In brief
- Since 11 August 2026, calling a private individual in France to sell them something requires their prior agreement. A law of 30 June 2025 replaced the opt-out register, Bloctel, with consent.
- Proving that agreement is your job. It names your company and what you sell and lasts one year at most. The proof must be kept for three years.
- Calls linked to a current contract and sales of newspapers and magazines are still allowed without agreement. Bloctel no longer exists.
- The law protects consumers. Calling a business contact about their work still falls under the GDPR: prior information and a right to object.
- The real work is in your call lists, where private individuals and business contacts are often mixed together.
Since 11 August 2026, cold calling a consumer in France requires their prior consent, given through a clear action, for your company and what you sell, and the burden of proof is on you. Calling a business contact about their work is still possible without that agreement, within the GDPR framework. The line between those two cases is now the first thing to check before any calling campaign.
Since 11 August 2026, silence no longer counts as agreement
French Law No. 2025-594 of 30 June 2025, known as the law against all fraud involving public aid, rewrote Article L. 223-1 of the French Consumer Code. Its Article 13 set the new wording to take effect on 11 August 2026, and a decree of 23 July 2026, in force from the same day, sets out the detail. Any business that calls people who have not asked to hear from it, directly or through a provider, is affected.
Until 10 August, a private individual who did not want sales calls had to register with Bloctel, and companies checked their lists against it. It now works the other way round: you may not make a sales call to a consumer who has not given prior consent, whether you call yourself or a third party calls on your behalf. And it is for the business to prove that consent. The decree says so in its summary: an opt-in regime replaces the opt-out list. The phone thus joins email and text messages, for which the CNIL, France’s data protection authority, notes that prospecting private individuals already requires their consent.
That consent has a prescribed form. The law requires a freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous and revocable indication of wishes, expressed through a clear affirmative act. The decree sets out what the request must contain: your identity and that of any third party who will call, the kind of goods or services concerned, the choice to accept or decline, a period of one year at most, the right to withdraw at any time and how to do it, and the right to obtain proof of consent. It cannot renew tacitly. A pre-written statement that counts as agreement without any express action does not qualify, and neither does simply continuing to browse a website.
Bloctel is gone, but the calling rules stay. Permitted hours have not changed since March 2023: Monday to Friday excluding public holidays, 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 8pm in the consumer’s time zone, with no more than four calls or attempts to the same person in thirty days. Withheld numbers remain banned. One rule has changed: if the person objects to the call continuing, you end it without delay and do not contact them again.
Exceptions to consent for cold calling in France
The first exception covers your customers. A call is still allowed if it takes place while a contract is being performed and relates to what that contract covers, including offers of complementary products or improvements. The CNIL points out that an offer unrelated to the contract falls outside the exception. On our reading, a customer whose kitchen was delivered and paid for three years ago no longer has a current contract with you.
The second covers the press: selling newspapers, periodicals or magazines remains outside the ban.
Some calls, on the other hand, stay banned even with the person’s agreement: those about work, equipment or services in a home to save energy, produce renewable energy, or adapt it for old age or disability. The decree only allows a callback to a private individual who asked for information, within five working days, about the products they asked about, keeping a record of the request for three years.
One tempting workaround is closed as well. Since 2 July 2025, the Consumer Code has banned making a sale conditional on consent to sales calls without letting the customer buy separately: the “I agree to be called” box cannot be a condition of purchase.
What if you sell to businesses?
The answer lies in one word of the law: consumer. The Consumer Code defines a consumer as a natural person acting for purposes outside their trade, business, craft, profession or farming activity. Article L. 223-1 protects that person only.
For calls to business contacts, the CNIL points to the GDPR framework. Prospecting can rest on your company’s legitimate interest when the purpose of the call relates to the person’s job, such as presenting software to a company’s IT director. The person must have been told that their number could be used for prospecting, and be able to object easily and free of charge. If the number comes from a bought list, it is up to you to check that this information was given. The CNIL recommends a tick box, unticked by default, for collecting objections.
The reform leaves the rules on business-to-business prospecting untouched. A classification mistake does cost a B2B company more, though, because on the other side of the line there is now a ban in principle. It is the same split as for email, which we cover in our article on day-to-day GDPR in marketing. And a buyer who asked for a quote is waiting for your call, as we showed for B2B selling without public prices.
Existing call lists and calls made on your behalf
The first risk lies in lists built before 11 August. A list “cleaned against Bloctel” showed that people had not objected. You now have to show that they agreed. A box ticked on an old form is not enough if the request lacked the elements the decree requires: the consumer is not treated as having consented when one of them was missing, or is missing from the proof.
Bought lists raise the same question more sharply. The consent request must state the identity of the business that will call, and on our reading an agreement given to unnamed “partners” does not cover your company. The CNIL said its guidance on passing data to partners would be completed once the implementing texts were out; on 30 September, it had not been.
The second risk lies in calls that others make for you, because handing calls to a call centre does not shift the responsibility. The law presumes that any business that profited from unlawful calls is responsible unless it shows it did not cause them, and a contract concluded following such a call is void.
Each calling situation needs its own proof
The table sets out the situations that come up most often in a small business’s calls, and what you need to be able to show for each.
| Situation | What the rules say | What you need to be able to show |
|---|---|---|
| Cold call to a private individual | Banned without prior consent since 11 August 2026, then subject to permitted hours and the limit of four attempts in thirty days | The consent: wording shown, date and time, period of one year at most |
| Call to a business contact about their work | Outside Article L. 223-1. GDPR: legitimate interest if the purpose relates to their job, prior information, easy and free objection | Where the number came from, the information given, the list of objections |
| Callback on request | On our reading, a callback form counts as consent if it carries the wording the decree requires. Energy renovation and home adaptation: callback within five working days only | The time-stamped request and the wording that went with it |
| Customer with a current contract | Allowed if the call relates to what the contract covers, including a complementary offer | The current contract and the link between the offer and its subject |
These situations sit side by side on the same call list, which is why the private or business column comes before all the others.
How do you put your call lists in order?
A spreadsheet and your forms in front of you are enough to apply the method we follow.
- Go through every call list: where the numbers came from (web form, trade show, purchase, past customers, supplier) and what dated proof goes with them. A list of unknown origin gets set aside.
- Separate private individuals from business contacts in one column, filled in row by row according to the purpose of your calls. Uncertain rows go on the private side.
- Review your forms. You need a box just for phone calls, separate from the email one, never pre-ticked, never a condition of purchase. Next to it go your name and that of any third party who will call, what you will offer, how long the agreement lasts, one year at most, how to withdraw it, and the right to obtain proof.
- For each agreement, archive digitally the wording shown, the date and the time. Keep it for three years and be able to hand it over free of charge, on a durable medium, to anyone who asks. An online access area must not force anyone to create an account. If your contact management system allows it, have it record consent channel by channel with its expiry date, and block a call to a private individual without valid agreement.
- Rewrite the call script so that the opening lines say who is calling, on whose behalf, and that the call is a sales call. A “don’t call me again” ends the call and removes the number from every campaign, including your suppliers’, because consent can be withdrawn orally. Hours and the attempt limit are enforced by your system.
- Revisit your supplier contracts: who collects consent, who keeps the proof, how a withdrawal reaches you. Ask for a sample of proofs before the first campaign.
- Before each campaign, take 20 numbers at random and, for each private individual, find the proof of their agreement: the wording they saw, the date and time, the period covered. If even one is missing, the campaign waits.
We can review your call list and your sales team’s scripts with you before your next campaign, working alongside your legal adviser on points of law. Suggest a time to meet: this work falls under our digital marketing strategy expertise.
Sources
All of these pages were opened on 30 September 2026.
- French Consumer Code, Articles L. 223-1 to L. 223-7, version in force on 11 August 2026 (version of 10 August 2026 read for comparison), Légifrance (in French). View
- Law No. 2025-594 of 30 June 2025 against all fraud involving public aid, Article 13, Official Journal of 1 July 2025, Légifrance (in French). View
- Decree No. 2026-662 of 23 July 2026 on how consumer consent to telephone sales prospecting is collected, kept and withdrawn, Official Journal of 25 July 2026, Légifrance (in French). View
- French Consumer Code, Articles R. 223-1 to D. 223-9, version in force on 30 September 2026 (Article D. 223-9 as at 10 August 2026 read for comparison), Légifrance (in French). View
- French Consumer Code, Articles L. 221-16 and L. 221-17, version in force on 30 September 2026, Légifrance (in French). View
- French Consumer Code, preliminary article (definition of a consumer), version in force on 30 September 2026, Légifrance (in French). View
- French Consumer Code, Article L. 121-11 (conditional sales), version in force on 30 September 2026, Légifrance (in French). View
- DGCCRF, “Le démarchage téléphonique désormais interdit si vous n’y avez pas consenti”, 5 August 2026 (in French). View
- Bercy infos Entreprises, “Professionnels : comment respecter la réglementation sur le démarchage téléphonique ?”, 21 August 2026 (in French). View
- Service Public, “Démarchage téléphonique interdit : quelles sont les nouvelles règles ?”, published 21 July 2026, updated 11 August 2026 (in French). View
- CNIL, “Prospection commerciale par téléphone (hors automate d’appel) : quelles sont les règles ?”, consumer and business tabs (in French). View
- CNIL, “La prospection vers les particuliers (B to C) : quelles règles pour transmettre des données à des partenaires ?” (in French). View
FAQ
Can I call a private individual to ask whether they agree to sales calls?
No. The DGCCRF, France’s consumer protection authority, says so explicitly: you cannot call a consumer to obtain their consent to sales calls. Agreement has to be collected elsewhere, and Service Public mentions a purchase, a shop visit or a form. Whatever the medium, the request must contain the elements set by the decree, and the proof must be available to the person.
Is consent collected before 11 August still valid?
The texts we read contain no transitional provision. On our reading, older consent only counts if it contains every element the decree requires, sits in a dated record and covers a period of one year at most from when it was collected. If in doubt, ask again during an exchange the person started themselves: an order or a quote request.
I call tradespeople on their mobiles: are they consumers or businesses?
None of the official sources we read deals with this exact case. On our reading, the purpose of the call decides, not the type of line: the definition of a consumer turns on the purpose for which the person is acting, and the CNIL’s test on the link with their job. Offering a plumber quoting software concerns their business, and the GDPR applies with information and a right to object. Offering them windows for their house concerns their private life, and their prior agreement is required. When you cannot tell, treat the number as a private individual’s.