Telemarketing Calling Hours in Australia: Permitted Times, Holidays and Consent

In Australia, telemarketing calls can be made on weekdays between 9 am and 8 pm and on Saturdays between 9 am and 5 pm. They can't be made on Sundays or on certain national public holidays. These times come from the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017, and they are measured in the local time of the person you're calling, not yours. There is an exception for calls outside these hours, but it is narrow. It needs advance consent to that specific call.

This guide covers what anyone scheduling outbound calls needs to know: the exact windows, the banned days, whose clock counts, how State and Territory laws fit in, and how the consent exception works in practice.

Who the calling hours apply to

The rules are broad. The industry standard applies to anyone who makes or arranges telemarketing or research calls to Australian numbers, including numbers that are not on the Do Not Call Register and organisations that are exempt from the Do Not Call Register Act. So "our leads aren't on the register" and "we're exempt" don't get you out of the calling hours.

It's also easy to make a telemarketing call without meaning to. The ACMA says that where a call has more than one purpose and one of them is to sell or promote goods or services, the call is commercial and must comply with the telemarketing rules. A "service check-in" that ends with an upgrade offer counts. The ACMA also states that commercial calls made using an auto-dialler, or that use pre-recorded or AI voices, are all telemarketing calls. If you use automation, the same calling hours apply.

The permitted telemarketing calling hours

Under the industry standard, unless express consent was given in advance, telemarketing calls must not be made:

• on a weekday before 9 am or after 8 pm
• on a Saturday before 9 am or after 5 pm
• on a Sunday at all.

In practice, your calling windows are:

• Monday to Friday: 9 am to 8 pm
• Saturday: 9 am to 5 pm
• Sunday: no calls.

Two practical points follow from this.

Plan for the end of the call, not just the dial. If an agent dials a few minutes before the cut-off and the conversation runs long, you could easily be talking past the permitted time. Many teams stop dialling well before the end of the window so calls can finish comfortably. How early you stop is your decision, but build in a buffer.

Retries and callbacks follow the same rules. Automated retry logic, voicemail follow-ups and "call me back later" requests all need to land inside the window. If someone asks you to call back at a time outside the permitted hours, see the consent section below before you agree.

National public holidays when calls are banned

The standard bans telemarketing and research calls at any time, unless express consent was given in advance, on:

• New Year's Day
• Australia Day
• Good Friday
• Easter Monday
• Anzac Day
• Christmas Day
• Boxing Day
• a weekday holiday given in lieu of one of these days.

The last item catches people out. When Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a weekend, or when Australia Day or New Year's Day moves to a Monday, the substitute weekday holiday is also a no-call day. Check the official public holiday dates for each year and load the substitute days into your dialler's calendar, not just the original dates.

Remember that Easter moves every year, so Good Friday and Easter Monday need to be updated in your systems annually.

Whose local time counts

Australia covers several time zones, and daylight saving starts and ends at different times in different States and Territories. So it matters a lot whose clock you use.

The standard says calling times are measured at the usual residential address of the account holder for the number being called. Your office time doesn't count. Neither does your call centre's time or the time zone your CRM defaults to. What counts is the local time where the account holder normally lives.

This has real consequences for scheduling:

• A team in Sydney calling Perth needs to wait until it is 9 am in Perth, not in Sydney.
• A Perth-based team calling the east coast in the evening will hit the cut-off on the east coast earlier than it does locally.
• During daylight saving, the gap between States changes, and some States and Territories don't observe daylight saving at all.

How to handle time zones in practice

• Store a time zone for every lead, based on the best information you have about where the account holder lives.
• Don't rely on area codes alone. Mobile numbers don't reveal a location, and landline area codes can span more than one time zone.
• Where you can't tell the time zone, schedule calls only in hours that fall inside the permitted window everywhere in Australia.
• Get your dialler or calling platform to enforce the window in the recipient's local time, rather than relying on agents to do the maths.
• Re-check your rules whenever daylight saving starts or ends.

Note that the test is the account holder's usual residential address. If you're calling a mobile and the person happens to be travelling, the standard ties the time to where they usually live. Recording the address you relied on helps if you're ever asked to explain a call.

State and Territory public holidays and laws

This is where many generic guides go wrong. The national standard does not ban calls on a State or Territory public holiday unless that day is already a prohibited day. So a State-only holiday, such as a local show day or a State-specific long weekend, isn't automatically a no-call day under the standard.

However, the same standard does not exclude State or Territory laws that restrict calling days or times further. If a State or Territory has its own, stricter rules about when you can call or about unsolicited selling, you may need to follow those as well. That might include State consumer protection or fair trading laws.

Because these rules vary and can change, we suggest:

• checking the consumer and fair trading rules in each State and Territory you call into
• getting advice from a lawyer if you run campaigns across several jurisdictions
• deciding as a matter of policy whether to avoid State public holidays anyway, even where the law allows calls, since people are less likely to welcome a sales call on a day off.

The narrow express-consent exception

You can call outside the permitted times, but only in tightly defined circumstances. Under the standard, calls outside the permitted times are allowed only if:

• the account holder, or their nominee, gave express consent
• the consent was given in advance
• the consent was to that particular call on that day or at that time
• the caller can show this to the ACMA if required.

Several things don't meet this test:

• General marketing consent. A tick-box agreeing to "receive calls" doesn't amount to consent to a specific call at a specific time outside the permitted hours.
• Implied consent. Being an existing customer or having made an enquiry doesn't count as express consent to an after-hours call.
• Consent obtained during the call. Consent has to be given in advance. You can't call on a Sunday and then ask whether it's okay.
• Undocumented consent. If you can't show it to the ACMA, you can't rely on it.

What good evidence looks like

If a prospect says "call me Sunday morning" or "after 8 tonight works best", record:

• who gave the consent, and whether they're the account holder or a nominee
• the exact day and time they agreed to
• when and how they gave the consent, such as a call recording, a booking form or a written message
• which call was made in reliance on it.

Treat each consent as covering a single call. If you need another call outside the hours, get fresh consent for that call.

What else applies once the call connects

Calling hours are only one part of the standard. Once a call is made, other rules also apply:

• As soon as the call starts, the caller must give their given name (unless the call is made solely using a recorded or synthetic voice), their employer's business name, the name of the person causing the call to be made, and the purpose of the call.
• If asked, the caller must immediately give contact details for the employer and the person who caused the call, plus complaint-handling contacts.
• Calls using recorded or synthetic voices must provide a way during the call for the recipient to request those details, for example by pressing a button to talk to an operator.
• The caller must immediately end the call if the recipient asks or otherwise indicates they do not want it to continue.
• Calling line identification must be enabled, and the displayed number must accept return calls for at least 30 days.

There's also a commercial consequence. The ACCC says the cooling-off period extends to 3 months if the salesperson phones outside the allowed hours, or doesn't identify themselves, their business or the purpose of the call. A sale made outside the hours can therefore be exposed to cancellation for much longer.

Keep an eye on the sunset date

The Federal Register of Legislation lists the standard as in force and due to sunset on 1 April 2027. Standards are often remade or replaced around their sunset date, and the replacement may keep the same rules or change them. Watch for ACMA updates over the coming months and be ready to adjust your calling windows and scripts.

A practical checklist for scheduling outbound calls

• Set calling windows of 9 am to 8 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 5 pm on Saturdays, with no calls on Sundays.
• Block the listed national holidays and any substitute weekday holidays.
• Schedule by the account holder's local time, and use the narrowest safe window where it's unknown.
• Review State and Territory rules, and get legal advice for multi-State campaigns.
• Only call outside the hours with documented, advance consent to that specific call.
• Leave a buffer before each cut-off so calls can finish inside the window.
• Make sure automated, AI-voice and retry calls follow the same rules.

Getting this right is easier when your calling platform enforces the rules rather than your people. Dialessa is an AI voice agent that calls new enquiries within a minute, inside your calling hours, asks your qualifying questions and books the appointment into your calendar. Whatever tool you use, set the calling hours, holidays and time zones in it before the first campaign goes live, and check any edge cases with the ACMA or a lawyer.