State calling hours that are stricter than federal law

The states that ask for more than the federal rule

Federal rules allow telemarketing calls between 8:00 and 21:00 in the called person’s local time. Twenty-five states in ACR’s rule set go further: a later start, an earlier finish, banned days, or a cap on calls to one number. Here is every one, with the text we read.

How ACR combines your schedule, the law and blocked states

Every call and text is checked again just before it goes out. Three layers must all allow that minute:

• Your campaign schedule. The recommended schedule allows 8:00 to 21:00 local time, every day. A custom schedule sets its own days and hours, or runs around the clock.
• The legal floor: the federal window plus every row above that matches the shopper. It is always on, and a custom schedule cannot widen it.
• Blocked states, under the recommended schedule only. Texas gets no calls or texts while that schedule is on, though email still goes out.

Take a shopper in Pennsylvania whose next call is due at 19:20 on a Saturday. The recommended schedule would allow it, but Pennsylvania stops at 19:00 and bans Sundays, so the call waits until 9:00 on Monday, or later if Monday is a legal holiday. Where a state caps calls, the next call waits until the oldest call inside the window is more than 24 hours old, or 8 hours in Maine.

The federal window applies to texts as well as calls in ACR, and so do the Connecticut, Louisiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah rows. The other rows cover calls only. Why Texas is blocked has a post of its own.

How ACR finds the shopper's local time

ACR uses the time zone stored on the lead when there is one. It also notes the state on the shipping address and the state of the phone number’s area code, and when those differ, both states’ rules apply. A Texas number with an Ohio shipping address is treated as Texas as well. With no stored time zone, ACR takes the zones of those states, then the country’s zones, and finally your store’s own.

When a state spans more than one time zone, a minute has to be allowed in all of them. Times are worked out in the shopper’s named time zone, never a fixed offset, so the switch to and from daylight saving time is handled. That is also why the Mississippi row starts at 9:00: during daylight saving time, 8:00 Central Standard Time is 9:00 on the clock, and ACR uses 9:00 all year.

Four rows are a precaution

California, Illinois, Nebraska and Maine regulate calls from equipment that plays a recorded message. California’s definition speaks of delivering “a prerecorded message”, Illinois’s autodialer connects a phone “with a recorded message”, Nebraska’s rule covers a device that “automatically plays a recorded message”, and Maine’s covers equipment that “plays recorded messages”.

An AI agent generates its speech during the call, so those words may not reach it. Because the FCC treats AI voices as artificial voices under federal law, ACR applies the four states’ hours anyway. That is our caution, and none of those texts says it. Indiana is different: its law names “a prerecorded or synthesized voice message”, so we read it as covering AI calls directly.

What the table leaves out

• Exceptions. Utah’s hours bind calls made “without prior express consent”, and Oregon’s do not apply where there is an established business relationship, which its law defines as a transaction in the past 18 months. ACR applies the hours to every shopper anyway.
• Older texts. Kentucky comes from its 2019 session law, Indiana from its 2016 code, New Mexico and Wyoming from 2003 bills, and Connecticut, Illinois and Mississippi from FindLaw copies current to 1 January 2025. A later amendment would not show here.
• States not listed. Kansas and South Carolina were read and match the federal window. Nineteen other states and DC were set to federal hours from a vendor summary, without opening each statute, so a stricter rule there would be missed until someone checks.

The table is ACR’s rule set and our reading of each source as of 7 November 2026. Laws change and several carry exceptions we do not model, so read it as a description of how the product behaves and not as legal advice. Every default is listed on the compliance page.