Good morning. If anyone at your shop dials homeowners off a purchased list, there is a fee schedule you are supposed to be on, and the price is about to change. It is small. The thing behind it is not.
Top story — $85 an area code, from 1 October
The FTC published a final rule on 26 August updating what it charges for access to the National Do Not Call Registry (91 FR 54947). From 1 October 2026:
$85 per area code for a full year, up from $82.
$43 to add an area code during the second half of your subscription year, up from $41.
$23,425 as the maximum any single entity pays for all area codes, up from $22,626.
The increase is automatic, not a policy choice — the Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007 indexes the fee to consumer prices. The FTC shows its working in the rule: average CPI for July 2007 to June 2008 was 211.702; for July 2025 to June 2026, 333.952 — a 57.75% rise applied to the 2009 base fee of $54, which lands at $85.18 and rounds to $85.
Three dollars is not the story. The fee is the entry ticket, and the rule is written as a prohibition. Under 16 CFR 310.8, it is a violation for a seller to initiate — or to cause a telemarketer to initiate — an outbound call to anyone whose number is in a given area code unless the annual fee for that area code has already been paid. Not "unless they're on the list." Unless you paid for the area code.
Quick hits
The exemption most shops are actually relying on has two clocks. You do not need to buy registry access if you are calling solely on an established business relationship or an express written agreement. And an established business relationship has hard edges (16 CFR 310.2(q)): a purchase, rental, lease or financial transaction within the 540 days before the call, or the person's inquiry or application within the 90 days before it. Past that, a past customer is a stranger. Nine-tenths of "we only call our own list" shops are describing a list that aged out.
The safe harbor is a checklist, and "we meant well" is not on it. A seller escapes liability for an accidental call only by showing, as routine business practice (16 CFR 310.4(b)(3)): written compliance procedures, trained personnel, a maintained internal do-not-call list, a process using a registry version obtained no more than 31 days before the call with records documenting it, and active monitoring and enforcement of those procedures — with the call itself being the result of error. Miss any one of those and there is no safe harbor to argue.
The number at the end of that sentence. A Telemarketing Sales Rule violation is treated as a violation of a trade regulation rule under the FTC Act, and the maximum civil penalty under section 5(m)(1)(A) currently stands at $53,088 (16 CFR 1.98(d)). The rule's prohibitions are written per call — "to initiate an outbound telephone call." You do not need many of those to make $85 an area code look like the cheapest line in the budget.
The Tip — Run the two clocks against your call list this week
This is a spreadsheet job, not a legal project, and one afternoon closes most of the exposure.
Export every number your team calls outbound. Against each one, put the date of the last purchase, invoice or payment, and the date of the last inquiry or form fill. Anything with a transaction inside 540 days or an inquiry inside 90 days can be called on the relationship exemption. Everything else comes off the dialer today, or goes into a campaign you have actually paid and scrubbed for.
Then decide, deliberately, which shop you are. If cold calling is not really how you win work — and for most trades shops it isn't, next to reviews, referrals and paid search — stop it cleanly and write that down as policy. If it is, budget $85 per area code you serve, set a recurring reminder to pull a fresh registry file at least every 31 days, and keep the download receipts. Either answer is fine. The expensive one is the middle, where somebody dials a purchased list on a Tuesday and nobody has read the rule.
And know that the FTC rule is not the only rulebook. The FCC runs its own telephone-consumer rules under a separate statute. If you are building a calling program of any size, that is a one-time conversation with a lawyer, before you build it.
Tool watch — [Not sponsored]
The FTC publishes a plain-English "Q&A for Telemarketers & Sellers About DNC Provisions in the TSR" in its business-guidance library at ftc.gov — free, no account, written for people running a business rather than for lawyers. Registry access itself is bought and downloaded at telemarketing.donotcall.gov. Read the first, then decide whether you need the second. An hour on that page is the cheapest compliance advice in this trade.
That's the callout. See you next time.
The Callout — the business brief for the trades. We label every commercial placement: [Sponsor], [Affiliate], or [Not sponsored]. Today's Tool watch is our own honest read — no one paid for it. 231J Ramparts Road, Te Anau 9600, New Zealand · Unsubscribe anytime. Nothing in The Callout is legal advice. Telemarketing law is federal and state, and the penalties are real — take a calling program to a lawyer before you run it.
Sources: Federal Register — Telemarketing Sales Rule Fees, final rule (91 FR 54947, 26 Aug 2026) · Full text of the final rule · eCFR — 16 CFR part 310, Telemarketing Sales Rule · eCFR — 16 CFR 1.98, civil penalty amounts · FTC — Q&A for Telemarketers & Sellers About DNC Provisions in the TSR · National Do Not Call Registry — access for sellers and telemarketers