What 47 CFR §64.1200(c), (d) and (e) say about prospecting calls

1. Two defined terms, and the carve-outs only one of them carries

Paragraph (f) opens "As used in this section:" and then supplies nineteen numbered definitions. Two of them do most of the work in the rest of this page, and they are not the same term.

"Telemarketing", at (f)(13), is "the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services, which is transmitted to any person." That is the whole definition. Nothing is taken out of it.

"Telephone solicitation", at (f)(15), runs word for word alongside it — and then keeps going: "but such term does not include a call or message:", followed by three clauses. A call to a person who has given prior express invitation or permission. A call to a person with whom the caller has an established business relationship. And a call by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.

Paragraph (c) — the hours and the national registry — is written about a "telephone solicitation". So the three carve-outs are written into the term paragraph (c) runs on, and they are not written into the definition of "telemarketing".

Paragraph (d)'s opening sentence reaches two kinds of call: an artificial or prerecorded-voice call made under an exemption in paragraphs (a)(3)(ii) through (v), and any call "for telemarketing purposes" to a residential telephone subscriber. Neither description carries the three carve-outs.

Two more defined terms name the parties, and they are not interchangeable. A "seller", at (f)(10), is the person or entity on whose behalf a call is initiated for the purpose the definition describes. A "telemarketer", at (f)(12), is the person or entity that initiates it. Both are quoted below, because one of the branches in section 3 turns on which of the two has a relationship with the person answering.

2. The two things paragraph (c) forbids

Paragraph (c) opens with one sentence carrying two objects, and all three units are quoted below exactly as eCFR prints them. The sentence opens "No person or entity shall initiate any telephone solicitation to:" and then names the two, both of them a residential telephone subscriber: one at certain hours, one whose number is on the national registry.

The first, at (c)(1), is a clock. It reaches a call placed "before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m." — and then the parenthetical settles whose clock it is: "local time at the called party's location". Not the caller's time zone, and not the time zone the office sits in. The paragraph ends on the word "or", which is what joins it to the second object.

The second, at (c)(2), does three things in one paragraph. It names the registry — the national do-not-call registry of persons who do not wish to receive telephone solicitations, maintained by the Federal Government. It states how long a registration lasts: registrations "must be honored indefinitely, or until the registration is cancelled by the consumer or the telephone number is removed by the database administrator", so the paragraph sets no expiry a caller can wait out. And it then opens a no-liability clause, in the words "will not be liable for violating this requirement if:", whose three branches are the next section.

"Residential telephone subscriber" is not among the terms paragraph (f) defines.

3. The three branches of the no-liability clause

The clause opened at the end of (c)(2) has three branches, and the first two each end on the word "or", which is how the three are joined. All three are quoted below.

The first, at (c)(2)(i), is not one condition but two joined by "and". The caller has to be able to demonstrate that the violation is the result of error, AND that as part of its routine business practice it meets the standards that follow. Note the shape: the branch is written as an answer to a violation that has already happened, rather than as a description of calls that may be placed.

Five standards follow, at (A) through (E). Written procedures established and implemented. Personnel trained — and, in the words of the paragraph, "any entity assisting in its compliance". A recorded list of telephone numbers the seller may not contact. A process that prevents solicitations to numbers on any list established under the do-not-call rules, employing a version of the national registry "obtained from the administrator of the registry no more than 31 days prior to the date any call is made", with records documenting that process. And a process governing the database itself: not selling, renting, leasing, purchasing or using it for any purpose except compliance, purchasing access from the administrator, and not participating in any cost-sharing arrangement of the kind the paragraph describes.

eCFR prints a note after (D), quoted below, recording the date the 31-day requirement took effect and the three-month period that applied until then.

The second branch, (c)(2)(ii), is two sentences. The first states the condition — the subscriber's prior express invitation or permission. The second states what evidences it, and it is specific: "a signed, written agreement between the consumer and seller which states that the consumer agrees to be contacted by this seller and includes the telephone number to which the calls may be placed". Three separate requirements sit inside that one sentence, and a summary that stops at the word "permission" drops all three.

The third branch, (c)(2)(iii), is one line: "The telemarketer making the call has a personal relationship with the recipient of the call." Both load-bearing words are defined in the same section. "Telemarketer" is quoted in section 1, and it names the party that initiates the call rather than the party on whose behalf it is made. "Personal relationship" is at (f)(17), quoted below, and it is drawn narrowly: "any family member, friend, or acquaintance of the telemarketer making the call."

What the branches do not mention is as visible as what they do. None says anything about a referral passed along by somebody else, a name given at an open house, a lead bought from a service, or a number found in a public listing.

4. The relationship that carries two different clocks

The second carve-out in (f)(15) points at a term the section defines separately, at (f)(5). It is the longest sentence on this page and it is quoted below in full, along with the two clauses printed under it.

Read as plumbing, it has six parts. A prior or existing relationship. Formed by a voluntary two-way communication. Between a person or entity and a residential subscriber. With or without an exchange of consideration. On one of two bases. And — the closing clause, which qualifies everything before it — "which relationship has not been previously terminated by either party".

The two bases carry different periods, and the difference is the detail most often lost in retelling. On the basis of the subscriber's purchase or transaction with the entity, the period is "within the eighteen (18) months immediately preceding the date of the telephone call". On the basis of the subscriber's inquiry or application regarding products or services offered by the entity, it is "within the three months immediately preceding the date of the call". Both are measured backwards from the call rather than forwards from the event, so the same past event moves in and out of the description as time passes.

Clause (i) ties the two lists in this article together. A seller-specific do-not-call request, as set forth in paragraph (d)(3), terminates an established business relationship for purposes of telemarketing and telephone solicitation — and the clause adds "even if the subscriber continues to do business with the seller". So a request recorded on the caller's own list under paragraph (d) is given an effect inside the definition that paragraph (c) runs on.

Clause (ii) draws the edge of the relationship. It does not extend to affiliated entities unless the subscriber would reasonably expect them to be included, given the nature and type of goods or services offered by the affiliate and the identity of the affiliate.

The definition describes a relationship between a subscriber and an entity. Whether a past closing, a showing, an open-house sign-in, a form filled in on a website or a conversation at a listing appointment answers any part of that description is a question about those facts.

5. The list paragraph (d) requires a caller to keep for itself

Paragraph (d) is a different rule from paragraph (c), addressed to a different thing, and there is no registry in it at all. Its opening sentence reaches two kinds of call — an artificial or prerecorded-voice call made under an exemption in paragraphs (a)(3)(ii) through (v), and "any call for telemarketing purposes to a residential telephone subscriber" — and forbids initiating either unless the person or entity "has instituted procedures for maintaining a list of persons who request not to receive such calls made by or on behalf of that person or entity". Six minimum standards follow, and all six are quoted below.

The first two are about the program rather than the call. Both reach the prerecorded-voice callers as well as telemarketing, and neither repeats the opening sentence's residential-subscriber limit. (d)(1) requires a written policy for maintaining a do-not-call list, "available upon demand". (d)(2) requires personnel making those prerecorded-voice calls, and personnel "engaged in any aspect of telemarketing", to be informed and trained in the existence and use of that list.

(d)(3) is the longest of the six and the one an agent meets first. On receiving a request from a residential telephone subscriber not to receive calls, the request is recorded and the subscriber's name, if provided, and telephone number go on the list "at the time the request is made". The request is then honoured "within a reasonable time from the date such request is made" — and the paragraph immediately caps what reasonable can mean: "This period may not exceed ten (10) business days from the receipt of such request." Two further sentences follow in the same paragraph: where the requests are recorded or maintained by someone other than the person on whose behalf the call is made, that person is liable for any failure to honour them; and a consumer's prior express permission is required before their request is shared or forwarded outside that person and its affiliated entities.

(d)(4) is about identification, and it lists three things the called party is given: the name of the individual caller, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made, and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity may be contacted. The paragraph then limits the third: not a 900 number, and not any other number for which charges exceed local or long distance transmission charges.

(d)(5) draws the edge of a request. Absent a specific request by the subscriber to the contrary, it applies to the particular entity making the call, or on whose behalf the call is made, and does not extend to affiliated entities unless the consumer reasonably would expect them to be included — given the identification of the caller and, for telemarketing calls, the product being advertised.

(d)(6) is the duration. A record of the request is maintained, and the closing sentence is flat: "A do-not-call request must be honored for 5 years from the time the request is made."

Neither paragraph (d) nor any paragraph quoted on this page defines "business day".

6. What paragraph (e) says about wireless numbers

Paragraph (c) is written about a residential telephone subscriber, and so is the telemarketing branch of paragraph (d) — which raises an obvious question about a mobile number. Paragraph (e) is the one sentence that speaks to it, quoted below in full.

It applies the rules set forth in paragraphs (c) and (d) to telephone solicitations, telemarketing calls and text messages made to wireless telephone numbers, and then qualifies that: "to the extent described in" a Commission Report and Order which it identifies by docket number, FCC number and title.

Where each of the opening situations lands in the text

This page opened with four situations. The figure below names the words each one runs into, so the reading starts in the right place instead of at a search result.

Checking the quotes, and what they do not cover

Section 64.1200 runs from paragraph (a) to paragraph (s), three of which — (i), (j) and (q) — are marked [Reserved]. Paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) are quoted here in full: (c) with both of its numbered paragraphs, the five lettered standards under (c)(2)(i), the note the publisher prints after (D), and all three branches of the no-liability clause; (d) with all six of its numbered standards; and (e), which is one sentence. From paragraph (f), which supplies nineteen numbered definitions for the section, six are quoted — (5) with both of its clauses, (10), (12), (13), (15) with all three of its clauses, and (17). The line that opens paragraph (f) is quoted with them. Thirty-two quotations in all.

Every quote above comes from one URL, eCFR's current text of the section, and eCFR states an "as of" date for the whole title which is printed beside the entry in the source list below. That matters here: the amendment history printed at the foot of the section lists more than thirty amendments since 2003, so a frozen edition of this part would be a poor thing to read from. Each quote also carries the date it was loaded.

Real Deal Pro, Inc. is a software company. It is not a real estate brokerage, not a telemarketing service, not a lead vendor and not a law firm. The gap between "the regulation says this" and "so this call is fine" is exactly the gap a lawyer is for.

Wrapping up

The three paragraphs quoted above are one FCC regulation, and they describe two separate lists. Paragraph (c) is the national registry, plus a calling window measured in local time at the called party's location, plus a three-branch clause under which a caller is not liable. Paragraph (d) is the list the caller keeps for itself, with six minimum standards, a ten-business-day cap on honouring a request and a five-year life for it.

The two paragraphs are keyed to different terms. Paragraph (c) speaks to a "telephone solicitation", which the section defines with three things taken out of it — prior express invitation or permission, an established business relationship, and a tax-exempt nonprofit. Paragraph (d) reaches a call "for telemarketing purposes" to a residential telephone subscriber, and an artificial or prerecorded-voice call made under an exemption in paragraphs (a)(3)(ii) through (v); neither description carries those three carve-outs.

Related reading

• What fair housing advertising rules say about listing copy

  A federal rule on the words an agent may use in listing copy and advertising

• What makes an e-signature legally binding

  The federal statute on when an electronic signature counts as a signature

Sources

Every quotation above is taken from the documents below, on the date shown; the explanation around each quote is ours. Statutes are amended and uniform acts are revised — check the current text before relying on any of it.

1. [1] 47 CFR §64.1200 — Delivery restrictions (eCFR, current as of September 17, 2026) — Office of the Federal Register / Government Publishing Office, www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-64/subpart-L/section-64.1200, read September 20, 2026