Cold calling in the UK: the TPS, PECR and what’s actually allowed

Cold calling is legal in the UK. What the law controls is who you may ring and how you present yourself, not what time the call goes out. This guide sets out the rules for live sales calls to consumers and businesses under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), with the source for each one, the fines that apply since February 2026, and a checklist to run before every calling session.

The short answer

Checked 25 September 2026. This is general information, not legal advice; the regulations have exemptions this summary leaves out, so read the linked source for anything you rely on.

Who you can’t call: the TPS, the CTPS and your own list

Regulation 21 of PECR bans unsolicited live marketing calls to two groups:

• Anyone who has told you they don’t want your calls. The objection is to you, and it stands until they withdraw it.
• Any number registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or the Corporate TPS (CTPS), the register kept under regulation 26.

There is one way back to a registered number: the person tells you they don’t object to calls from you. The ICO’s telephone marketing guidance calls this specific consent. A general agreement to hear about offers isn’t enough, and the TPS applies even to your existing customers unless they have agreed to calls from you.

TPS or CTPS?

• The TPS is for individuals, including sole traders and some partnerships. Landlines and mobiles can both be registered, and registration is free for the person being called.
• The CTPS is for companies and other corporate bodies: limited liability partnerships, Scottish partnerships and government bodies.
• For business calls, screen against both. A sole trader’s number sits on the TPS, not the CTPS, and a mobile on a B2B list is often someone’s personal line.

The 28-day rule

A number that has been on the register for less than 28 days isn’t yet protected against your calls (regulation 21(3)). Read the other way round, that’s your deadline: a list you screened more than 28 days ago may now contain numbers you can’t call. Screen right before each campaign, and at least every 28 days for any list you keep working.

How screening works

Businesses get access to the registers by licensing the data from the TPS or through a list-cleaning provider that checks your file for you. Keep your own do-not-call list as well: the ICO expects you to record everyone who asks you to stop, and to screen against that list too.

Show your number and say who you are

• Caller ID on every call. Since 16 May 2016, anyone making direct marketing calls, solicited or not, must present their number or another number they can be contacted on (regulation 21(A1)). Ringing from a withheld number breaks the rule. On an iPhone, check that Show My Caller ID is switched on in the Phone settings, where your network offers it.
• Your name, and a way to reach you. Say who is calling, and if the person asks, give an address or a freephone number (regulation 24).

Calls that need consent whatever the register says

• Recorded-message calls. A call made by an automated system that plays a recorded message needs the person’s specific consent to that kind of call. Consent to live calls isn’t enough (regulation 19).
• Claims management services. Live calls need the person’s specific consent (regulation 21A).
• Pension schemes. Marketing calls are banned unless you are a trustee or manager of the scheme or an FCA-authorised firm, and the person has consented or is an existing customer who meets strict conditions (regulation 21B).

B2B cold calling in the UK

Unlike email, where business addresses get lighter treatment, calls to businesses follow the same PECR rules as calls to individuals. The ICO puts it plainly: you can call a business number that isn’t on the TPS or CTPS, as long as that business hasn’t objected to your calls and you aren’t selling claims management services. In practice that means three checks on every B2B list: the TPS, the CTPS and your own do-not-call list.

When can you call? No clock, but not a free-for-all

UK law sets no calling hours for live sales calls, which is why our calling hours guide lists the UK as the one country without a window. Two other rules do the work instead:

• Consumer law bans persistent, unwanted calls. “Making persistent and unwanted solicitations” is on the list of commercial practices that are in all circumstances considered unfair (Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20, paragraph 28, in force since 6 April 2025).
• Ofcom can act on persistent misuse of a phone network: calls whose effect is to cause someone “annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”, repeated often enough to form a pattern (Communications Act 2003, section 128). Ofcom’s persistent misuse policy is where silent and abandoned calls from predictive diallers are dealt with.

So the working rule is courtesy with a paper trail. Keep business calls to business hours and consumer calls to civil hours, avoid early mornings, late evenings and Sundays, and spread retries across days rather than ringing the same person three times in an afternoon. For when people actually pick up, see the best time to cold call.

The fines went up in February 2026

Until this year, PECR fines were capped at £500,000. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 brought PECR enforcement into line with UK GDPR (Schedule 13), and that part came into force on 5 February 2026 (SI 2026/82). For breaches on or after that date, fines can reach £17.5 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. Breaches before it are still judged against the old ceiling. The ICO’s summary of the changes covers its other new powers.

UK numbers on your call list

• Mobiles start with 07 (+44 7 in international format), geographic numbers with 01 or 02, and 03 numbers are non-geographic but cost the same to call as 01 and 02 numbers.
• One clock. The whole UK runs on the same time (GMT in winter, BST in summer), so a domestic list needs no time-zone juggling. Overseas numbers on the same list are another matter.
• Clean before you import. One number per field, no extensions or notes in the number column, and screened against the registers first.

Estate agents, lettings and recruiters

• Valuation and canvassing calls to homeowners are consumer marketing calls, so screen against the TPS first. A past enquiry doesn’t override a TPS registration unless the person has agreed to calls from you.
• Landlords can be individuals (TPS) or companies (CTPS). Screen lettings lists against both.
• Recruiters calling hiring managers are making B2B calls: both registers, plus your own do-not-call list.

How Cold Call X fits the UK rules

Cold Call X is a power dialler for iPhone. It rings one lead at a time, from your own number over your own mobile network, with you on every call, so it doesn’t play recorded messages or leave people listening to silence. Your number shows unless you’ve hidden your caller ID. It works with UK numbers, and your leads stay on your iPhone and never touch our servers.

• Do Not Call list. Add anyone who asks you to stop and they’re blocked across every list and every future import: the do-not-call list the ICO expects you to keep.
• Calling Hours. Leads are only dialled during their own daytime, in any time zone, which keeps overseas numbers on a UK list in step.
• Call outcomes and follow-ups. Every outcome schedules the next attempt for you, with a morning reminder, which makes it easy to spread retries across days instead of redialling on the spot.

What it doesn’t do matters as much. The in-app Do Not Call list is a personal suppression list: it doesn’t check numbers against the TPS or the CTPS, so screen your file before you import it. For how the dialler works, see the iPhone dialler guide.

A UK cold calling checklist

• Screen the list against the TPS and, for business numbers, the CTPS, no more than 28 days before you call.
• Remove anyone who has asked you not to call, and add new refusals to your do-not-call list straight away.
• Make sure your number is displayed on every call.
• Open with your name and your company, and give an address or freephone number if asked.
• Don’t market claims management or pensions by phone without the consent the rules require, and don’t use recorded-message calls without specific consent.
• Keep to civil hours, and don’t ring the same person repeatedly.
• Keep a record of when you screened, and against which register.