Germany cold calling rules: B2B, consumers and the fines in 2026

Germany cold calling rules split every list in two. A sales call to a consumer needs the consumer’s prior express consent. A live call to a business needs at least presumed consent: a reason to expect that this business wants to hear from you. Calls by an automated calling machine need express consent from everyone.

The rules sit in section 7 of the Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG), and the regulator enforces them. On 24 Jul 2026 the Bundesnetzagentur, the federal regulator, fined a call center €34,327: €32,000 for unsolicited calls and €2,327 for breaking the consent record rules, according to its list of fines. The company has objected, so the decision is not final.

What section 7 UWG says

Section 7(1) UWG bars commercial practices that harass people unreasonably, in particular advertising that the recipient clearly doesn’t want. Section 7(2) then lists cases that always count as unreasonable harassment:

• No. 1, live sales calls: to a consumer without their “prior express consent”, or to any other market participant without “at least presumed consent”.
• No. 2, automated calling machines, fax and email: without the addressee’s prior express consent. This one has no B2B exception.

Who counts as a consumer comes from section 13 of the Civil Code (BGB): a natural person acting mainly for purposes outside their trade or self-employed profession. A freelance designer called about design software is acting in their profession. The same person called about home insurance is a consumer.

Who you can call: the decision table

As of October 2026:

Who you reach	Live call by a rep	Automated or prerecorded call	Who can fine you
Consumer (private person)	Prior express consent, documented	Prior express consent	Bundesnetzagentur, up to €300,000
Freelancer or sole trader, about their business	At least presumed consent	Prior express consent	Not the Bundesnetzagentur; civil and competition claims
Company (GmbH, AG, KG), about its business	At least presumed consent	Prior express consent	Not the Bundesnetzagentur; civil and competition claims
Anyone who has said “don’t call again”	Stop	Stop	Depends on who they are

The third column surprises people. The Bundesnetzagentur’s page on unlawful telephone advertising says it cannot fine advertising calls to entrepreneurs, traders and freelancers. Those businesses can still act against you under civil and competition law. “No regulator fine” is not the same as “no risk”.

Presumed consent: the part the law leaves open

The UWG doesn’t define presumed consent. It is judged case by case, and whether a given B2B list qualifies is a question for your counsel. What a sales team can control is the reasoning it records before it dials. Five questions we would expect a team to be able to answer for each B2B segment:

1. Is the offer tied to this company’s actual business, not just to “companies of this size”?
2. Did the company give a reason to expect contact, such as an inquiry, a trade show conversation or an existing relationship?
3. Is the person you call the one responsible for this topic?
4. Is there anything that shows they don’t want calls, such as an earlier objection or a “no sales calls” note on their website?
5. Would a short call be a normal way for this business to hear about this kind of offer?

If the honest answer to most of these is “no”, the segment is a poor fit for cold calls, whatever the size of the list.

A worked example: one list of 400 German contacts

Example only. A team in Amsterdam exports 400 German contacts from its CRM for a payroll software campaign. Sorted by the table above:

• 260 HR and finance leads at GmbHs who downloaded a payroll guide or visited the team’s trade show stand. A clear business reason exists, so these go to reps as live calls, with the reason noted on each record.
• 90 contacts at companies with no link to the team bought from a list provider. Presumed consent is weak here, so the team moves them to email and LinkedIn first and calls only those who reply.
• 35 freelancers in the CRM through a newsletter. They are reached about their own business, so presumed consent applies, but the team calls only those whose sign-up mentioned payroll.
• 15 private email addresses with no company. These may be consumers. Without documented express consent, they are not called.

Out of 400 contacts, 260 are called this week. That is a smaller list, but each call has a reason the rep can say in the first sentence.

Consent records: what section 7a requires

For consumers, section 7a UWG requires you to document prior express consent “in appropriate form” at the time it is given. You keep the record for 5 years from when consent was given and again for 5 years after each use, and you hand it to the Bundesnetzagentur on request. Under section 20 UWG, missing or incomplete records can be fined up to €50,000, separately from the €300,000 limit for the calls themselves.

A record that works usually holds:

• the person’s name and phone number;
• the exact consent wording they saw, and the company or companies it names;
• the date, time and channel (web form, signed form, double opt-in);
• the last time you used it, since each call restarts the 5 years.

Caller ID and objections

Two rules apply to every call, B2B included:

• Show your number. Section 15(2) TDDDG bars callers from suppressing caller ID on advertising calls. The Bundesnetzagentur says anonymous advertising calls can be fined up to €300,000.
• Honor objections. The person you reach at a company can object to direct marketing under article 21 of the GDPR, and their data may then no longer be used for it. Section 7(1) UWG also covers advertising the recipient clearly doesn’t want. Put the number on your do-not-call list the same day.

For the wider European picture, see GDPR and B2B cold calling and the Netherlands rules after 1 July. Calling windows by country are in legal calling hours by country.

How DialSavvy handles this

DialSavvy runs compliance checks before every call: calling hours in the contact’s time zone and your do-not-call list. National registry checks are coming. Our country plan keeps parallel dialing off in the EU, including Germany, and uses power dialing where the country’s rule pack allows it.

If you call into Germany, bring a sample of your list to a demo and we’ll walk through how each segment would be dialed.