) increments.

For example, a call to China that is 3 minutes and 30 seconds in length would be billed at 4 minutes; the minimum connection charge for the first two minutes, and then 2 additional minutes (rounding up to the nearest minute).

For more information, please see our pricing sites:

• Twilio Programmable Voice, Client, and SIP Interface China pricing
• Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking China pricing