Legal calling hours by country: US, Canada, UK, Australia, India

Legal calling hours by country are set in the contact’s local time, not the caller’s. As of October 2026, US federal rules limit sales calls to homes and mobiles to 8:00 AM–9:00 PM, Canada allows 9:00 AM–9:30 PM on weekdays, Australia 9:00 AM–8:00 PM on weekdays, and India 10:00 AM–9:00 PM by default. The UK sets no fixed hours.

Calling hours by country, as of October 2026

Each row below summarizes the national rule and links to the regulator’s own text or statement, checked in October 2026. Hours are in the contact’s local time. Most rules have exceptions, for example for people who asked you to call, so read the source before you rely on a row, and check with your counsel.

Country	Rule	Calling hours	Days excluded	Calls to businesses
United States (federal)	FCC, 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1); FTC, 16 CFR 310.4(c)	8:00 AM–9:00 PM	None in federal rules	FCC rule: residential subscribers and wireless numbers. FTC rule: most B2B calls exempt.
Canada (federal)	CRTC Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules (CRTC)	Weekdays 9:00 AM–9:30 PM; Saturday and Sunday 10:00 AM–6:00 PM	None in the CRTC hours; British Columbia adds statutory holidays	Covered: the rules apply to personal and business numbers.
United Kingdom	No statutory hours: PECR (ICO) and Ofcom’s persistent misuse policy	Not prescribed	None set	PECR call rules protect companies as well as people.
Australia	Telemarketing and Research Calls Industry Standard 2017, s. 8	Weekdays 9:00 AM–8:00 PM; Saturday 9:00 AM–5:00 PM	Sundays and 7 national public holidays, plus days given in lieu	Covers telemarketing calls to any Australian number.
India	TRAI, TCCCPR 2018, Schedule-II item 3	10:00 AM–9:00 PM by default	None by default; subscribers can block days, holidays included	Covered: a subscriber is a person or a legal entity.

A few notes on the rows:

• United States. The FCC rule bars telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., and section 64.1200(e) extends it to wireless numbers, to the extent set out in the FCC’s 2003 TCPA order. The FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule sets the same window for calls to a person’s residence.
• Australia. The 7 national public holidays are New Year’s Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. State and territory holidays are not banned by the standard, but the usual hours still apply on those days, and section 15 keeps any stricter state or territory law in force. As of October 2026, the Federal Register of Legislation lists the 2017 standard as due to sunset on 1 Apr 2027, so check for its replacement after that date.
• India. The 2018 regulations let each subscriber choose time bands. The bands from 9:00 PM to 10:00 AM are off by default for every subscriber, whether or not they registered a preference, unless they switch them on. TRAI’s Third Amendment of 18 Sep 2026 leaves these time bands unchanged.

We left out countries where we could not open an official source that sets calling hours.

Whose local time counts

Every rule in the table uses the time where the contact is, not where your rep sits:

• United States: “local time at the called party’s location” (FCC) and the called person’s location (FTC).
• Canada: the CRTC says the hours are those of the consumer receiving the call.
• Australia: the time at the usual residential address of the account-holder. If the caller learns the person is somewhere else where it is outside the hours, the standard requires the call to end, unless the person asks to continue.
• India: the time bands are clock hours, and India uses one time zone, so the default window is the same across the country.

The hard part is knowing that local time. A mobile number can keep its area code after its owner moves, so the number and the CRM address can point to different time zones. When they disagree, call only in the hours that fit both.

Business calls and consumer calls

The rules treat B2B calls differently from country to country, so check this column before you assume a business list is exempt.

• United States. The FCC hours rule covers residential subscribers, and wireless numbers through section 64.1200(e). The FTC’s rule covers calls to a person’s residence, and section 310.6(b)(7) exempts most calls to businesses, apart from sales of nondurable office or cleaning supplies. A B2B list can include personal mobile numbers, and the FCC rule extends to wireless numbers, so treat the 8:00 AM–9:00 PM window as the default for every call unless your counsel says otherwise.
• Canada. Calls to businesses are exempt from the National DNCL Rules, but the National DNCL operator says the Telemarketing Rules and the Automatic Dialing-Announcing Device Rules apply to calls to personal and business numbers, and that telemarketers must follow them even on calls exempt from the DNCL Rules. Plan on the calling hours applying to B2B calls.
• United Kingdom. There are no hours to apply, but the ICO says the PECR rules on live marketing calls protect corporate subscribers as well as individuals: check the TPS, the CTPS, and your own do-not-call list.
• Australia. The Do Not Call Register Act defines a telemarketing call as a voice call to an Australian number made to offer or promote goods or services, among other purposes. The standard’s calling times apply to all such calls, including to numbers that are not on the register.
• India. The regulations define a subscriber as “a person or legal entity”, and the default time bands apply to all customers, so they cover company numbers too.

Where the rules are stricter than the table

National rules are the floor. States, provinces and regulators can add more:

• US states. Florida’s law bars commercial telephone solicitation calls before 8:00 AM or after 8:00 PM in the called person’s time zone, and more than 3 calls to a person in 24 hours on the same subject (Florida Statutes 501.616(6), 2026 edition). Other states can set their own rules, so check each state on your lists, including whether its law covers business numbers.
• Canadian provinces. British Columbia’s Telemarketer Licensing Regulation bars licensed telemarketers from calling consumers on a statutory holiday. It also limits calls to 9:00 AM–9:30 PM on weekdays and 10:00 AM–6:00 PM on weekends, in the consumer’s local time.
• United Kingdom. Ofcom’s persistent misuse policy says it is likely to regard misuse at unsociable hours as more harmful. It does not prescribe those hours and decides case by case, but gives marketing calls in the middle of the night as an obvious example.
• Consent. Some rules move with consent. Australia allows a call outside the hours if the account-holder agreed in advance to that call at that time. In India, promotional calls with the recipient’s explicit digital consent are delivered whatever preferences they set.

How to set calling windows for a sales team

1. List every country, and every US state and Canadian province, on your call lists.
2. For each one, write down the hours and the excluded days from the regulator’s text, with the date you checked.
3. Use the contact’s time zone. When the number and the address disagree, use the hours that fit both.
4. Use one window for business and consumer numbers unless your counsel approves a difference.
5. Put excluded days in your team’s calendar: Sundays and national public holidays for Australia, and statutory holidays for consumers in British Columbia.
6. End call blocks before the window closes, so redials and callbacks do not run past it.
7. Re-check the sources every quarter, and when a regulator announces a change.

Calling inside the contact’s hours is also one of the habits that help keep your numbers clear of Spam Likely labels.

How DialSavvy handles this

DialSavvy checks calling hours in the contact’s time zone before every call, from the rule pack for the country you are calling. A contact’s local time comes from their number, and reps see it on every row before they dial. Contacts outside their window are not dialed: they stay queued and come back when it opens. Each pack is versioned and carries a review date, and a pack past its date stops dialing to that country. Per-state US rules and public-holiday calendars are coming; until they ship, plan holidays such as Australia’s national public holidays into your call schedule. See DialSavvy compliance, and country coverage for the calling mode and rule pack planned in each country.

To see these checks run on your own call lists, book a demo.