# Sender ID

> The sender ID is what the recipient sees as the origin of an SMS: an alphanumeric name (up to 11 characters), a short code or a phone number, subject to the rules of the destination country.

Every SMS carries an originating address. It can be a name such as ACME, a short code, or a full number. Which of these is delivered as typed depends on the destination's operators and regulations: many countries deliver names freely, some require them to be registered first, and some (the Americas, China) replace them with a local number.

Because the rule is per country, a single campaign to a mixed list may show a name in Germany, a registered name in India and a number in the United States. The text should carry the brand in its first words for that reason.

At SMSMeteor: the rule for each of the 228 destinations is on its country page and shown in the composer; alphanumeric senders are 3 to 11 characters, A-Z, 0-9, space.

Related terms: [Alphanumeric sender ID](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/alphanumeric-sender-id), [Numeric sender ID](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/numeric-sender-id), [Sender ID registration](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/sender-id-registration), [Sender replacement](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/sender-replacement)

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Source: https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/sender-id (HTML). Generated by SMSMeteor from the same data as the page. Summary of the whole site: https://smsmeteor.com/llms.txt
