APAC sales calling rules: hours, registers and numbers by country

APAC sales calling rules differ more than most teams expect. As of October 2026, Australia and India set fixed calling hours and check calls against do-not-call lists, Singapore runs a register but leaves out B2B calls to business numbers, and Japan, Hong Kong and New Zealand regulate live sales calls mainly through consumer and conduct rules.

APAC calling rules at a glance

Each row summarizes the national rule as of October 2026, in the contact’s local time, from the regulator’s own text or guidance. Most rules have exceptions, for example for consent or existing customers, so read the source and check with your counsel before you rely on a row.

Country	Calling hours	Do-not-call list for live calls	Calls to business numbers
Australia	Weekdays 9:00 AM–8:00 PM, Saturday 9:00 AM–5:00 PM; no Sundays or national public holidays	Do Not Call Register; wash your list within 30 days before the call	Hours apply to all telemarketing calls; business numbers cannot be registered
Singapore	No statutory hours found	DNC Registry for voice calls, texts and faxes; check within 21 days before the call	B2B marketing to business numbers is outside the DNC rules
India	10:00 AM–9:00 PM by default	DND preferences, checked by the operator before delivery	Covered: a subscriber can be a legal entity
Japan	No fixed hours in the telephone-solicitation rules	None in the Act; stop once the person says no	Contracts made for business are exempt
Hong Kong	None in law for live calls	Registers cover faxes, texts and pre-recorded calls only	Live calls rely on industry self-regulation
New Zealand	No statutory hours found	The spam law excludes voice calls	Uninvited direct sales rules protect consumers only

“No statutory hours found” means we could not find hours in the official sources listed. It is not a sign that any time of day is acceptable. For hours in more countries, see legal calling hours by country, and for planning blocks across regions, see calling prospects in different time zones.

Australia and New Zealand

Australia has the most detailed rules in the region. The Telemarketing and Research Calls Industry Standard 2017 applies to telemarketing calls to any Australian number:

• Hours. Weekdays 9:00 AM–8:00 PM and Saturdays 9:00 AM–5:00 PM, at the account-holder’s usual residential address. No calls on Sundays, on 7 national public holidays, or on weekday holidays given in lieu (section 8).
• Identification. As soon as the call starts, the caller gives their first name, their employer’s name, the name of the business the call is for, and the purpose of the call (section 9).
• Caller ID. Calling line identification must be on, and the number shown must lead to your business when called back and stay able to take return calls for at least 30 days (section 14).

The Do Not Call Register applies wherever the call comes from: the ACMA says it will pursue the Australian company linked to an overseas telemarketer. If you washed your list against the register in the 30 days before a call, and the register did not list the number, you are not in breach. Business numbers cannot be registered, but a number used mostly for private purposes can be. As of October 2026, the Federal Register of Legislation lists the 2017 standard as due to be repealed on 1 Apr 2027, so check for its replacement.

New Zealand handles calls differently. The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 excludes voice calls, including calls with a recorded or synthetic voice. The Fair Trading Act 1986 covers uninvited phone sales to consumers over NZ$100: the supplier tells the consumer about the right to cancel before the agreement, sends a written copy within 5 working days, and the consumer can cancel within 5 working days of receiving it. The Act’s consumer definition covers goods and services for personal or household use, so most B2B sales sit outside it.

Singapore and Hong Kong

Singapore’s Do Not Call Registry has separate lists for voice calls, text messages and faxes. According to the PDPC’s guide for organizations (22 Apr 2026):

• Before a marketing call to a Singapore number, check it against the registry within 21 days before the call, unless the person gave clear and unambiguous consent.
• Any marketing element makes the call a specified message, even inside a service call.
• The rules do not apply to B2B marketing sent to business numbers, such as an office line, but they do apply if the offer is also for the person’s own use.
• People can withdraw consent at any time; the PDPC’s guide says to stop within 21 days.

When you cannot tell a business mobile from a personal one, checking the registry is the simple answer.

Hong Kong regulates recorded calls, not live ones. OFCA runs 3 do-not-call registers, for faxes, short messages and pre-recorded telephone messages, and senders must clean their lists against them every time before sending. In a Legislative Council reply of 24 Jun 2026, the government said the ordinance excludes person-to-person interactive calls, and that calls conducted entirely by AI fall under it. For live calls, it prefers industry self-regulation: telemarketers in the scheme give their name and contact number on request and limit repeat calls to the same number. The same reply says operators suspend local numbers with suspicious calling patterns, and that over 1.59 million had been suspended as at end May 2026.

India and Japan

India has the strictest number rules in the region. Under TRAI’s regulations, promotional calls come only from registered senders on 140-series numbers, and the February 2025 amendment bars ordinary 10-digit numbers for telemarketing. The time bands from 9:00 PM to 10:00 AM are off by default for every subscriber, and subscribers can block categories of calls on the DND registry. The details, including the changes TRAI made on 18 Sep 2026, are in our guide to TRAI telemarketing rules.

Japan’s Specified Commercial Transactions Act covers telephone solicitation sales to consumers. According to the Consumer Affairs Agency’s guide:

• At the start of the call, state your business name, your own name, the type of product or service, and that the call is to offer a contract (Article 16).
• Once a person says they do not want the contract, do not keep going or call again to solicit it (Article 17).
• Consumers can cancel within 8 days of receiving the required written document.
• The rules do not apply to contracts made for business purposes or as a business (Article 26).

Before your first APAC call block

1. Mark each contact’s country and time zone, and check the number against the address.
2. Wash Australian and Singapore lists against their registers, and record the date, so you know when the result expires: 30 days in Australia, 21 days in Singapore.
3. Write a country opener that covers the identification rules: Australia and Japan both require you to say who you are and why you are calling at the start.
4. Keep a do-not-call list across countries, and add anyone who says no, as Japan’s rules require.
5. Check how your caller ID will show. Australia requires a number that takes return calls for 30 days.
6. Review each source every quarter. Australia’s standard is due to be replaced, and India changed its rules twice in 2025 and 2026.

How DialSavvy handles this

DialSavvy compliance checks calling hours in the contact’s time zone and your do-not-call list before every call, from versioned rule packs by country. A pack past its review date stops dialing to that country. National do-not-call registry checks, including Australia’s register, and public-holiday calendars are coming. DialSavvy does not offer +91 caller IDs. See country coverage for the calling mode planned in each country.

Pick the 2 countries where most of your APAC pipeline sits, open their sources from this guide, and turn them into a one-page calling policy your reps can follow.