Sphere outreach happens on the phone, inside a regulatory regime most agents underestimate. This guide covers what the Do-Not-Call and TCPA rules actually say — every claim cited to the statute, regulation, or court opinion itself, not to a blog quoting a blog.
Educational information, not legal advice. Last verified July 29, 2026.
Yes — whenever the call offers your services. The rules never mention real estate; they turn on what the call is for.
Federal law defines a “telephone solicitation” as a call or message “for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services.” A cold call offering to list a home, run a CMA, or “help you sell” is an offer of your brokerage services — the homeowner would be purchasing those services — so it is a solicitation under both the FCC’s and the FTC’s definitions. Your license, your industry, and the phone you dial from change nothing.
The flip side is honest too: a purely informational call, with no direct or indirect sales pitch, is not covered. But the FTC’s guidance is blunt about mixed calls — a call that combines information with any direct or indirect sales element is covered, and callers “purporting to take a survey, but also offering to sell goods or services, must comply with the do not call provisions.”
Agents often distinguish “I have a buyer interested in your home” (the owner is not being asked to buy anything) from “I’d like to list your home” (the owner is being sold your services). That is how the definitions read — but there is no agent-specific federal guidance or court decision squarely on point, and a “buyer call” whose real purpose is winning the listing is a solicitation. Take the conservative path and treat registry numbers as off-limits for prospecting either way.
Four numbers that set the stakes for every prospecting call an agent makes.
active registrations on the National Do Not Call Registry as of September 30, 2025 — 4.7 million numbers were added in FY2025 alone. Odds are a large share of your sphere is on it.
FTC DNC Registry Data Book FY2025maximum FTC civil penalty per illegal call, set by the January 2025 inflation adjustment and unchanged for 2026 — the FTC published a no-adjustment notice in July 2026. Each call is a separate violation.
90 FR 4820 (Jan. 17, 2025) — civil penalty adjustment 91 FR (July 7, 2026) — no 2026 adjustmentper call or text under the TCPA’s private right of action: $500 per violation, up to treble damages for willful or knowing violations. A consumer who gets more than one DNC-violating call from you in 12 months can sue directly.
47 U.S.C. § 227 (TCPA)maximum age of the registry version you scrub against, at the time of each call, to qualify for the federal safe harbor — alongside written procedures, training, an internal do-not-call list, and monitoring.
16 CFR § 310.4 (TSR DNC rules)The registry is not absolute. Three carve-outs do real work for agents — each one narrower than the version that circulates in sales training.
A past client is callable even on the registry — for a while. The window runs roughly 18 months (540 days under the FTC’s current rule text; the FCC rule says 18 months) from the last purchase, payment, or transaction, and about 3 months (90 days in the FTC text) from an inquiry or application.
A closing starts the clock. A lead who filled out a form is callable for about three months.
The boundary: sphere contacts with no transaction and no inquiry have no EBR at all, and a single “please don’t call me again” ends the EBR immediately — the FTC’s own guidance says the company may not call even with an established business relationship.
16 CFR § 310.2 (TSR definitions)Signed, written permission beats the registry. To count, the agreement must clearly authorize calls from your specific business, include the specific telephone number to be called, and carry the person’s signature — a valid electronic signature works.
A generic “contact me” checkbox naming nobody in particular does not meet that description.
The boundary: consent is party-specific and revocable. It authorizes you, at that number, until they say stop — it is not transferable and it does not cover a team member’s separate pitch.
16 CFR § 310.4 (TSR DNC rules)The FCC’s rule excuses a registry violation when the caller has a personal relationship with the recipient, defined as “any family member, friend, or acquaintance of the telemarketer making the call.”
That covers genuinely personal ties of the person dialing.
The boundary: the exemption belongs to the individual making the call — it does not stretch to an assistant or ISA calling your friends — the FTC’s parallel rule contains no personal-relationship exception at all, and whether a database entry is really an “acquaintance” is a fact question. A 500-person sphere is not automatically 500 personal relationships.
47 CFR § 64.1200 (FCC rules)One more that surprises agents: business-to-business calls are largely exempt from the federal DNC provisions, so agent-to-agent referral calls or calling a lender’s office about business sit outside the registry regime. A colleague’s personal cell is only safely “a business number” when the call is about business. 16 CFR § 310.6 (TSR exemptions)
Agents assume texting is the low-risk channel. Under the rules as written, it is the same channel.
The FCC’s rules say it directly: “the term ‘call’ includes a text message, including a short message service (SMS) call.” Cell numbers can be — and mostly are — on the DNC registry, so a marketing text to a registered number carries the same DNC exposure as a dial, and the TCPA’s $500-to-$1,500 private action applies per text.
Automated or prerecorded informational messages to a cell need prior express consent; anything that includes or introduces marketing needs prior express written consent. A live, manually sent text needs no consent tier of its own — but the DNC registry and any opt-out still govern it. The Supreme Court’s Duguid decision narrowed only what counts as an autodialer; it did not touch the DNC or solicitation rules.
If you saw panic marketing about a new one-to-one consent requirement: it never took effect. The Eleventh Circuit vacated the FCC’s rule on January 24, 2025, days before its effective date, and the FCC deleted the vacated text from its rules in 2025. The pre-2023 prior-express-written-consent standard governs. Content still claiming 1:1 consent is required is out of date.
Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025)
90 FR 42137 (Aug. 29, 2025) — rule text deleted
Since April 2025, consumers may revoke consent “using any reasonable method” — including replies like STOP, QUIT, END, REVOKE, OPT OUT, CANCEL, or UNSUBSCRIBE — and the revocation must be honored within ten business days at most. Don’t lawyer the scope: treat any STOP-style reply as stop-everything. The one open question, about revocations crossing message types, is waived only until January 31, 2027.
89 FR 15756 (Mar. 5, 2024) — FCC consent-revocation order
FCC Order DA 26-12 (Jan. 6, 2026)
Federal law is the floor, not the ceiling. A growing set of “mini-TCPA” states adds its own liability on top — three examples, in one line each.
Florida — the FTSA covers calls, texts, and voicemails by name, requires prior express written consent for calls made with covered automated systems, runs its own state no-call list alongside the federal registry, and gives consumers a $500-to-$1,500 private right of action. Its business-relationship carve-out has no stated time limit on its face — but the federal 18-month/540-day limits still apply to the same call. Fla. Stat. § 501.059 (FTSA)
Texas — telephone solicitation into or from Texas can require a registration certificate and a $10,000 security with the Secretary of State, some exemptions may apply, and violations carry criminal and deceptive-trade-practices exposure. Since September 1, 2025, “telephone solicitation” expressly includes text and image messages. Whether registration reaches your specific practice is a question for a Texas attorney. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 302 Texas SB 140 (2025), enrolled text
Washington — the statute names real estate agents directly: each individual agent who keeps a separate call list is treated as the soliciting company. Solicitation calls must stop by 8 p.m. local time (an hour earlier than federal), the federal registry is incorporated into state law, and a separate statute restricts commercial texts promoting real property, with courts awarding at least $1,000 per violation in repeated-violation suits. RCW 80.36.390 RCW 19.190.060 (CEMA)
State telemarketing statutes genuinely differ — consent standards, calling hours, penalties, and who the exemptions cover. We are building dedicated per-state pages with the same primary-source standard as this guide. Until yours is live, the safe reading is simple: complying with the federal rules is the start of the analysis in these states, not the end of it.
Six things said out loud in real estate offices every week, each checked against the rule text cited on this page.
“They’re a past client, I can always call.”
The exemption expires: roughly 18 months (540 days under the FTC’s rule text) from the last transaction or payment, about 3 months from an inquiry. And any direct “don’t call me” request ends it on the spot.
16 CFR § 310.2 (TSR definitions)“Texting is safer than calling.”
Backwards. Texts are “calls” under the FCC’s rules, Florida’s statute names text messages and attaches a private right of action per text, Texas added texts to its telemarketing law effective September 2025, and Washington restricts unsolicited commercial texts outright.
47 CFR § 64.1200 (FCC rules)“It’s my personal cell, so it’s a personal call.”
Coverage turns on the call’s purpose — inducing a purchase of your services — not on the device or who owns it. Washington goes further and treats each individual agent who keeps their own list as the soliciting company.
RCW 80.36.390“The friends-and-family thing covers my whole sphere.”
The FCC exception is real but narrow: family members, friends, or acquaintances of the person making the call. It is personal to the caller, fact-dependent, and absent from the FTC’s rule entirely.
47 CFR § 64.1200 (FCC rules)“FSBOs and expireds are fair game — they advertised.”
A yard sign is not an invitation under the federal rules. If the number is on the registry and you are pitching your services, the prohibition applies. Florida’s yard-sign carve-out for licensees reaches only Florida’s own state list, not the national registry.
16 CFR § 310.4 (TSR DNC rules)“I scrubbed once when I imported my database.”
The safe harbor requires a registry version no more than 31 days old at the time of each call, plus written procedures, training, an internal do-not-call list, and monitoring. A one-time scrub preserves nothing.
16 CFR § 310.4 (TSR DNC rules)The opposite error is real too: one honest mistake is not bankruptcy. The rules build in defenses for people running a genuine compliance process — the written-procedures safe harbor, the TCPA’s more-than-one-call-in-12-months predicate and its reasonable-practices defense. Systems, not panic. 47 U.S.C. § 227 (TCPA)
Compliance is a process problem, and processes are what software is for.
If someone is on the Do Not Call list, SphereSync flags it visibly on the contact, and numbers are re-checked on a 31-day cycle — the same freshness the federal safe harbor is built around.
So you pick the right channel — call, text, email, or a note — before you reach out. Help, not legal advice.
The weekly call list is built from a database where every number carries its DNC status in plain sight. No exporting to a scrubbing service, no second-guessing every number in your phone — the information to choose the right channel is already on the contact when their name comes up.
14 days free · no credit card · optional onboarding call whenever you want one.
Short answers, each drawn from the rules cited above. When in doubt, read the section — then ask an attorney.
Not to pitch your services, unless an exemption applies. Federal rules allow the call only with the person’s express written agreement, an unexpired established business relationship, or — under the FCC’s rule only — a genuine personal relationship with the person making the call. Outside those, an agent risks FTC penalties of up to $53,088 per call plus private TCPA suits.
Roughly 18 months from the last transaction or payment — the FTC’s rule text states the window as 540 days, the FCC’s as 18 months. After that, the established business relationship exemption is gone even for past clients. And if they ask you to stop, the exemption ends immediately.
Yes. The FCC’s rules state that the term “call” includes a text message, so a marketing text to a DNC-registered number carries the same exposure as a call. Several states — Florida, Texas, and Washington among them — regulate marketing texts even more strictly than federal law does.
The federal safe harbor requires using a version of the registry no more than 31 days old at the time of each call, with records documenting the process. A one-time scrub when you imported your database preserves nothing. Written procedures, training, and an internal do-not-call list are also required parts of the safe harbor.
The FTC can seek civil penalties of up to $53,088 per illegal call, and the TCPA gives consumers a private right of action worth $500 to $1,500 per call or text. Florida, Texas, and Washington add their own state-law liability on top of the federal rules.
Not to pitch your listing services — a yard sign is not an invitation under the federal rules. Florida has a carve-out for licensees responding to a seller’s advertisement, but it applies only to Florida’s own state no-call list, not the national registry. If the number is registered and the call offers your services, the federal prohibition applies.
A signed written agreement — a valid electronic signature counts — that clearly authorizes calls from your specific business and includes the specific number to be called. For marketing robocalls or robotexts, the FCC requires this prior express written consent. Consent is party-specific and can be revoked at any time.
Stop contacting them. FCC rules let consumers revoke consent in any reasonable manner — including replies like STOP, QUIT, CANCEL, or UNSUBSCRIBE — and require the revocation to be honored within at most ten business days. The safe practice is to treat any STOP-style reply as stop-everything, across every campaign.