Do Not Call Register rules for Australian businesses that telemarket

The basic rule

Section 11 of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 bans telemarketing calls to registered Australian numbers (Do Not Call Register Act 2006, compilation 16). The exceptions are consent from the account holder or their nominee, and a short list of exempt callers. The ban covers anyone who "causes" a call to be made. If you hire a call centre and it rings a registered number, the Act treats the call as yours too.

Washing your list, and the 30-day rule

Washing means checking your list against the register before you dial. You open an account, buy a subscription and upload the list, and the register tells you which numbers you must not call (DNCR, washing process). Subscription type A is free for up to 500 numbers a year, and the quick check handles fewer than 10 numbers on the spot (DNCR, industry FAQs).

The Act gives you a 30-day window. If the register cleared a number at any point in the 30 days ending on the day of the call, the call isn't a breach. So a list washed on 1 December is good until the end of 30 December. A campaign that runs into January needs a fresh wash.

There are two defences: a genuine mistake, and reasonable precautions with due diligence. Either way, you carry the burden of showing it, so keep your wash receipts.

Consent, and where it runs out

Consent means express consent, or consent you can reasonably infer from the person's conduct and their business relationship with you (Schedule 2 of the Act). Three limits catch businesses out:

• Express consent with no stated period is treated as withdrawn three months after it was given.
• You can't infer consent just because a number was published, in a directory or on a website.
• People can withdraw consent. When someone says no on a call, put them on your own do-not-call list.

Who is exempt

Schedule 1 of the Act lists the "designated telemarketing calls" that can go to registered numbers:

• Government bodies.
• Registered charities.
• Registered political parties, independent members of parliament and election candidates, for calls that raise funds for electoral or political purposes.
• Educational institutions calling current or former students, or their households.

The exemption is narrow. A charity or government body calling about goods or services has to be the supplier, so it can't lend its exemption to a solar retailer. Researchers can call registered numbers for polling and surveys, but not for a commercial purpose (DNCR, industry FAQs). All of them still follow the industry standard below.

Calling hours and conduct under the industry standard

The Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 covers every telemarketing and research call to an Australian number (Industry Standard 2017). Registered or not, business or private, it applies.

Scroll sideways to see the whole table.

The national public holidays are New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, plus any weekday given in lieu. Calling outside these hours needs express consent, given in advance, for that call at that time.

The hours run on local time at the account holder's usual home address. In November, 9am in Sydney is 8am in Brisbane, because Queensland has no daylight saving, and 6am in Perth. A dialler that starts at 9am Sydney time on a national list breaks the rule on its first Brisbane number. Set calling times by the state on each record.

At the start of every sales call, the caller has to give:

• The given name of the person calling.
• The company or registered business name of their employer.
• The name of the business the call is for, if that's someone else (your client, when an agency makes the call).
• The purpose of the call.

If asked, the caller must give contact details straight away, including an Australian number that answers in business hours. Calling line identification must be on, and ringing the number shown should tell the person who called. The caller must end the call as soon as the person asks.

The 2017 standard is due to sunset on 1 April 2027 (Federal Register of Legislation). Check for a remade standard before then and update your scripts if anything changes.

SMS and email under the Spam Act

Marketing texts and emails fall under the Spam Act 2003, not the register. You need consent before you send, and the message has to name your business and give contact details (ACMA, avoid sending spam). Unsubscribes must be honoured within five working days. You can't text someone to ask for consent, because that text is itself marketing. If you buy a list, consent for every address is still your job.

Penalties and enforcement

The register's compliance page puts infringement notices at up to $222,000 for each day contraventions occurred, and court penalties at up to $2.22 million a day (DNCR, compliance and breaches). Most complaints are settled informally.

Take the ACMA's July 2026 action against TAB. Between February 2024 and June 2025, TAB made 351 calls to registered numbers without consent and 82 outside permitted hours. Nearly 4,000 calls didn't properly identify TAB or the purpose. With a separate spam breach, TAB paid more than $2.7 million and agreed to an independent review of its telemarketing systems (ACMA, 22 July 2026). Those calls went to TAB's own VIP customers.

If your team calls from overseas

The rules follow the number you dial. The register's own example is that telemarketers working from South Africa must comply in the same way as those in Melbourne. If an overseas caller breaches the Act, the ACMA says it will pursue the linked Australian company (DNCR, industry FAQs). The Spam Act works the same way: a message has an Australian link if, among other things, it's read in Australia (Spam Act 2003, section 7).

Section 12 of the Act adds a contract rule. Any agreement with someone likely to make telemarketing calls for you must say expressly that they'll comply with the Act and take reasonable steps to make their staff comply. Leaving the clause out is a breach on its own.

Our own outbound team works from South Africa, eight or nine hours behind Sydney depending on daylight saving. The permitted window falls in their small hours and morning, so shifts run on the recipient's clock. Our setup is on how we work.

A compliance checklist for an outbound team

• Wash every list before it reaches the dialler, rewash within 30 days, and keep the receipts.
• Log every consent with its source and an end date, and suppress your own do-not-call list in every campaign.
• Set dialler hours by the state of each home address, and block the national public holidays.
• Script the opening, and give agents the contact details to read out on request.
• Turn on calling line identification. Use a number that rings back to someone at your business who can say what the call was about.
• Check in call reviews that agents hang up when asked.
• Put the section 12 compliance clause in every outsourcing contract.
• Get consent before any marketing SMS or email, and honour unsubscribes within five working days.

This is a summary of the law as published, not legal advice. Check your case with a lawyer.

Questions

Can I call business numbers?

Business numbers can't be registered, except some used mainly for faxes, so most business-to-business calling doesn't touch the register (DNCR, registering numbers). A phone used for both can be registered if it's used mostly for personal purposes (ACMA, Do Not Call Register). The industry standard still applies to all of those calls.

Do I still need to wash if I have consent?

Consent lets you call a registered number, but if the ACMA asks, you have to show it. The safer habit is to wash everything, then add back only the numbers with recorded, current consent.

Next step

If you're thinking about outbound calling and want it run properly from day one, book a call with me. Bring your list source and how you collect consent. We'll tell you how we'd run it and where we'd tighten things up. You can also read how our telesales and outbound teams work.