Calling businesses to offer business products and services is legal in both countries, and it's one of the most effective ways to sell to local businesses. But "B2B" isn't a free pass. Both countries have rules about how you call, when you call and what happens when someone asks you to stop.
Canada
The National Do Not Call List
The National DNCL rules are aimed at calls to consumers. Telemarketing calls made to a business are generally exempt from the National DNCL rules — but that exemption doesn't cover everything. Many small businesses use a personal cell phone as their business line, so treat any number that looks residential with care.
Telemarketing rules still apply
The CRTC's Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules include telemarketing requirements that apply more broadly. In practice:
- Identify yourself and who you're calling for at the start of the call, and give contact information if asked.
- Keep your own internal do-not-call list. If someone asks not to be called again, add them and honour it.
- Respect calling hours. The rules restrict telemarketing calls to 9am–9:30pm on weekdays and 10am–6pm on weekends (recipient's local time). For businesses, you'll want normal business hours anyway.
- Be careful with automated dialing and prerecorded messages, which have their own stricter rules.
United States
The National Do Not Call Registry
The federal Do Not Call Registry is for consumers' personal numbers. Calls to businesses are generally not covered by the Registry. As in Canada, the catch is that many owner-operators use a cell phone as the business line, so a "business" number can still be someone's personal phone.
The TCPA and cell phones
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act restricts calls and texts made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice, especially to cell phones, without prior consent. Manually dialed, live calls to business numbers are on much safer ground. Automated texts and robocalls to cell phones are where most B2B senders get into trouble. Penalties are set per call, so they add up fast.
State laws
Several states have their own telemarketing laws with registration requirements, calling-hour limits or stricter consent rules, and some apply to B2B calls. If you call a lot in one state, check its rules.
Habits that keep you safe in both countries
- Dial manually or with a click-to-call dialer, not a robodialer, unless you've had the setup reviewed.
- Say who you are and why you're calling in the first ten seconds.
- Keep an internal do-not-call list, check it before every campaign, and share it across your team and tools.
- Call during business hours in the recipient's time zone.
- Don't text cold numbers without consent.
- Keep records: where the number came from, when you called and what happened.