Adding Canada or Australia: a short brief before you call or text

Before you switch a country on

This brief describes ACR and the rules we could read on 7 November 2026. It is meant to help you plan; it is not legal advice for either country.

Country permissions

Each campaign has its own country list under Geo Permissions, with calls and texts switched separately. ACR takes the country from the shopper’s address, or from a North American area code when there is no address. A shopper in a country you have not allowed is skipped for calls and texts, and so is one whose country ACR cannot work out. The reason goes into their history in Leads.

Canada

Calling hours. For calls, ACR’s legal floor for Canada allows 9:00 to 21:30 on weekdays and 10:00 to 18:00 on weekends, in the shopper’s local time. Our research took these hours from the CRTC’s Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. The CRTC’s website refused our automated requests while we wrote this, so we have not linked it; check the current rules on the CRTC site yourself. Texts to Canada follow your campaign schedule.

The National Do Not Call List. According to the list operator’s FAQ, an organization that has telemarketing done on its behalf must register, and one on whose behalf calls that are not exempt are made must also subscribe to the list. The rules prohibit calling numbers that have been on the list for more than 31 days. The exemptions page includes an existing business relationship, meaning a purchase, lease or rental in the past 18 months or an inquiry or application in the past six months, and express consent, given on a written, electronic or online form, or given verbally and recorded or verified by an independent third party. Even exempt callers keep an internal do-not-call list, honor requests within 14 days and keep the number on it for three years.

Texts and email to Canadian shoppers fall under CASL, which needs consent before the message goes; our email consent post compares it with the US and Australian laws.

Australia

Calling hours. Section 8 of the Telemarketing and Research Calls Industry Standard 2017 allows telemarketing calls from 9:00 to 20:00 on weekdays and from 9:00 to 17:00 on Saturdays, measured at the account holder’s usual home address. It bans calls on Sundays, on New Year’s Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and on any weekday given in lieu of one of them. State-only public holidays are not covered, but a state law that bans other days still applies. The Register lists the standard as in force with no amendments, and the ACMA’s Do Not Call Register site says it applies even to numbers that are not on the register.

ACR applies these hours and days to calls, including the weekday holidays in lieu, such as a Monday Anzac Day holiday in the states that give one. The standard lifts the limits when the account holder gave express consent in advance. ACR keeps applying them anyway.

The Do Not Call Register. The Do Not Call Register Act 2006 counts a call with a recorded or synthetic voice as a voice call, so an AI recovery call to an Australian number can be a telemarketing call under it. Such a call must not go to a number on the register unless the account holder or their nominee consented.

Texts and email. The Spam Act 2003 covers both. A commercial message needs the recipient’s consent, has to identify who authorised it and how to reach them, and must offer a working unsubscribe. The Industry Standard is about calls, so texts to Australia follow your campaign schedule.

What to do, since ACR does not check registries

1. Keep Require consent on. Calls and texts then go only to shoppers with a recorded opt-in for that channel, and both countries’ registry rules allow calls made with the person’s consent.
2. If you plan to call anyone without consent on record, register or subscribe with the registry operator yourself, check those numbers, and add every registered one to your suppression list before the campaign reaches it.
3. Until that is done, leave calls switched off for the country under Geo Permissions. Texts can stay on for shoppers who opted in.

Our acceptable use policy asks the same thing in plainer terms: contact shoppers only on channels they agreed to, and keep the record. The full set of defaults is on the compliance page. To plan a launch in either country with us, book a call.