Italy cold calling rules: the opt-out register and caller ID blocks

Italy cold calling rules rest on an opt-out register and, since November 2025, a carrier filter. You may make live sales calls to numbers that are not in the Registro pubblico delle opposizioni (RPO), but you must check the register every month and before every campaign. And a call from abroad that shows an Italian number is now blocked before it rings.

The second rule is the one teams outside Italy miss. A rep in Dublin, Dubai or Bengaluru can do everything right on consent and still reach nobody. As of November 2026, this is how both rules work, with the Italian text linked for each.

The opt-out register: what Law 5/2018 says

The RPO is Italy’s national “do not call” register. Law 5 of 11 Jan 2018 rebuilt it, and the main points in Article 1 are:

• Who can register (1(2)). Anyone who wants to refuse sales calls can register, in one request, all the fixed and mobile numbers in their name, online or by phone. The register’s own site says it now covers all national numbers, fixed and mobile.
• Old consents fall away (1(5)). Registering cancels every consent the person gave before, to anyone, for marketing calls. Numbers passed to third parties on the strength of those consents can no longer be used. The exception is a contract that is active, or ended no more than 30 days ago.
• New consent counts (1(6)). Consent the person gives after registering, to a named company, is valid.
• The check (1(12)). Anyone making sales, marketing or market research calls, “with or without a human operator”, must consult the register monthly, and in any case before the start of each campaign, and update their lists.
• Outsourcing doesn’t move the risk (1(11)). The company whose data is used is jointly liable for violations even when a call center makes the calls.
• Penalties (1(9)–(10)). Breaches draw the administrative sanction in Article 166(2) of the Privacy Code. For repeated breaches, the authorities can suspend or revoke the caller’s authorization to operate.

To check numbers, a business registers with the RPO’s operator service and submits its lists. Personal data rules still apply on top of the register: a named buyer’s direct line is personal data under GDPR. See GDPR and B2B cold calling for the legitimate-interest side.

Whether a company switchboard can sit in the register is a question for Italian counsel. The simple, defensible practice is to check every Italian number you plan to call.

The change from 2025: calls from abroad with Italian numbers are blocked

Italy’s communications regulator, AGCOM, adopted resolution 106/25/CONS to stop spoofed calls. It came in two phases, as AGCOM’s 13 Nov 2025 notice describes:

Date	What gets blocked
19 Aug 2025	Calls from abroad that show an Italian landline (geographic) number
19 Nov 2025	Calls from abroad that show an Italian mobile number, unless that mobile subscriber is roaming abroad

The filter sits at the authorized international carriers that hand foreign traffic into Italy. For a mobile number, the technical annex has the carrier query the mobile network in real time and get one answer: block or don’t block. A number not active on that network, or a subscriber registered in Italy, means block.

The effect was large. AGCOM reported about 49.3 million blocked calls with Italian mobile numbers between 19 and 30 Nov 2025, around 56% of such calls from abroad. Calls from abroad showing a foreign number rose from 19% of the total to 74%. In the first 8 months of 2026, the filters blocked about 191 million calls.

Enforcement has moved inside Italy too. On 12 Oct 2026, AGCOM announced fines of €700,000 on Retelit Digital Services and €122,500 on Tekmind (resolutions 229/26/CONS and 230/26/CONS of 23 Sep 2026). The charge: as holders of the numbers, they did not check the numbers their call center clients used, including spoofed ones.

What caller ID can you show when calling Italy?

For a team placing calls from outside Italy, the practical choices look like this:

Caller ID shown	Call enters Italy from abroad	Result
Italian landline number	Yes	Blocked since 19 Aug 2025
Italian mobile number, phone not roaming abroad	Yes	Blocked since 19 Nov 2025
Your own foreign number (UK, US, Irish)	Yes	Not touched by this filter
Italian number, call carried as domestic Italian traffic on a number assigned to you	No	Not touched by this filter; the number holder must check its use

The last row is where the 2026 fines landed. A number provider in Italy now has to know who uses its numbers and how. So ask any provider offering “Italian local presence” two questions: how are calls to Italy routed, and whose number is shown?

The broader point on local caller IDs from abroad is in UK mobile caller ID from abroad, which covers Ofcom’s version of the same idea.

A worked example: 300 Italian contacts from Dublin

An example with made-up but realistic numbers. An SDR team in Dublin has 300 contacts at Italian manufacturers: 180 direct landlines, 120 mobiles.

1. Register check. They submit the 300 numbers to the RPO on 2 Nov. 41 come back as registered. Those 41 leave the list, and an earlier event-signup consent doesn’t save them, because registration cancelled it.
2. Caller ID. Their old setup showed a Milan 02 number on calls routed from Ireland. Since 19 Aug 2025, those calls are blocked. They switch to their Irish number, which the filter does not touch.
3. Re-check. The campaign runs past 2 Dec, so the list is checked again before the new month’s calls. Law 5/2018 asks for a monthly check, not a one-time wash.
4. Records. Each check’s date, the numbers removed and the caller ID used go in the CRM, in case a contact or the Garante asks.

The result: 259 callable numbers, all of them reached with a caller ID that actually rings.

A checklist before calling Italian numbers

• Check every Italian number against the RPO, monthly and before each campaign. Record the date.
• Treat a registered number as out, whatever consent you collected before registration.
• Don’t show an Italian number on calls that enter Italy from abroad.
• If you use Italian numbers, know who holds them and how calls are carried.
• Keep GDPR in view: a legitimate-interest assessment and a privacy notice for named contacts.
• If an agency or call center dials for you, remember you stay jointly liable.

How DialSavvy handles this

As your carrier, DialSavvy runs your numbers and caller ID registrations (telephony), and compliance checks run before every call: calling hours in the contact’s time zone and your do-not-call list. National registry checks, such as the RPO, are coming. For EU countries, Italy included, our country plan keeps parallel dialing off at launch, with power dialing where the country pack allows it.

Planning calls into Italy? Book a demo and bring a sample list. We’ll walk through the checks and the caller ID each call would carry.