Japan telemarketing law: what a sales call to Japan must say

Japan telemarketing law comes from the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions. Before the pitch, a caller must give the company’s name, their own name, what they sell, and that the call is a sales call. Once the person says no, the caller must stop and not call back to solicit again. Contracts made for business purposes are exempt.

Japan has no national do-not-call register in this Act and no fixed calling hours. That surprises teams used to the US or Australia, and it leads to two wrong conclusions: that there are no rules, or that B2B calls never need to care. Neither is right.

The 4 things to say before you pitch

Article 16 of the Act applies to “telemarketing sales”. The seller must tell the other party, before soliciting:

1. the name of the seller (your company);
2. the name of the person calling;
3. the type of goods, rights, or services on offer;
4. that the purpose of the call is to ask them to enter into a contract.

The Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) lists the same 4 items. “Before” matters. An opener that asks three discovery questions and only later says it is a sales call has the order wrong.

An opener you can adapt

In English:

“Hello, this is Priya Nair from Northwind Analytics. I’m calling about our sales forecasting software, and to be upfront, this is a sales call to see if you’d consider a contract with us. Do you have a minute?”

In Japanese, the same 4 items:

「お忙しいところ失礼いたします。ノースウィンド・アナリティクスのナイアと申します。営業予測ソフトウェアのご案内で、ご契約のご検討をお願いするためのお電話です。少しだけお時間よろしいでしょうか。」

Have a native speaker check your own version. Politeness level matters more on a Japanese call than the exact words.

No means no, and it lasts

Article 17 prohibits soliciting a person who “has indicated an unwillingness” to enter into the contract. The CAA’s summary covers both continuing on the same call and calling again later.

In practice:

• When someone declines, thank them and end the call. Don’t try a second angle.
• Add the number to your do-not-call list at once, with the date and the product.
• Don’t let a colleague or a second campaign call the same person about the same offer.

Japan has no national register to check, so your own list is the only one that matters. Keep it across teams and tools.

What happens after a sale

These rules matter less to an SDR booking meetings, and more to anyone who closes by phone:

Rule	Article	What it says
Documents	18, 19	Deliver a document with the contract details (price, payment, delivery, seller details) without delay
Prohibited conduct	21	No false statements, no hiding material facts on purpose, no intimidation
Cooling-off	24	The consumer can cancel within 8 days of receiving the document, in writing or by electronic record
Excessive quantity	24-2	A contract for far more than normally needed can be cancelled within 1 year
Penalties	70	Breaking Article 21 can mean up to 3 years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to 3 million yen, or both

The CAA adds that the cooling-off right doesn’t apply to some used consumables, or to cash deals under 3,000 yen. If a seller misled the consumer about cooling-off, the 8 days don’t start running.

The business exemption, checked

Article 26(1)(i) says the telemarketing rules do not apply to a contract that the buyer “enters into for business purposes or as a part of business”. This is the line most B2B teams rely on.

Two points get missed:

• The test is the contract, not the phone. Calling a mobile number doesn’t bring a deal inside the Act, and calling an office line doesn’t keep it out. What counts is whether the buyer signs for their business.
• Small buyers are the grey zone. A sole trader or a tiny shop may buy something partly for home use. If your product could be bought that way, ask your counsel how the exemption applies before you script around it.

Even where the exemption applies, the opener and the stop-after-no habit cost you nothing. They also make the call sound like it comes from a professional.

A worked example: calling Tokyo from Bengaluru

An illustrative example, not a rule. A team in Bengaluru calls IT managers in Tokyo. Japan Standard Time is UTC+9 with no daylight saving time, and India Standard Time is UTC+5:30. Tokyo is 3 hours 30 minutes ahead all year.

Tokyo (JST)	Bengaluru (IST)	What to do
09:30–12:00	06:00–08:30	First block, best for office lines
12:00–13:00	08:30–09:30	Lunch in Tokyo: research and follow-up emails
13:00–17:30	09:30–14:00	Second block, during the Indian working day

The Act sets no calling hours, so these windows are a habit, not the law. The team’s real constraints are the 4-item opener and a shared do-not-call list. For more on splitting a day across time zones, see calling prospects in different time zones.

A checklist before you call Japan

1. Write the 4 Article 16 items into the first 15 seconds of the script.
2. Add a “declined” disposition that puts the number on your do-not-call list automatically.
3. Decide, with counsel, whether any of your buyers might sign for personal use.
4. If you close by phone, prepare the Article 18 and 19 documents and the cooling-off notice.
5. Check the APAC sales calling rules if the same team also calls Australia, Singapore, or India, which add calling hours or do-not-call registers.

How DialSavvy handles this

Japan isn’t on our country list yet, and a country without its own rule pack is blocked today. Where we do dial, the compliance checks run before every call: calling hours in the contact’s time zone and your do-not-call list. See legal calling hours by country for the countries that set fixed windows.

If Japan is on your list for next year, book a demo and we’ll walk through your countries and what each one needs before the first dial.