Do not call list Michigan: federal and state rules explained

Last updated 2026-07-09

What is the Michigan do not call list and how does it work?

Michigan runs two parallel systems, and most people only know about one.

The federal National Do Not Call Registry is run by the FTC. It covers most telemarketing calls to phones in every state. Register your Michigan number there and the majority of for-profit telemarketing calls have to stop within 31 days ^[1].

Michigan adds its own layer on top. The Michigan Home Solicitation Sales Act (MHSSA), MCL 445.111a, requires sellers and telemarketers calling Michigan consumers to keep internal do-not-call lists, honor requests made during a call, and follow state-specific disclosure rules ^[2]. Michigan also enforces the federal rules through the Attorney General's office, which can bring its own actions separate from the FTC.

Here's what that means in practice. If you call Michigan phone numbers for telemarketing, you scrub against both lists before you dial. Scrubbing one and missing the other is still a violation.

How do Michigan residents register their number on the do not call list?

Registration is free and takes about two minutes.

Go to donotcall.gov or call 1-888-382-1222 from the number you want to register ^[1]. Cell phones and landlines both work. There's no expiration date. Registrations added after June 2003 are permanent unless you ask to remove them.

Mobile numbers use the same process. There's no separate "cell phone do not call list" run by a carrier or industry group, despite the internet myth that won't die. The federal registry covers mobile numbers, and Michigan callers have to treat them the same as landlines. More on that on our mobile phone do not call list page.

Michigan does not run a separate online registration portal. The state's protection sits on top of the federal registry instead of replacing it. Register once at donotcall.gov and you're covered for both federal and Michigan enforcement.

Telemarketers get 31 days after you register before they must stop calling ^[1]. If calls keep coming after that, file a complaint at donotcall.gov or with the Michigan Attorney General at michigan.gov/ag.

What laws cover do not call rules in Michigan?

Three layers of law apply to anyone telemarketing to Michigan numbers.

First, the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, restricts automated calls, prerecorded messages, and unsolicited faxes nationwide ^[3]. The statute makes it "unlawful for any person within the United States... to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party" ^[3]. That's the core robocall ban.

Second, the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR Part 310) sets how for-profit telemarketers deal with the National DNC Registry, including the duty to access and scrub against it before calling ^[4].

Third, Michigan's Home Solicitation Sales Act (MCL 445.111 et seq.) adds state requirements. Under the MHSSA, sellers making unsolicited calls to Michigan consumers must honor verbal do-not-call requests right away, keep a company-specific internal DNC list, and give certain disclosures during the call ^[2]. The Michigan Consumer Protection Act (MCL 445.903) also gives the state broad power to chase unfair or deceptive telemarketing.

Treat it as nested compliance. You pass all three filters before you dial a Michigan number, or you don't dial.

What are the penalties for violating Michigan do not call rules?

The fines are real and they add up fast.

On the federal side, the FTC can seek civil penalties up to $51,744 per violation as of 2024, a figure it adjusts for inflation periodically ^[4]. Every call to a registered number counts as its own violation. A short campaign against a list with a data error can run into the millions before a company even knows something broke.

The FCC enforces the TCPA separately and can impose forfeitures. In large robocall cases, fines have reached hundreds of millions of dollars, though actual collections run far lower because many operators are judgment-proof ^[5].

Under Michigan law, the Attorney General can seek civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation under the Michigan Consumer Protection Act ^[6]. The AG tends to go after patterns of calls rather than single complaints, so per-company exposure compounds fast.

Private plaintiffs can sue under the TCPA with no involvement from the FTC or AG. The TCPA lets consumers recover $500 per negligent violation and $1,500 per willful violation in small claims or civil court ^[3]. That private right of action drives most TCPA litigation, including the class actions that have cost companies tens of millions.

The table below lays the penalty levels side by side.

Which calls are exempt from Michigan do not call rules?

Not every call to a registered number is illegal. Knowing the exemptions matters as much as knowing the rules.

The federal DNC Registry doesn't apply to calls from a company you have an "established business relationship" (EBR) with. Under the Telemarketing Sales Rule, an EBR exists if you made a purchase or transaction within the past 18 months, or an application or inquiry within the past 3 months ^[4]. Once that window closes, the EBR expires and the number is back on the protected list.

Calls made with the consumer's prior express written consent are also exempt. Clear written agreement to receive calls beats the registry. But that consent has to be documented and specific, not buried in a terms-of-service paragraph.

Other exempt categories: nonprofit calls (political calls, charitable solicitations, and survey calls fall outside the TSR), political campaigns, and calls to a number the consumer gave you specifically to be called on.

Michigan state law tracks these federal exemptions closely. The MHSSA covers "telephone solicitations," which it defines as calls made to encourage a purchase or investment ^[2]. Calls from a business with a documented prior relationship, or where the consumer started the contact, generally fall outside that.

Here's what trips people up. Real estate and insurance agents calling existing clients often assume they have a forever EBR. They don't. The 18-month clock starts at the last transaction, not the day the relationship began.

How is the Michigan do not call list different from Minnesota's?

This comes up because MI and MN get swapped in searches, and teams running multi-state campaigns sometimes lump them together.

Minnesota's do not call list MN setup is structurally similar. Minnesota consumers register on the federal DNC list, and the state enforces both federal rules and its own Consumer Fraud Act provisions ^[7]. Like Michigan, Minnesota doesn't run a wholly separate online registration portal.

The real differences are enforcement posture and penalty size. Michigan's Attorney General has used the MHSSA and the Consumer Protection Act together, while Minnesota enforcement runs mostly through consumer fraud statutes. Michigan penalties cap at $10,000 per MCPA violation. Minnesota civil penalties under its Consumer Fraud Act can reach $25,000 per violation in egregious cases ^[7].

For a compliance team building a calling list, the answer is the same for both states. Scrub against the federal DNC registry, honor state-specific internal DNC requests, and document consent carefully. The plumbing is identical. Only the enforcement authority and fine caps change.

How do telemarketers legally access and scrub the do not call list?

The FTC runs a Telemarketer Subscription system at donotcall.gov that lets organizations download phone data for the area codes they plan to call ^[1]. Small operations calling five area codes or fewer pay nothing. Larger operations pay an annual fee based on area codes accessed, maxing out at $17,338 per year as of 2024 for the full national database ^[4].

Download a fresh copy of the registry data at least every 31 days before you make calls. Stale data is not a defense. Courts and regulators treat it as a failure to comply.

Beyond the federal registry, keep your own internal do-not-call list too. Under the TSR and TCPA rules, any consumer who asks not to be called gets added to your internal list within a reasonable time (the FTC standard is effectively immediate) and never gets called again, even if their number isn't on the federal registry ^[4].

Starting from scratch? Our how do I get the do not call list guide walks the exact subscription steps.

A word on data vendors. Plenty of dialer platforms and lead sellers advertise "DNC scrubbed" lists. That claim is often true the moment they scrub, but lists go stale within days. Buy a scrubbed list, call it 45 days later without re-scrubbing, and the liability is yours, not the vendor's.

Can Michigan consumers sue telemarketers directly?

Yes, and it's one of the more underrated enforcement tools.

The TCPA's private right of action under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5) lets anyone who gets more than one call within a 12-month period in violation of the DNC rules bring a civil suit in any appropriate court ^[3]. Statutory damages are $500 per violation, trebled to $1,500 for willful or knowing violations. No requirement to exhaust regulatory complaints first.

Michigan state courts are a common venue because Michigan's Consumer Protection Act also creates a private right of action for consumers harmed by unfair or deceptive practices ^[6]. A plaintiff can try to stack TCPA and MCPA damages from the same calls, though courts differ on whether they allow it.

Class actions are the bigger risk for most businesses. One named plaintiff can represent everyone who got the same category of illegal call. TCPA class settlements regularly land in the seven figures. Per-call statutory damages plus easy class certification are why the TCPA became one of the most-litigated consumer statutes in the country by the mid-2010s.

If a demand letter lands claiming TCPA violations on Michigan numbers, take it seriously on day one. Most come from attorneys who already documented the calls and ran the math before they contacted you.

What should Michigan callers include in their compliance program?

A compliance program for Michigan calling doesn't need to be complicated. It does need to be real.

Start with written policies. Every outbound operation should have a written do-not-call policy that employees actually get and sign. The FTC's safe harbor under the TSR and TCPA rules requires a written policy as a baseline condition for asserting the safe harbor defense ^[4].

Train everyone who touches the phones. A policy nobody reads is not a defense. Cover what a do-not-call request sounds like (consumers don't need magic words, "stop calling me" is enough), how to log it, and who updates the internal DNC list.

Scrub before every campaign, more than at setup. Pull a fresh federal registry file, merge it with your internal DNC list, and log the date and result of every scrub run before calling starts.

Document consent for any calls that lean on prior express written consent instead of an EBR. The record should show the number, the date, what the consumer agreed to, and how you captured it.

For teams building this out, LeadCompliant's free compliance kit includes a written DNC policy template and a pre-call checklist built around federal and state requirements. It's a way to get the foundation without paying a lawyer to draft it from zero.

Audit your vendors. Buy leads or use a list broker? Get written representations that they scrubbed against the federal registry, then re-scrub yourself before calling. Vendor error does not move liability off the calling party under federal case law.

You can also check the do not call list report resources to see how complaints against your number look to regulators before they come knocking.

How do you file a do not call complaint in Michigan?

There are two paths, and filing both takes under ten minutes.

Federal complaints go to the FTC at donotcall.gov. You'll need the date of the call, the caller's number if it showed, and what they were selling. The FTC aggregates complaint data to spot patterns and prioritize enforcement. Individual complaints rarely trigger a single investigation, but they feed the bigger cases ^[1].

State complaints go to the Michigan Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division at michigan.gov/ag ^[9]. The AG takes complaints online and by mail. Michigan-specific complaints about local businesses or repeat callers can get faster attention at the state level than through the federal system.

Want to pursue a private lawsuit for TCPA violations? You don't need an agency complaint first. You or your attorney can send a demand letter or file directly in Michigan state court or federal district court. Many TCPA plaintiff attorneys work these on contingency because the statutory damages are fixed and easy to calculate.

One practical point. Before you file anything, document the call. Date, time, calling number, what was said. If calls keep coming, keep a log. Courts and agencies weigh documented patterns far more heavily than single-incident claims.

Nobody publishes clean state-level DNC breakdowns, so Michigan-specific counts are hard to pin down. National complaint volumes reported to the FTC run into the millions per year across fraud and DNC categories, per the agency's annual consumer reporting ^[8].

Does the do not call list apply to text messages in Michigan?

This used to be a gray area. It's gotten clearer over time.

The TCPA's core prohibition at 47 U.S.C. § 227(b) covers calls made using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS). The FCC ruled in 2003, and reaffirmed since, that text messages count as "calls" under the TCPA for ATDS purposes ^[5]. Send a marketing text to a Michigan number using an ATDS without consent, and that's a TCPA violation whether or not the number sits on the DNC registry.

The National DNC Registry technically covers "telephone solicitations," which are voice calls. But the FCC treats unsolicited commercial texts from ATDS-qualifying systems as triggering liability under the separate subsection (b) consent rules instead of the DNC subsection (c). The practical effect is the same. You can't spam Michigan consumers with unsolicited texts any more than you can call them.

For texts, prior express written consent is the standard, and it's a higher bar than implied consent. The consent has to be clear, the consumer has to understand they're agreeing to receive texts, and you have to keep the record.

Michigan's MHSSA focuses on voice solicitations and doesn't directly address SMS. But the Michigan Consumer Protection Act's broad unfair-practice provisions could reach aggressive text marketing a court finds deceptive.

For the full SMS compliance mechanics, see our do not call telemarketer list and related pages.

What do business-to-business callers need to know about Michigan DNC rules?

The National DNC Registry only covers residential phone lines and personal wireless numbers. Business-to-business calls aren't covered by the federal registry ^[4].

Sounds like B2B callers are off the hook. They're not, entirely.

Michigan's MHSSA covers "telephone solicitations" to consumers. Call a business number to sell products or services to that business, with no individual consumer as the target, and you're outside the MHSSA. But call a cell phone that belongs to a person who happens to own a business, and that number is registered on the DNC list, and the analysis gets messy.

The TCPA's ATDS restrictions also reach business numbers for calls made without consent using auto-dialers or prerecorded messages. B2B calling with a live agent is lower risk. Robocalling business lines is still TCPA exposure.

Under the TSR, sellers and telemarketers calling consumers have to comply with the registry, but a call to a real business line about a genuine B2B transaction isn't a "telemarketing call" as the rule defines it ^[4]. Document your intent and your list sourcing if you work in this space. It matters in an enforcement investigation.

The cleanest move for mixed B2B/B2C teams: treat any cell number as consumer-eligible until you confirm it's a dedicated business line, and scrub accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

How do I register my Michigan phone number on the do not call list?

Go to donotcall.gov or call 1-888-382-1222 from the number you want to register. Registration is free, applies to cell phones and landlines, and does not expire. Telemarketers must stop calling within 31 days. Michigan has no separate state registration portal; the federal registry covers you for state enforcement purposes too.

How long does it take for the do not call list to take effect in Michigan?

Federal rules give telemarketers 31 days from your registration date before they must stop calling. If you registered more than 31 days ago and calls continue, those calls are likely violations. File a complaint at donotcall.gov or with the Michigan Attorney General. Keep a call log with dates and numbers before you file.

Does the Michigan do not call list cover cell phones?

Yes. The National DNC Registry covers wireless numbers, with no separate process for mobile phones. Register your cell number at donotcall.gov the same way you would a landline. The separate TCPA rules on autodialers and texts also apply to cell phones independently of DNC registration.

What is the penalty for calling a number on the Michigan do not call list?

Federal penalties reach $51,744 per violation under the FTC's civil penalty authority. Michigan state law allows up to $10,000 per violation under the Consumer Protection Act. Private TCPA lawsuits allow $500 per call, or $1,500 if the violation was willful. Each individual call is a separate violation, so fines compound quickly across a campaign.

Do nonprofits and political callers have to follow Michigan do not call rules?

Political calls and calls from nonprofit organizations are exempt from the National DNC Registry and the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule. They are not exempt from the TCPA's separate restrictions on robocalls and prerecorded messages to cell phones, which require prior express consent regardless of the caller's nonprofit or political status.

How do businesses scrub their calling lists against the Michigan do not call list?

Access the National DNC Registry through the FTC's subscription portal at donotcall.gov. Calling five or fewer area codes is free; larger access costs up to $17,338 per year for the full national file. Data must be refreshed at least every 31 days before calling. Callers must also maintain and scrub against their own internal do-not-call list.

Can I sue a company for calling my Michigan number on the do not call list?

Yes. The TCPA gives private individuals the right to sue for more than one DNC violation within a 12-month period without first filing a government complaint. Damages are $500 per call, trebled to $1,500 for willful violations. Michigan state courts and federal district courts in Michigan both have jurisdiction. Many TCPA attorneys take these cases on contingency.

Does registering on the do not call list stop all unwanted calls?

No. DNC registration blocks for-profit telemarketing calls but does not stop political calls, charitable solicitations, surveys, calls from companies you have an existing business relationship with, or debt collectors. It also does not stop illegal scam callers who ignore the registry entirely. For those, call-blocking apps and carrier-level spam filters work better.

How do I file a do not call complaint against a Michigan caller?

File at donotcall.gov for federal complaints, and at michigan.gov/ag for state complaints. You'll need the caller's number, the date, and what they were selling. You can file both at once. For private lawsuits, no agency complaint is required first. Documenting a pattern of calls before filing significantly strengthens any complaint or legal action.

Does the do not call list apply to text messages in Michigan?

The DNC registry is technically designed for voice calls, but the FCC has held that commercial texts sent via an automatic telephone dialing system are "calls" under the TCPA and require prior express written consent. Sending unsolicited marketing texts to Michigan consumers without consent is a TCPA violation regardless of DNC registration status.

What is an established business relationship and how does it affect Michigan DNC rules?

An established business relationship (EBR) lets callers contact registered numbers if the consumer made a purchase or transaction within the past 18 months, or an inquiry within the past 3 months. After that window, the EBR expires and the number is protected again. Businesses often wrongly assume a long-term client relationship creates a permanent EBR. It does not.

Are B2B calls subject to Michigan do not call rules?

The National DNC Registry applies to residential and personal wireless numbers, not dedicated business lines. Michigan's MHSSA also targets consumer solicitations, not business-to-business calls. But TCPA robocall restrictions apply to business cell phones, and any personal cell registered on the DNC list gets full protection even if the owner also runs a business.

How is Michigan's do not call law different from other states like Indiana or Pennsylvania?

Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania all rely primarily on the federal DNC Registry and enforce violations through their state attorneys general using state consumer protection statutes. Penalty caps differ: Michigan's MCPA allows up to $10,000 per violation, while Indiana and Pennsylvania set their own ranges. See our guides for the Indiana do not call list and do not call list PA for state-specific details.

Sources

1. FTC, National Do Not Call Registry: Registration is free, covers cell and landlines, and telemarketers must comply within 31 days
2. Michigan Legislature, Michigan Home Solicitation Sales Act, MCL 445.111 et seq.: Michigan MHSSA requires sellers to honor DNC requests and maintain internal do-not-call lists for Michigan consumer calls
3. U.S. Code, 47 U.S.C. § 227, Telephone Consumer Protection Act (via govinfo.gov): TCPA prohibits prerecorded calls without consent and allows private suits for $500-$1,500 per violation
4. FTC, Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR Part 310: TSR sets $51,744 per-violation civil penalty, 31-day scrub requirement, EBR windows of 18 months/3 months, and free access for five or fewer area codes
5. Michigan Legislature, Michigan Consumer Protection Act, MCL 445.903: Michigan CPA allows up to $10,000 per violation and provides a private right of action for consumers
6. Minnesota Attorney General, Consumer Fraud Act enforcement: Minnesota enforces DNC rules primarily through the Consumer Fraud Act, with civil penalties up to $25,000 per violation in egregious cases
7. FTC, Consumer Sentinel Network annual consumer reporting: National consumer complaint volumes reported to the FTC run into the millions per year across fraud and DNC categories
8. Michigan Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division: Michigan AG accepts DNC and telemarketing complaints through its Consumer Protection Division