What time can a business text customers?
Under federal rules, a business can send marketing texts between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient's local time. Some states are stricter: Florida and Oklahoma set 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for sales calls. Appointment reminders and other informational texts are not covered by the federal hours rule, but sending them inside the same window is the safe habit.
The federal rule is in the FCC's regulations at 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1): "No person or entity shall initiate any telephone solicitation to any residential telephone subscriber before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party's location)." It says "telephone solicitation", but texts count. The FCC treats a text message as a call under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the US Supreme Court accepted that reading in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez in 2016.
This page is general information for business owners, not legal advice. It covers the rules most service businesses meet when they automate texting in a CRM, and how to set your automation so it never sends at the wrong hour.
Whose time zone counts?
The recipient's. The rule says "local time at the called party's location", so a text sent at 8:30 p.m. from California reaches a New York customer at 11:30 p.m. and breaks the rule. Your automation has to schedule by each contact's time zone, not by your office clock.
That is harder than it sounds, because a phone number's area code does not tell you where the person is today. Someone who moved from Miami to Denver keeps a 305 number. Three practical rules cover it:
- Store a time zone on every contact. Take it from the address or the booking form when you have one.
- When it is unknown, use the narrowest window. Sending between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern falls inside 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in every mainland US zone.
- Treat state rules by the number and the address. If either points to a stricter state, use that state's window.
Which states have stricter texting hours?
Several states have their own telemarketing laws with shorter hours or extra limits. Two widely cited examples are Florida and Oklahoma, which both allow commercial solicitation calls only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the called person's time zone and cap them at three calls in 24 hours on the same subject.
Allowed hours for marketing texts
| Rule | Allowed hours (recipient's local time) | Other limits |
|---|---|---|
| Federal (47 CFR 64.1200) | 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. | Consent and opt-out rules apply at all hours |
| Florida (Fla. Stat. 501.616) | 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. | No more than 3 calls in 24 hours on the same subject |
| Oklahoma (Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022) | 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. | No more than 3 calls in 24 hours on the same subject |
Florida's hours rule sits in section 501.616, which is written for solicitation phone calls. Florida's separate telephone solicitation law, section 501.059, defines a sales call as "a telephone call, text message, or voicemail transmission", and Oklahoma's 2022 Act uses the same kind of definition. Because of that overlap, our reading, shared by most compliance teams, is to apply 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to marketing texts for contacts in those states. Other states have their own rules, so check the states where most of your customers live.
Do quiet hours apply to appointment reminders?
The federal hours rule applies to telephone solicitations, meaning marketing. An appointment reminder, a delivery update or a reply to a customer's own question is informational, so it is not a solicitation. Even so, a reminder at 11 p.m. annoys people and draws "stop" replies, so keep reminders inside normal hours too.
The distinction matters more for consent than for timing. A reminder needs the customer's consent to receive that kind of message; a promotion needs consent to marketing. In GoHighLevel that means two separate checkboxes on your forms, which our A2P 10DLC registration guide covers, and a tag on each contact saying which one they ticked.
One sensible exception: a customer who texts you at 10 p.m. can get an immediate reply to that message. They started the conversation. Starting a new marketing thread at that hour is what the rule stops.
How do you set texting hours in your CRM automation?
Put a time window on every texting step, set it to the recipient's time zone, and make the window narrower than the law. In GoHighLevel, a workflow wait step can hold a message until an allowed time and day, so a lead who arrives at 11 p.m. gets the text at the start of the next window instead of at midnight.
How a texting step should decide when to send
- Set the window once and reuse it: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the contact's time zone covers the federal rule and the stricter states with a margin.
- Exclude Sundays and public holidays for marketing if your customers are consumers; several state laws restrict those days too.
- Check consent before the window, not after: the first step reads the consent tag and ends the workflow if it is missing.
- Handle "stop" instantly at any hour, including the confirmation reply. Opt-outs are never held for a time window.
- Test with a contact in another time zone before switching the workflow on.
This is the same pattern we use for appointment booking automation and lead follow-up. It also protects the speed to lead you want: an enquiry at 7 p.m. still gets an instant reply, while a 2 a.m. web form gets its first text at 9 a.m. The Smile Bright dental case study shows intake and follow-up built this way.
What happens if you text outside allowed hours?
A marketing text outside the allowed hours can be a violation of the TCPA's rules, and private lawsuits can seek $500 per message, up to $1,500 if the violation was willful. State laws such as Florida's and Oklahoma's add their own damages. Because each text counts separately, one badly timed campaign to a large list is where the real exposure sits.
Most of these cases come from ordinary mistakes: a workflow with no time window, a bulk send scheduled in the sender's time zone, or an imported list with no time zone field. The fix is in the build, not in a policy document. If your texting was set up quickly and never checked, a GoHighLevel account cleanup finds these gaps. For calls made by an AI voice, the consent side is covered on our page about whether AI calling is legal, and the rules on opt-outs are changing: see the FCC opt-out rule changes.
Questions about business texting hours
Can I schedule a text campaign to go out at 7 a.m.?
Not for marketing. 7 a.m. is before the federal 8 a.m. start in the recipient's time zone. Schedule marketing sends from 9 a.m. in each contact's zone to keep a margin.
Do texting hours apply to customers who opted in?
Yes. Consent allows you to text someone; it does not change the hours rule for marketing. The time window and the consent check are two separate conditions, and a marketing text has to meet both.
Are business-to-business texts covered by quiet hours?
The federal hours rule protects residential subscribers, and a mobile phone used by a business owner is often treated as residential. If you cannot tell whether a number is personal, apply the same window.
What about texts to customers in Canada?
Canada has its own rules under the CRTC's Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and anti-spam law, with different hours and consent requirements. Keep Canadian contacts in a separate segment with its own settings.
Sources and further reading
- Code of Federal Regulations, 47 CFR 64.1200 (calling hours, consent, opt-outs), via Cornell LII.
- Florida Statutes, section 501.616 (hours and frequency for commercial telephone solicitation) and section 501.059 (telephone solicitation, including text messages).
- Oklahoma Legislature, HB 3168, Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022, effective November 1, 2022.
- US Supreme Court, Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153 (2016).
