Florida Telephone Solicitation Act: The Rules for Sales Calls and Texts to Florida Numbers

The table lists the main points with the subsection each comes from. Section numbers refer to the Florida Statutes as published on the Florida Legislature's site in November 2026.

Two sections do the work. Section 501.059 is the Telephone Solicitation Act. Section 501.616 sits in the Florida Telemarketing Act and sets calling hours and a frequency limit for commercial telephone sellers and salespersons.

The Act's central term is the telephonic sales call. The statute defines it as a telephone call, text message or voicemail transmission to a consumer for the purpose of soliciting a sale, and it also reaches calls that seek information to be used for the direct solicitation of a sale or an extension of credit. Text messages are named in the definition itself, so no court ruling is needed to bring them in.

The person protected is the called party, defined as a person who is the regular user of the telephone number that receives the call. That is the person who uses the phone, who may not be the account holder.

Location is handled by a presumption. Subsection (8)(d) says there is a rebuttable presumption that a telephonic sales call made to any area code in Florida is made to a Florida resident or to a person in the state at the time of the call. A business outside Florida that texts a Florida area code therefore starts inside the Act unless it can show otherwise.

Subsection (8)(a) bars a person from making or knowingly allowing a telephonic sales call if the call involves 'an automated system for the selection and dialing of telephone numbers' or the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed, without the prior express written consent of the called party. In the current text the bar applies to unsolicited calls.

That wording is different from federal law. The federal statute defines an automatic telephone dialing system as equipment with the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator, and to dial them. Florida's definition has no random or sequential element. It asks whether a system selects and dials.

The statute's history line lists chapter laws from 2021 and 2023 as the two most recent amendments. A vendor-maintained state tracker we reviewed gives 1 July 2021 as the effective date of the 2021 rewrite and 25 May 2023 as the date of the amendment that changed the wording to selection 'and' dialing. We read the current statute but did not open the 2023 session law, so the amendment date is as reported by that tracker. Whether a particular texting or dialing platform meets the definition is a question for counsel.

The Act has its own definition of prior express written consent. It is a written agreement that bears the signature of the called party, clearly authorizes the person making the call to deliver a telephonic sales call by telephone call, text message or voicemail transmission using an automated system or a recorded message, and includes the telephone number to which the called party authorizes the call. It must also include a clear and conspicuous disclosure telling the called party that they are not required to sign the agreement as a condition of purchasing any property, goods or services.

The definition of signature is broad. It includes an electronic or digital signature recognized as valid under federal law or state contract law. It also includes an act that demonstrates express consent, including checking a box indicating consent or responding affirmatively to receiving text messages.

The structure follows the federal definition in 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(9) closely. The difference is where it sits. The federal writing requirement is an FCC rule, and in February 2026 the Fifth Circuit held the FCC lacked authority to add it. Florida's requirement is written into the state statute, so a ruling about the FCC's authority does not address it.

These limits are in section 501.616, which applies to a 'commercial telephone seller or salesperson'. Subsection (6)(a) bars a commercial telephone solicitation phone call before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. local time in the called person's time zone. The federal rule, by comparison, runs to 9 p.m. at the called party's location, so Florida's window closes an hour earlier.

Subsection (6)(b) bars more than three commercial telephone solicitation phone calls from any number to a person over a 24-hour period on the same subject matter or issue, regardless of the phone number used to make the call. Switching caller IDs does not reset the count.

Subsection (10)(c) applies to text message solicitations. Before bringing an action, the called party must notify the telephone solicitor that they do not wish to receive text messages by replying 'STOP' to the number from which they received the texts. Within 15 days after receiving that notice, the solicitor must cease sending text message solicitations to the called party, apart from one text confirming receipt of the notice.

The called party may bring an action only if they do not consent to receive text messages from the solicitor and the solicitor continues to send texts 15 days after the notice. This step applies to texts. The subsection does not describe a similar notice step for voice calls.

The provision makes the timestamp of a STOP reply a central record. A sender that can show when the STOP arrived and when the last text went out can show which side of the 15 days it falls on. Federal rules run on their own clock: the FCC's revocation rule sets a limit of ten business days. The two periods are counted differently, so a sender covered by both has two dates to track.

Subsection (10)(a) lets a called party who is aggrieved by a violation bring an action to enjoin the violation and to recover actual damages or 500 dollars, whichever is greater. Under (10)(b), if the court finds the defendant willfully or knowingly violated the section, it may increase the award to not more than three times that amount.

The state has its own tools. Subsection (9) provides for a civil penalty in the Class IV category under section 570.971 for each violation, or an administrative fine in the Class III category. Section 570.971 describes Class III as a fine not to exceed 10,000 dollars and Class IV as a fine of 10,000 dollars or more.

The federal statute has a savings clause at 47 U.S.C. 227(f)(1). With stated exceptions, it says the federal law does not preempt state laws that impose more restrictive intrastate requirements. A state statute such as Florida's therefore operates alongside the federal rules.

That matters more after 2026. On 14 July 2026 the Seventh Circuit held in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services that marketing texts are not 'telephone calls' for the federal private do-not-call claim. Holland & Knight's summary notes that state telephone solicitation statutes, including the Florida Act cited in that case, may still provide remedies for unwanted texts.

Each element of the Act maps to a record. The list below follows the statute's own terms. It describes what the text makes relevant and is not a statement of what any particular business must keep.

• The consent agreement as displayed, with the number, the signature act and the not-a-condition-of-purchase disclosure
• The date and time of each STOP reply, and of the last message sent afterward
• Every do-not-call request, in any channel, and when each system honored it
• The called person's time zone and the basis for it, with the local time of each call
• A per-person count of sales calls in each 24-hour period, across all outbound numbers
• Whether each number has a Florida area code, and any evidence the person is elsewhere