That last distinction is new, and it is the thing most carrier lists still get wrong. Carrying RCS traffic and supporting the Messaging Layer Security layer that GSMA Universal Profile 3.0 introduced are two different qualifications. A network can already deliver RCS perfectly well without having implemented encryption, which is why two people can both be running iOS 26.5 and still see no lock icon. For a business sender this changes nothing operationally, since business messages were never end-to-end encrypted, but it is the most common source of confusion in 2026. Is RCS encrypted covers the mechanics.
US carrier support at a glance
| Carrier | RCS support | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| T-Mobile | Yes | First US carrier to launch RCS; supports encrypted RCS on iPhone. |
| AT&T | Yes | Legacy "Advanced Messaging" RCS was retired in July 2026; RCS now runs through Google Messages. |
| Verizon | Yes | Pushes Google Messages; ended Samsung Messages RCS in January 2025. |
| UScellular | Yes | Supported; also charges A2P carrier surcharges. |
| MVNOs / prepaid | Mostly yes | Cricket, Metro, Visible, Xfinity Mobile, Spectrum, Boost, Consumer Cellular, TracFone/Straight Talk and others. |
Android has consolidated on Google Messages
The significant ecosystem shift is that US carriers standardised on Google Messages as the RCS client. Carrier-specific apps and older "Advanced Messaging" implementations have been retired in favour of Google's Jibe backend, AT&T's in July 2026 being the last major one. For most US Android users, RCS now simply means Google Messages, which is a considerable simplification from the fragmented picture of a few years ago.
Why the carrier list matters less than it used to
Every US network now carries RCS, and RCS reaches over 80% of US smartphones, so for a US sender carrier coverage is no longer the constraint. It is worth being honest about how much this question still decides: when RCS reached only part of the market, carrier support was the first thing a business checked, because it determined whether a campaign was viable at all.
What still varies is throughput, A2P surcharges, and how each carrier treats registered traffic, which is a 10DLC question rather than an RCS one. And because an RCS-first send falls back automatically per recipient, a network or handset that cannot receive RCS still receives the message as SMS or MMS. See how RCS falls back to SMS.
Because SimplyRCS is US-focused, the carriers that matter for its customers are the four national operators plus their MVNOs, all of which support RCS, on direct connections rather than through a broker.
The per-carrier and per-device detail behind this table, refreshed quarterly, is kept in the RCS carrier support tracker. For the picture outside the US, see the global RCS adoption statistics.
- All four US national carriers, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular, support RCS, as do essentially all major MVNOs.
- Support for RCS and support for Universal Profile 3.0 encryption are separate qualifications; a carrier can carry RCS without the encryption layer.
- US carriers have consolidated on Google Messages and Google's Jibe backend; AT&T retired its legacy Advanced Messaging in July 2026.
- Carrier coverage is no longer the limiting factor for a US programme; throughput and A2P surcharges are the live variables.
- Anything that cannot receive RCS still gets the message, via automatic per-recipient SMS or MMS fallback.