How to Block Spam Calls on Verizon: Call Filter, Blocking and What Each Setting Does

Verizon's free Call Filter labels and blocks robocalls at the network level, and My Verizon can block specific numbers outright. Here is how to turn each tool on, what 'Potential Spam' means, when the paid tier is worth it, and what to do about the calls that still get through.

Updated 2026-09-03 · By Andrew Pickett, OmegaIT

What Verizon gives you for free

Every Verizon Wireless line has access to Call Filter, the carrier's spam-detection service. It works inside Verizon's network, before your phone rings, which is why it catches calls that a phone app alone cannot: the network sees the calling pattern behind a number — how many lines it is dialing, how fast, how often people hang up — and scores each call before it reaches you. Verizon labels suspicious calls on your screen as "Potential Spam" and, if you ask it to, sends them to voicemail or blocks them outright.

The free tier includes three things that matter: spam detection (the label), a spam filter that lets you choose which risk level gets blocked, and the ability to report a number as spam from your call log, which feeds the scoring for everyone else. On most Android phones bought from Verizon, Call Filter is already switched on; on iPhone and on unlocked Android phones you install the Verizon Call Filter app from the App Store or Google Play and sign in with your My Verizon credentials. Verizon's own description of the service is on the Call Filter page.

A paid tier, Call Filter Plus, adds caller ID for numbers not in your contacts, a personal block list, a spam risk meter for each call, and a spam lookup tool. It is billed per line (or as a multi-line bundle) and can be added or removed from My Verizon at any time. For most people the free filter does the heavy lifting; Plus earns its fee if you receive a lot of legitimate calls from unknown numbers — contractors, patients, customers — and want a name on the screen before you pick up.

Turn on Call Filter and set the blocking level

The controls live in the Call Filter app (or in My Verizon under Account → Add-ons → Call Filter on the web). Once you have signed in:

Open Call Filter and confirm Spam Detection is on. Calls Verizon scores as suspicious will now carry a "Potential Spam" label on your incoming-call screen.
Turn on Spam Filter and pick a level. High blocks only calls Verizon is confident are spam; Medium adds likely telemarketing; All (or "Block all spam") sends anything flagged straight to voicemail. Start at Medium — High lets a lot of borderline telemarketing through, and All will occasionally catch a pharmacy or a school.
Choose where blocked calls go: to voicemail (so you can still hear the message) or dropped entirely. Voicemail is the safer choice for the first couple of weeks while you check what is being caught.
Enable the neighbor-spoofing filter if your version of the app offers it. It blocks calls from numbers that share your own area code and prefix, which is the pattern robocallers use to look local — see our guide to neighbor spoofing.

Blocked calls appear in the app's Spam & Blocked log with the reason they were caught. If a call you wanted was blocked, tap it and mark it as "Not spam": that unblocks the number for you and adjusts Verizon's scoring. Do the reverse for spam that got through — reporting takes two taps and is the single most useful thing a Verizon customer can do for the system.

Block a specific number

Call Filter deals with categories of calls. For one persistent number, use Verizon's account-level block instead. In the My Verizon app, go to Account → Manage Devices (or Blocks) → Block calls & messages, choose the line, and enter the number. You can block a handful of numbers per line at the account level, and the block covers both calls and texts. Verizon's account blocks expire after 90 days, so if the caller persists you will need to re-add the number — by then the campaign has usually rotated to a different caller ID anyway.

Blocking on the phone itself is unlimited and does not expire: on iPhone, tap the (i) next to the call in Recents and choose Block this Caller; on Android, long-press the entry in the Phone app and choose Block or Block/report spam. Phone-level blocks stop the ring but the caller still reaches voicemail on some devices; network-level blocks (Call Filter or My Verizon) stop the call before it reaches your phone at all.

Before you block, look the number up. The lookup shows whether the FTC and FCC have complaints on file for it, what other people say the call was about, and whether the prefix is even assigned to a carrier. A number with hundreds of Do Not Call complaints in the last 30 days is a campaign, not a person, and the block is the right call. A number with no history may be a wrong number or a legitimate business whose employee dialed a digit wrong.

Verizon home phone (Fios Digital Voice)

Fios Digital Voice has its own spam tools, separate from wireless Call Filter. Sign in to My Verizon, open the Fios Digital Voice settings, and you will find Spam Alerts and Spam Blocking (Verizon labels and can block suspected spam calls to your home line), Anonymous Call Rejection (rejects callers who withhold their number), and Selective Call Blocking for a list of specific numbers. The Nomorobo service is also supported on Fios Digital Voice through simultaneous ring and is free for VoIP home phones — it hangs up on known robocall numbers after the first ring.

Traditional copper landlines from Verizon (where still in service) have fewer options: Anonymous Call Rejection and the *60 selective call-blocking feature, with a limited list of numbers. If nuisance calls are the main problem on an old landline, a carrier-independent call-blocking device that sits between the wall jack and the handset is often the practical fix.

What Verizon cannot do — and what to do instead

No carrier filter catches everything. Robocall operations rotate numbers constantly, and a freshly minted number has no reputation for Call Filter to score. Spoofed calls that carry a valid STIR/SHAKEN attestation from an upstream provider can look legitimate for a while. And calls you have consented to — a company you gave your number to at checkout — are not spam by Verizon's definition even if you regret the consent.

So layer the defenses. Register on the National Do Not Call Registry so that legitimate telemarketers must stop; anything that keeps calling after 31 days is either breaking the law or not a legitimate telemarketer at all. Report the calls that get through — to Verizon in the Call Filter app, and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or DoNotCall.gov; those reports become public data (the FTC publishes them daily) and are what powers the complaint history on this site's number pages. And for calls that claim to be your bank, the IRS or Medicare, hang up and dial the number on your card or statement — a label is a hint, not a verification.

If your own number is being displayed by a spam campaign and strangers are calling you back, Call Filter will not help — the calls are not coming to you through the campaign, the campaign is wearing your number. Our spoofed-number guide covers that situation.

Sources

Got a call from an unknown number?

Look it up free — carrier, location, FCC complaints and first-hand reports.

FAQs

Is Verizon Call Filter free?

Yes. The basic Call Filter — spam detection labels, the spam filter that sends flagged calls to voicemail or blocks them, and spam reporting — is included with Verizon Wireless lines. Call Filter Plus is a paid add-on that adds caller ID for unknown numbers, a personal block list and a risk meter.

What does 'Potential Spam' mean on my Verizon phone?

It is Verizon's Call Filter label for a call the network scored as likely unwanted, based on the calling pattern behind the number and reports from other customers. It is not proof: legitimate businesses that dial a lot of numbers are sometimes labeled. Treat it as 'let it go to voicemail unless you are expecting the call'.

Why do blocked calls still show up in my call log?

Call Filter logs what it blocked so you can review it and rescue anything it got wrong. If you would rather not see them, the app's settings let you hide blocked calls from the main log. Phone-level blocks on iPhone and Android behave the same way — the record is kept in a separate blocked list.

Does Call Filter work on an unlocked phone or an iPhone?

Yes, as long as the line is on Verizon. Install the Verizon Call Filter app from the App Store or Google Play and sign in with your My Verizon account; on iPhone you also need to enable it under Settings → Phone → Call Blocking & Identification.

Can I block all calls that are not in my contacts on Verizon?

Not through Call Filter, which only blocks calls it scores as spam. Use your phone instead: iPhone's Silence Unknown Callers (Settings → Phone) or Android's block-unknown-numbers option in the Phone app. Both send every unsaved number to voicemail, so check voicemail for the pharmacy and the school.