Florida Telemarketing Laws — What You Must Actually Do Before Dialing Florida

Florida Mini-TCPA: What the FTSA Requires Before You Dial

Florida’s mini-TCPA is really two statutes working together. The Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA, Fla. Stat. § 501.059) requires written consent before automated sales calls, backs a state do-not-call list, and hands consumers a private right of action worth $500 to $1,500 per violation. The Florida Telemarketing Act carries the operational clocks at § 501.616(6): an 8 a.m.–8 p.m. window and a 3-call/24-hour cap. HB 761 narrowed the FTSA in May 2023, but Florida remains one of the most plaintiff-friendly states an outbound team can dial. Here is what each piece demands, as of July 2026.

This page is education, not legal advice. A dialer is a tool — the dialer itself can be operated compliantly, but compliance depends on how you use it: your consent records, your lists, your cadence. Enzo does not scrub against the Florida do-not-call list or any registry — scrub through a third-party service first, then import. Consult a telemarketing attorney before you dial.

Is There a “Florida TCPA”?

Yes, functionally — when operators say “Florida TCPA” or “Florida mini-TCPA,” they mean the Telephone Solicitation Act, enacted by CS/SB 1120 effective July 1, 2021 and amended by HB 761 (Chapter 2023-150) effective May 25, 2023. It is modeled on the federal statute but stricter where it counts: a written-consent trigger that does not depend on the federal autodialer definition, an evening cutoff an hour earlier than federal law, a frequency cap federal law does not have, a separate state do-not-call list, and a per-violation private right that requires no regulator. The federal rules still apply on every Florida dial on top of all of this — that baseline lives in TCPA for cold callers.

Consent: “Selection AND Dialing” After HB 761

The FTSA’s core prohibition, § 501.059(8)(a), bars making — or knowingly allowing — an unsolicited telephonic sales call that involves “an automated system for the selection and dialing of telephone numbers or the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed” without the called party’s prior express written consent.

That consent is defined tightly in § 501.059(1)(g): a written agreement bearing the called party’s signature that clearly authorizes automated or recorded telephonic sales calls, texts, or voicemail to a specified number, with a clear disclosure that signing is not a condition of purchase. Electronic and digital signatures count. If your Florida program leans on consent, the signed record is the asset; without it, you are arguing about what your dialer does.

Two things every operator should know about the 2023 amendment:

• The trigger narrowed. As enacted in 2021, the FTSA reached automated “selection or dialing” — language broad enough to sweep in most list-based dialing. HB 761, effective May 25, 2023, made it conjunctive: selection and dialing. Whether a given dialer configuration automates both steps is fact-specific, and courts have not drawn a clean boundary — a system can sit outside the federal ATDS definition and still be argued into the FTSA. Have counsel look at your actual setup, not the marketing name for it.
• The old standard still haunts old conduct. Courts applied the amendment to pending putative class actions where no class had been certified, but suits over pre-May-2023 conduct may proceed under the older, broader standard — courts have differed.

Calling Hours and the 3-Call Cap: § 501.616(6)

Florida’s clocks live in the Florida Telemarketing Act, not the FTSA. Under § 501.616(6)(a), no commercial telephone solicitation calls before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m., local time in the called person’s time zone — a full hour tighter in the evening than the federal 8 a.m.–9 p.m. window. Under § 501.616(6)(b), no more than three commercial telephone solicitation calls to a person over a 24-hour period on the same subject matter or issue — counted “from any number,” so rotating caller IDs does not reset the cap.

Two practical notes. First, the statute reaches “commercial telephone sellers or salespersons” — some counsel argue those two rules bind only sellers covered by the Telemarketing Act, and enforcement runs primarily through FDACS and the Attorney General rather than the FTSA’s per-call private right. No operator should plan around that distinction: treat 8–8 and 3-per-24 as hard limits on every Florida campaign. Second, if your dialer runs one national evening schedule, Florida is one of the states where it breaks first — the full table is in calling hours by state.

The Area-Code Presumption: Every 305 Is Florida Until Proven Otherwise

The FTSA carries a rebuttable presumption that a telephonic sales call made to any Florida area code is made to a Florida resident or to a person located in Florida at the time of the call. For an out-of-state team, that flips the burden: a plaintiff with a 305 or 813 number does not have to prove they were in Florida — you have to prove they were not. The operational answer is to segment every Florida area code into Florida-rules campaigns: FTSA consent standards, 8–8 scheduling, the 3-call cap, and both do-not-call lists.

The Florida Do Not Call List: FDACS, Quarterly, $10,000 Per Violation

Florida runs its own do-not-call list through the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), separate from the national registry. Solicitors must screen against the then-current quarterly listing under § 501.059(4) — the list updates quarterly, so a stale copy is a compliance gap by itself. FDACS can impose a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation (§ 501.059(9), a Class IV penalty under § 570.971).

Consumer registration is free. On the caller side, the statute says solicitors obtain the quarterly list “for a fee” set administratively — pull current pricing, and current renewal rules, directly from FDACS rather than from third-party charts. And the state list stacks on top of the federal one: a Florida program scrubs against the FDACS quarterly listing and the national registry on its 31-day cycle, through a third-party scrubbing service, before any list reaches a dialer.

Lawsuits: $500 to $1,500 Per Violation, No Regulator Required

Section 501.059(10) is why Florida generates so much telemarketing litigation: a called party can sue for an injunction plus actual damages or $500 per violation, whichever is greater, and a court may treble the award — up to $1,500 — for willful or knowing violations. Damages attach per violating call.

For text messages, HB 761 built in a cure window at § 501.059(10)(c): before suing over solicitation texts, the recipient must reply “STOP”; the sender then has 15 days to cease (one confirmation message is allowed), and suit lies only for texts sent after that window. There is no equivalent window for calls.

One More Florida Rule: All-Party Consent for Call Recording

Recording lives in a separate statute, but it belongs on the same checklist: Florida requires all-party consent for recording phone conversations under Fla. Stat. § 934.03, and most violations are felonies. If your team records calls into Florida, announce the recording at the top of every call; the full state map is in call recording consent states.

Before You Dial Florida: The Operator’s Checklist

1. Settle the consent question first. If any part of your setup automates the selection and dialing of numbers or plays recorded messages, get signed prior express written consent per § 501.059(1)(g) and keep the records — or have counsel confirm your configuration sits outside the trigger.
2. Scrub both lists, then import. The FDACS quarterly listing plus the national registry on its 31-day cycle, through a third-party scrubbing service — Enzo does not scrub against any registry.
3. Schedule 8 a.m.–8 p.m., Florida-local. One hour tighter than federal in the evening; build Florida campaigns on their own clock.
4. Cap attempts at three per 24 hours on the same subject. The cap counts across every number you dial from — enforce it in list management, not caller ID strategy.
5. Treat every Florida area code as Florida. The rebuttable presumption puts the burden on you.
6. Keep suppression and consent records outside the dialer. Company-specific do-not-call requests, scrub dates, and signed consent files are what you produce when a § 501.059(10) demand letter arrives.

For how Florida’s regime compares with Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, and the rest of the field, see the state mini-TCPA guide.

Where Enzo Fits — and Where It Doesn’t

Enzo’s role in a Florida program is deliberately narrow. Campaign-level internal DNC keeps a contact excluded from a campaign once marked — but marks do not carry across campaigns, so your master Florida suppression file lives outside the dialer and gets re-applied to every new campaign. CSV import, list management, and campaign scheduling make it straightforward to load a pre-scrubbed list and keep dials inside the 8–8 window. One honest caution: Enzo offers caller ID rotation, and Florida’s 3-call cap counts calls “from any number” — rotation manages your number reputation, it does not reset the frequency counter. Enzo does not scrub against the FDACS list or the national registry, and no dialer makes your calling lawful — the consent files, the scrub calendar, and the attempt caps are yours.

Florida is strict, but it is a checklist state: written consent where automation is involved, two lists scrubbed, an 8–8 clock, three attempts per subject per day, and records for all of it. Run that list and Florida stays a large, callable market with expensive edges. See how campaign-level DNC and list management fit a real Florida calling workflow — book a free discovery call.

Not legal advice. This guide is general information for outbound calling teams, not legal advice. Rules change and apply differently by state, industry, and call type — confirm your program with qualified telemarketing compliance counsel.

Statutory text from Fla. Stat. §§ 501.059 and 501.616 (Online Sunshine), the enrolled text of Florida HB 761 (Chapter 2023-150), and FDACS Florida Do Not Call materials, as of July 2026 — educational only, not legal advice.