The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code. Heavily supported and lobbied for by major corporations in the telecommunications sector, the act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years. It amended the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in that law, because it was the first time that the Internet was added to American regulation of broadcasting and telephony.

The stated intention of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." In practice, it gave way to one of the largest consolidations of the telecommunications sector in history - as such, it is often described as an attempt to deregulate the American broadcasting and telecommunications markets due to technological convergence. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been praised for incentivizing the expansion of networks and the offering of new services across the United States. At the same time, it is often criticized for enabling market concentration in the media and telecommunications industries, going against its very stated intention by indirectly restricting newcomer access to broadcasting.

Previously, the Communications Act of 1934 was the statutory framework for American communications policy, covering telephony, broadcasting, and (via later amendments) cable television. The 1934 Act created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency assigned to implement and administer the economic regulation of the interstate activities of telephone companies (then dominated by the AT&T monopoly) and the licensing of spectrum used for broadcasting and other purposes.

Starting in the 1970s, a combination of technological change, court decisions, and updates to American policy goals enabled competitive entry by new companies into some telecommunications and broadcasting markets. In this context, the 1996 Telecommunications Act was designed to allow smaller companies to enter those markets and for existing companies to operate across market sectors, via the relaxation of cross-ownership rules, multi-sector prohibitions, and other barriers to entry. One specific provision empowered the FCC to preempt all attempts by state or local governments to prevent telecommunications competition.

A report by the House of Representatives stated that the goal of the new legislation was to "provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition".

One purpose of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was to foster competition among companies willing to provide multiple communications services (such as voice calls and Internet connectivity) within network technologies that has previously been confined by law to one type of service. Therefore, the act created precise regulatory regimes based on type of network architecture, with companies subjected to different regulations depending on whether they operated in telephone, cable television, or Internet networks. The act makes a significant distinction between providers of telecommunications services and information services, with the different regulations to be followed by companies in each sector leading to confusion when those sectors technologically converged in later years.

In order to enable competition, the 1996 Act required incumbent telecommunications companies to interconnect their networks with new competing companies, and to provide wholesale access to materials and components as those smaller companies build their networks. The act also clarified intercarrier compensation rates for communications requests that are handled by multiple firms. Regional Bell Operating Companies, who were previously subjected to strict regulations to provide only local telephone service, were allowed to enter the long-distance market.

The 1996 Act also introduced more precise and detailed regulations for the funding of universal service programs via subsidies generated by monthly customer fees. This was intended to reduce the tendency of smaller telephone firms to charge above-market rates for underserved users, and to provide more transparency of fees charged to customers. However, universal service subsidies were only used to build landline telephone networks until the early 2010s.