Maine bars automated or prerecorded solicitation calls to residential and cell numbers without prior written express consent, limits automated device calls to weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and requires sales callers to exclude do not call numbers and check reassigned numbers.
From official sources, checked September 26, 2026. General information, not legal advice.
A person may not use an automated telephone calling device, or an artificial or prerecorded voice, to make solicitation calls to residential, cellular, paging, or emergency numbers in Maine, or to unlisted, unpublished, toll free long distance, or direct inward dial numbers. The device is equipment that selects, dials, or calls numbers and plays recorded messages, and solicitation calls include sales offers, charitable appeals, and data gathering. Exceptions include messages delivered with the prior, written, express consent of the recipient, responses to the called person's own inquiry, status information on purchased goods or services, government and school duties, government emergency messages, and calls that communicate with a business about reservations, purchases, and other customer information.
A person may use an automated telephone calling device to make solicitation calls to a Maine number only on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Maine time, and may complete no more than one such call to a number in each 8 hour period. The device must disconnect within 5 seconds after the called line disconnects, and within the first minute the caller must give the name, address, and telephone number of the organization it calls for. Federal rules separately set an 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. window for residential telephone solicitations.
The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division must maintain a do not call registry, and the statute lets the Federal Trade Commission's national registry serve as Maine's; the Attorney General's consumer page points residents to the federal registry. A telephone solicitor may not call a consumer whose number has been on the national or state registry for at least 3 months, must exclude numbers on the most current registry, and must use the reassigned numbers database before a sales call. The statute excuses a solicitor that shows listed compliance practices and that the call was an error.
A transient seller of consumer merchandise must be licensed by the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation before engaging in sales in Maine. The term covers a person who sells merchandise to consumers by personal or telephone contact, whether or not present in Maine, and who has no permanent place of business in the state. Licensed sellers must also make a security deposit, which may be a bond. Regulated insurance products, registered or exempt securities, and supervised lenders fall outside the definitions.
On contact, a telephone solicitor must immediately give its real first and last name and the business it calls for. Sellers and telemarketers may not send misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value; showing the seller's name and a customer service number answered during regular business hours is allowed. When a consumer buys after a seller's telephone call that the consumer did not solicit, the contract must be written, signed by both parties, and explain the consumer's right to avoid the sale by mailed notice within 3 full business days.
Maine makes it a Class C crime to intentionally or knowingly intercept a wire or oral communication. The law defines intercept as hearing or recording a communication through an intercepting device by anyone other than the sender or receiver, a person within normal unaided hearing range, or a person given prior authority by the sender or receiver. Knowingly disclosing or using the contents of an intercepted communication is also a crime.
Maine's do not call and disclosure section protects consumers, meaning Maine residents who are residential telephone subscribers and actual or prospective buyers of consumer goods or services. The automated call section is written more broadly: its weekday window covers automated device solicitation calls to any Maine number, and its prerecorded call ban reaches toll free and direct inward dial numbers. Its exceptions include calls that communicate with a business about reservations, purchases, and other information for customers.
Maine defines doing business in Maine as making telephone sales calls to consumers located in the state, whether the calls originate in Maine or outside it. The transient seller license also reaches sellers with no permanent place of business in Maine who sell to Maine consumers by telephone.
Maine bars solicitation calls to residential and cellular numbers in the state that use an automated telephone calling device or an artificial or prerecorded voice, except in listed situations such as a message delivered with the prior, written, express consent of the recipient. Permitted automated device calls are limited to weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
After a sale that follows a seller's telephone call the consumer did not solicit, Maine lets the consumer void the sale by mailing written notice within 3 full business days. The statute lists exclusions, including certain insurance, securities, and credit transactions.
Checked September 26, 2026. Every fact on this page comes from these official sources. General information, not legal advice: rules change, so confirm with the cited statute or agency and with counsel.
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