How Long Does Telemarketing Consent Last in Australia? Expiry, Withdrawal and Records

If you're asking how long telemarketing consent lasts, the short answer is this. Express consent given without a stated period lapses after 3 months. Consent given for a period the person agreed to lasts for that period. Any consent ends straight away if the person tells you they no longer want your calls. Everything else comes down to whether you can prove what was agreed, and when.

This guide is for marketing managers running call campaigns. It covers the default expiry, how stated periods work, the ACMA's view on stale consent, withdrawal, and what your records need to show. It's a practical overview, not legal advice. If your campaign has an unusual setup, check with the ACMA or a lawyer.

What counts as consent to call

Under the Do Not Call Register Act 2006, consent means express consent, or consent that can reasonably be inferred from the person's conduct and their business and other relationships.

Most call campaigns depend on express consent: a form submission, a recorded verbal yes, or a signed agreement. Inferred consent is harder to rely on and easier to get wrong. For example, the same Act says consent to telemarketing calls cannot be inferred just because a phone number has been published. A number on a website, in a directory or on a business card is not permission to call it for marketing.

If your list includes contacts whose consent you can only describe as "they'd probably be fine with it", treat them as having no consent until you can show otherwise.

How long express consent lasts

When no period is stated

This is the rule that catches most teams out. Under the Do Not Call Register Act 2006, express consent that is not given for a specified period or an indefinite period is taken to be withdrawn 3 months after the day it was given.

So if your enquiry form says "Tick here to hear from us" and says nothing about how long, the clock starts on the day the person submits it. After 3 months, that consent is treated as withdrawn. Your CRM might still mark the lead as "opted in", but legally the permission has gone.

When a period is stated

The Act lets express consent be given for a specified period or an indefinite period. If the person knowingly agreed to that period, the default 3-month expiry doesn't apply in the same way.

The ACMA's guidance points the same way. Its consumer consent guide says consent to receive telemarketing that is more than 3 months old becomes stale unless the consumer agreed to a longer period under terms and conditions.

The key word is agreed. A longer period hidden in fine print the person never saw is a weak basis for calling. The ACMA recommends express consent based on clear terms and conditions, readily accessible where consent is given, that explain what the marketing is for, who will use it, how long it will be used and how consent can be withdrawn.

Should you ask for a longer period?

It's tempting to write "indefinitely" into every consent statement. Before you do, think about these trade-offs:

• A longer period you can justify (for example, matching a typical buying cycle in your industry) is easier to defend than an open-ended one.
• People are more likely to agree to a period that feels reasonable, and less likely to complain later.
• A consent that names a period makes your expiry logic simple: you know exactly when each contact drops off.
• Whatever the period, the person can still withdraw at any time, so a long period never guarantees you can keep calling.

Stale consent: the ACMA's view

The ACMA's position is that consent ages. Once it is more than 3 months old and no longer period was agreed, it becomes stale. In practice, this affects a few common habits:

• Recycling old leads. A list of enquiries from last year is not a calling list unless those people agreed to a period that still covers today.
• Reactivation campaigns. "Win-back" calls to dormant contacts need current consent, not a historic opt-in.
• Bought or shared lists. Even before you consider age, ask how consent was obtained and whether it names your business.

The ACMA also says businesses should not use pre-checked tick boxes, bundled consent or refer-a-friend arrangements to obtain marketing consent. If your older consents came through any of these methods, the question is not only whether they're stale but whether they were valid to begin with.

Withdrawal: consent ends when they say so

Whatever period was agreed, the person can end it. According to the Do Not Call Register, if a consumer indicates they do not want telemarketing calls from an organisation, consent ends immediately and can no longer be inferred.

"Indicates" is broad. It isn't limited to a formal unsubscribe. A person might say "please stop calling me" to an agent, reply to an email, tell a receptionist or post on social media. Your process needs to catch all of these, not just clicks on an opt-out link.

Practical steps:

• Give agents and any AI voice agents a clear script for handling a request to stop, including confirming it back to the person.
• Make the do-not-call flag in your CRM override every campaign, list and dialler, including those run by agencies on your behalf.
• Log the date, time and channel of each withdrawal, so you can show when you stopped.
• Check that suppression carries across systems. A contact removed from the CRM but still in an exported dialler file is a common gap.

Consent for a particular time

Consent also matters for when you call. The telemarketing industry standard allows calls outside its permitted times only if the account holder or their nominee gave express consent in advance to that particular call on that day or at that time, and the caller can show this to the ACMA if required.

General marketing consent doesn't cover this. If someone asks you to call back at a time outside the permitted hours, record that specific request, including the day or time they named.

What to record

The ACMA expects consent records to show how consent was obtained, the terms that applied, and the date and time it was obtained, and those records must be produced if the ACMA requires them.

For each contact, a workable consent record includes:

• The method: web form, recorded call, signed document, in-person sign-up.
• The exact wording of the consent statement and terms shown at the time, saved as a version rather than "whatever's on the site now".
• The date and time consent was given.
• The period agreed, or a note that none was stated (which means the 3-month default applies).
• The calculated expiry date, stored as its own field.
• The business or businesses the consent covers.
• Any withdrawal, with date, time and channel.
• Any specific time-of-call requests, if you call outside the permitted times.

Keep evidence, not just a flag. A "consent = yes" field tells the ACMA nothing. A form submission log, a call recording or a stored copy of the terms does.

Building expiry into your campaigns

Treat consent as something with a use-by date. Some ways to put that into practice:

• Calculate an expiry date for every contact when consent is captured, and have your dialler exclude anyone past it.
• Call new enquiries quickly. Fresh consent is the strongest consent, and speed also suits the buyer who just asked to hear from you.
• Before a reactivation campaign, filter for contacts whose agreed period still covers the call date.
• Review your consent wording. If it doesn't state a period, every contact runs on the 3-month default.
• Audit agencies and partners. Ask how they record consent, how they apply expiry and how they pass on withdrawals.
• Re-check the Do Not Call Register rules for any contacts whose consent has lapsed, before deciding whether you can call them at all.

Questions to ask your team this week

• Does our consent statement say how long consent lasts, who will call and how to withdraw?
• Could we produce, for any contact, the method, terms, date and time of consent?
• Does our dialler automatically exclude contacts past their expiry date?
• How quickly does a stop request reach every system that dials?
• Are we using any pre-ticked boxes, bundled consent or refer-a-friend sign-ups?

Speed and expiry belong together. At Dialessa, we built an AI voice agent that calls new enquiries within a minute, books the appointment and follows up past leads only while their consent is still current, so your team works with fresh permission rather than stale lists.

Telemarketing rules can change, and your situation may have details this guide doesn't cover. Check the ACMA's guidance directly, and talk to a lawyer before relying on any consent model for a large campaign.