Calling hours, answered directly — for people getting the calls and teams making them.

When Can Telemarketers Call? The Direct Answers

Telemarketers can call between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., local time at the called party’s location — seven days a week under federal law. That window appears in two places: the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule at 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(c) and the FCC’s TCPA rules at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1). Everything past that sentence is state law: five states ban Sunday solicitation calls outright, Texas pushes Sunday’s start to noon, a cluster of states stops at 8 p.m., and Kentucky bars solicitation calls before 10 a.m. The direct answers, for consumers and calling teams alike — as of July 2026.

This page is education, not legal advice. A dialer is a tool — compliance depends on how you use it. Enzo includes campaign scheduling, but you choose the windows — no dialer setting makes an out-of-hours call lawful. Have a telemarketing attorney confirm the states you call into.

How Late Can Telemarketers Call?

Until 9 p.m. under federal law — with the clock at the called person’s location, not the caller’s. Under 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(c), calling a residence outside 8 a.m.–9 p.m. is an abusive telemarketing practice; under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1), no telephone solicitation may reach a residential subscriber before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.

Several states stop earlier:

• 8 p.m. cutoffs: Florida (Fla. Stat. § 501.616(6)(a)), Oklahoma (15 O.S. § 775C.4), Washington (RCW 80.36.390(8)), Massachusetts (201 CMR 12.02(2)), Wyoming (Wyo. Stat. § 40-12-302(d)), plus Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi on the days they allow calls. Nevada ends solicitation calls to residences at 8 p.m. (NRS 598.0918(3)). Two mini-TCPA statutes carry 8 p.m. cutoffs for the telephone solicitations they cover: Maryland at 8 a.m.–8 p.m. (Md. Com. Law § 14-4502(c)) and Connecticut at 9 a.m.–8 p.m. (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-288a(c)).
• Earlier still: Rhode Island, the strictest in the nation, ends weekday calls at 6 p.m. and Saturday calls at 5 p.m.; a violation is a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500 per call (R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 5-61-2(2), 5-61-3.6).
• Frequency caps: Florida, Oklahoma, and Maryland also cap solicitation at 3 calls per person per 24 hours on the same subject (Fla. Stat. § 501.616(6)(b); 15 O.S. § 775C.4(A)(2); Md. Com. Law § 14-4502(c)).

What Time Can Telemarketers Start Calling?

8 a.m. at the called party’s local time, under the same two federal rules. States that push the start later:

• 9 a.m.: Texas on weekdays and Saturdays (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 301.051), South Dakota (SDCL 37-30A-3(2)), New Mexico (NMSA § 57-12-22(B)(5)), Nevada for calls to residences (NRS 598.0918(3)), Connecticut for the telephonic sales calls its mini-TCPA covers (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-288a(c)), and Rhode Island on weekdays.
• 10 a.m.: Rhode Island on Saturdays — and Kentucky every day, the latest morning start in the country (KRS 367.46955(16)).
• Noon: Texas on Sundays (§ 301.051).

Can Telemarketers Call on Sunday?

Under federal law, yes — neither federal rule contains any Sunday, weekend, or holiday restriction; the window applies seven days a week. Sunday rules are purely state law — these are the verified ones:

Three circulating Sunday claims did not survive verification. Some compliance guides report a Pennsylvania Sunday-morning restriction; we could not verify it in the Telemarketer Registration Act — 73 P.S. § 2245(a)(1) sets 8 a.m.–9 p.m. and says nothing about Sundays. Ranking tables claim North Dakota bans Sunday and holiday calls; current N.D.C.C. ch. 51-28 contains no such ban. And Indiana “no Sunday calls” claims trace only to the autodialer rule — Ind. Code § 24-5-14-8 confines autodialed solicitation to 9 a.m.–8 p.m., with no Sunday ban and no stricter verified hours for live calls.

Whose Clock Counts — and Why It Is Suddenly in Court

The called party’s. Both federal rules measure the window at the recipient’s location, and the caller bears the burden of determining that local time. Area code is not location: a 212 number can ring in California, and “quiet hours” lawsuits built on exactly that gap surged onto federal dockets in 2025. Plaintiffs now argue the quiet hours apply even to consented marketing texts; the FCC has been asked to clarify and, as of July 2026, has not ruled — treat that question as open.

The fix: if a number’s time zone is uncertain, schedule it inside the window for every zone it could plausibly sit in.

Do the Hours Apply to Cell Phones and B2B Calls?

Read literally, the federal windows cover calls to “a person’s residence” (TSR) and “residential telephone subscribers” (FCC rules). But personal cell phones are treated as residential/wireless numbers, and no list reliably tells you which numbers are business landlines — so the safe operational practice is applying the window, and the strictest state window, to every number you dial.

Three boundary notes. Texas’s hours carry statutory exceptions — calls at the consumer’s express request, on an existing debt or contract, or within a prior business relationship (§ 301.051). Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Utah simply restate the federal 8 a.m.–9 p.m. window. And New Hampshire’s RSA 359-E contains no hours provision at all, so the federal window governs there. For states not named on this page, no stricter general-solicitation window was identified as of July 2026 — but before assuming the federal default, check the full state-by-state table for every verified rule and cite, and note that state mini-TCPA laws can carry their own windows for the solicitations they cover.

Setting Windows Before You Dial

It all reduces to three habits: schedule by the prospect’s actual location rather than area code, set each campaign’s window to the strictest state on its list, and treat Sunday as a no-dial day wherever the table says so. Enzo’s campaign scheduling holds whatever window you give each campaign — the compliance lives in the windows you choose and the time-zone data behind them. Hours are one layer: registry scrubbing runs on its own 31-day clock (see the DNC registry guide), and consent, revocation, and identification rules live in TCPA for cold callers.

See how campaign scheduling fits a real outbound 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.

Federal windows from 16 C.F.R. § 310.4(c) and 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1); state rules from the statutes, regulations, and orders cited inline, as of July 2026.