Mini-TCPA state laws: what each state adds to the TCPA

The federal baseline, for comparison: no telephone solicitation before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the called party's location (47 CFR § 64.1200(c)(1)), and $500 per call or text, up to three times that ($1,500) if the court finds the violation willful or knowing. The federal rules in full are in what TCPA compliance means.

New Jersey and Oregon turn up on vendors' state lists; their statutes were not read here, so treat them as open questions for counsel. Maine is the one state outside the table read in part: its law bars a sales call to a number that has been on the national or state registry for at least three months, and requires a check of the reassigned numbers database before each sales call (10 M.R.S. § 1499-B(6)).

Florida's Telephone Solicitation Act, § 501.059, is the consent statute. A telephonic sales call is “a telephone call, text message, or voicemail transmission” to sell consumer goods or services or to gather information for a sale (§ 501.059(1)(j)), so a promotional text from a platform to a Florida number sits inside it. “Unsolicited” leaves out a call at the person's request, one about an unfinished debt or contract, and one to someone the seller has “a prior or existing business relationship” with (§ 501.059(1)(k)); the section does not define that relationship.

The written agreement must bear the person's signature, authorise sales calls by call, text or voicemail using the listed technologies, include the number, and say that signing is not a condition of buying (§ 501.059(1)(g)). The signature is generous: it includes “checking a box indicating consent or responding affirmatively to receiving text messages” (§ 501.059(1)(h)). The TCPA consent form builder has a state option that adds Florida's technology list.

The text-message step before a suit

Before suing over text solicitations, the person must reply STOP to the number that texted. The seller then has 15 days to stop and may send a text confirming it got the notice; a suit lies only for texts that keep coming after those 15 days (§ 501.059(10)(c)).

Hours and the three-call cap

The hours sit in the telemarketing licensing part of chapter 501. Its exemption section, § 501.604, lists 28 kinds of seller the part does not cover, but keeps § 501.616(6) and (7) for all of them.

Florida also keeps its own “no sales solicitation calls” list, which takes in the Florida numbers on the national registry (§ 501.059(3)), and a request to stop covers that seller's calls, texts and voicemail (§ 501.059(5)). A call to any Florida area code is presumed to reach a Florida resident (§ 501.059(8)(d)). The Do Not Call guide for business covers the federal lists these sit beside.

The exits matter more than the copying. A retailer that has run a store under the same name for at least a year, where most of its business happens at the store, is outside Oklahoma's act altogether (§ 775C.5(21)), and so is a business contacting people who “have previously purchased” from it (§ 775C.5(20)). Maryland's exemptions reach only its consent rule: the hours and the three-call cap apply to every telephone solicitation, and the subtitle cannot be waived by agreement except in a settlement (§ 14-4503(d)).

Oklahoma also runs a state no-call registry under its older Telemarketer Restriction Act: no unsolicited sales call or text to a listed number more than 30 days after it first appears, unless you have an established business relationship, which that act measures over 24 months (§§ 775B.2(3), 775B.6). State lists are a scrubbing feature to check when you compare DNC scrubbing software.

Washington's text rule is the bluntest. No person doing business in the state may send, or help send, a commercial text to a Washington resident's cell number (RCW 19.190.060(1)) unless the person “clearly and affirmatively consented in advance” (RCW 19.190.070(1)(b)). A violation is a Consumer Protection Act violation, and the recipient's damages are “$100, or actual damages, whichever is greater” (RCW 19.190.040(1), as amended in 2026 for suits filed on or after 2026-06-11).

Virginia's rule changes how you read replies: for a text, the stop request is a reply of UNSUBSCRIBE or STOP, and it holds for at least 10 years (§ 59.1-514(A)). The federal side of texting is in TCPA rules for text messages, and the reply words carriers expect are in SMS opt-out keywords.

One window clears every listed state: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, Monday to Saturday, and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday. The clock is the recipient's, not your office's. Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland presume a call to an in-state area code reaches someone in the state, so a Florida number gets the Florida window even if your records say Ohio; when the area code and the address disagree, send only in the hours both allow.

The three-call cap in Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland counts calls to one person “on the same subject matter or issue” in 24 hours, whatever number they come from, so a fourth attempt on the same matter inside the day breaks it even from a fresh caller ID. Set the cap in the dialer, not in a training slide; the TCPA-compliant auto dialer comparison checks which dialers hold a calling window by the recipient's time zone.

• Florida, Oklahoma, Maryland. Written consent for a sales call by “an automated system for the selection or dialing of telephone numbers” (Florida: “selection and dialing”) or a recorded message. Nothing in those words asks for a random or sequential number generator.
• Connecticut. The widest: no telephonic sales call at all without prior express written consent (§ 42-288a(l)), whatever the technology, and the agreement must name the means of contact, from a live call to text messaging, and the number (§ 42-284(14)). The exits are in the definition: a reply to the consumer's own request, an existing customer who has not asked you to stop, a business-to-business contact (§ 42-284(18)(B)).
• Virginia and South Carolina. Written permission is a way out, not a mandate: a signed (South Carolina adds e-signed) agreement naming “a specific party” and the number takes a contact outside the do-not-call rules (Va. § 59.1-514(D)) or the act (S.C. § 37-21-20(6)(b)). A consent that names no particular business would struggle to meet those words.
• Washington. For commercial texts, consent given “clearly and affirmatively” and “in advance” (RCW 19.190.070(1)(b)).
• Minnesota. For a recorded-message device, the subscriber “knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message”, or a live operator asks first (§ 325E.27(a)).

The federal elements, and how a ticked box becomes a signature, are in prior express written consent; the federal autodialer test is in what counts as an autodialer. For a signed consent with the written-consent wording on by default, start from the SMS consent form template.

Read the conditions before the numbers. Washington's call damages need “repeated violations” and count voice calls only. Florida's text claims need a STOP and 15 more days of texts. South Carolina lets a seller show the violation “was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error” (§ 37-21-80(E)), and both South Carolina and Virginia give an affirmative defence to a seller with reasonable procedures and a registry copy no more than 31 days old (§ 37-21-70(C), § 59.1-514(C)).

Some teams also screen out frequent plaintiffs before a campaign; the TCPA compliance software comparison covers the tools that scrub for them alongside state lists.

For a business that texts its own customers, the exemptions often do the work. Texas exempts a business soliciting former or current customers if it has operated under the same name for at least two years (§ 302.058(2)); Washington leaves out a person “soliciting business solely from purchasers who have previously purchased” from the business (RCW 19.158.020(2)(b)(iii)). A business that buys lists or texts strangers rarely fits. Texas puts the burden of proving an exemption on whoever claims it (§ 302.051) and treats a chapter 302 violation as a deceptive trade practice (§ 302.303), so write down which exemption you rely on and why.

For any state outside the table, read its statute before your first send there; the states not yet read are listed under the table. More calling guides are in the calling hub. This is not legal advice.

1. Fla. Stat. § 501.059, Telephone solicitation (2026 Florida Statutes)fetched 2026-10-22
2. Fla. Stat. § 501.604, Exemptionsfetched 2026-10-22
3. Fla. Stat. § 501.605, Licensure of commercial telephone sellersfetched 2026-10-22
4. Fla. Stat. § 501.611, Securityfetched 2026-10-22
5. Fla. Stat. § 501.616, Unlawful acts and practicesfetched 2026-10-22
6. Oklahoma Statutes, Title 15 compiled (Telemarketer Restriction Act § 775B; Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022 § 775C)fetched 2026-10-22
7. Md. Code, Com. Law § 14-4501, Definitionsfetched 2026-10-22
8. Md. Code, Com. Law § 14-4502 (consent, caller ID, hours and call cap)fetched 2026-10-22
9. Md. Code, Com. Law § 14-4503 (private action and area-code presumption)fetched 2026-10-22
10. Conn. Gen. Stat. chapter 743m, Telemarketing (§§ 42-284 to 42-289)fetched 2026-10-22
11. RCW 80.36.390, Telephone solicitationfetched 2026-10-22
12. Chapter 19.158 RCW, Commercial telephone solicitationfetched 2026-10-22
13. Chapter 19.190 RCW (commercial email and text messages)fetched 2026-10-22
14. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 301, Telephone solicitation practicesfetched 2026-10-22
15. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 302, Regulation of telephone solicitationfetched 2026-10-22
16. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 305, Telephonic communications made for purpose of solicitationfetched 2026-10-22
17. Minn. Stat. § 325E.26, Definitionsfetched 2026-10-22
18. Minn. Stat. § 325E.27, Use of prerecorded or synthesized voice messagesfetched 2026-10-22
19. Minn. Stat. § 325E.30, Time of day limitfetched 2026-10-22
20. Minn. Stat. § 325E.31, Remediesfetched 2026-10-22
21. Va. Code § 59.1-510, Definitionsfetched 2026-10-22
22. Va. Code § 59.1-511 (calling hours)fetched 2026-10-22
23. Va. Code § 59.1-514, Unwanted telephone solicitations prohibitedfetched 2026-10-22
24. Va. Code § 59.1-515, Individual action for damagesfetched 2026-10-22
25. S.C. Code ch. 37-21, South Carolina Telephone Privacy Protection Actfetched 2026-10-22
26. 10 M.R.S. § 1499-B (Maine do-not-call and reassigned numbers)fetched 2026-10-22
27. 47 U.S.C. § 227 (govinfo, 2023 edition)fetched 2026-10-22
28. 47 CFR § 64.1200 (eCFR, current as of 2026-10-20)fetched 2026-10-22
29. Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, No. 19-511 (U.S. Apr. 1, 2021)fetched 2026-10-22