DNCR Compliance Guide for Australian Businesses (2025)

The Australian Do Not Call Register (DNCR) is one of the most important compliance requirements for any business that makes outbound sales or marketing calls. Getting it wrong can result in fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Getting it right is not complicated — but it requires a clear workflow and the right tools.

This guide covers everything Australian businesses need to know about DNCR compliance in 2025.

What is the Do Not Call Register?

The Do Not Call Register is a national register maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) that allows Australians to register their phone numbers to opt out of receiving unsolicited telemarketing calls and faxes.

The register contains over 13 million numbers. It's free for individuals to register, and registration doesn't expire — a number stays on the register until the person actively removes it.

The legislation that governs the register is the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017.

Who must comply?

Any business or individual making telemarketing calls or sending telemarketing faxes to Australian numbers must comply with the DNCR requirements. This includes:

Direct sales teams
Outsourced call centres calling on behalf of a business
Charities making fundraising calls (partially exempt — see below)
Market research companies calling for research purposes (partially exempt)
Real estate agents doing prospecting calls
Solar, energy, and telco sales teams
Mortgage brokers and financial advisers
Insurance companies

The fact that you're using a third-party call centre or outsourced team does not transfer your liability. If someone is calling on behalf of your business, you are responsible for their compliance.

What is a "telemarketing call"?

A telemarketing call is any call made with the purpose of:

Offering, advertising, or promoting goods or services
Offering, advertising, or promoting a business or investment opportunity
Soliciting donations or gifts

This covers most outbound sales calls. It does not cover calls that are purely operational — a bank calling about a transaction on your account, for example, is not a telemarketing call.

What are the exemptions?

Not all calls to registered numbers are prohibited. Key exemptions include:

Existing business relationship

You can call a registered number if you have an existing business relationship with the person. ACMA defines this as a relationship where the person has purchased, leased, or rented a product or service from your business, or applied to do so, within the last 18 months — or has made an inquiry or complaint within the last 3 months.

This exemption is commonly used by real estate agents calling past clients, solar companies following up on previous inquiries, and financial services firms contacting existing customers.

Consent

If a person has expressly consented to receive calls from your business (typically by opting in on a form, signing a contract, or verbally agreeing during a previous call), you can call their registered number.

Consent must be freely given, specific, and informed. "By submitting this form you agree to be contacted by our partners" buried in fine print is of limited value and will not protect you in an enforcement action.

Government agencies and charities

Calls made by or on behalf of Australian government agencies are exempt. Registered charities have a partial exemption for calls related to their charitable purpose.

Market research and opinion polling

Calls made solely for the purpose of conducting a legitimate survey, opinion poll, or market research — where the result is not used to sell anything to the person called — are exempt. However, if the research call is a cover for a sales pitch, it's not exempt.

How to wash your lists

Washing a list means checking it against the DNCR to identify which numbers are registered. You must do this before making telemarketing calls.

The process:

Access the DNCR washing service through an ACMA-authorised washing provider. You cannot check numbers directly against the register yourself — only authorised providers can do this.
Submit your list in the required format (typically CSV with phone numbers in standard format).
The provider returns your list with DNCR status for each number.
Remove or flag the registered numbers before importing into your dialler.

Authorised washing providers are listed on the ACMA website. Costs vary but are typically per-number or per-list, and for most sales teams the cost is negligible compared to the risk of not washing.

Critically: a wash result is valid for a limited period. ACMA guidance says that for telemarketing purposes, a wash that was conducted more than 30 days ago should be redone before calling those numbers again. Build this into your workflow as a standard step, not an afterthought.

What are the penalties?

The DNCR Act provides for civil penalties, not criminal sanctions. The maximum penalties are:

For companies: up to $250,000 per contravention
For individuals: up to $50,000 per contravention

"Per contravention" means per call. A calling campaign that contacts 100 registered numbers without consent could theoretically attract fines of up to $25,000,000 for a company.

In practice, ACMA enforcement actions have ranged from formal warnings to fines in the millions for larger campaigns. The solar and energy sectors have been frequent targets of enforcement action.

Record keeping

Keep records of your DNCR washes — when you washed, which provider you used, what the result was, and what list was submitted. If ACMA investigates a complaint, being able to demonstrate a documented compliance process is the difference between a warning and a fine.

Your power dialler should log every call with a timestamp, number, and outcome. This is your call activity record. Don't rely on Excel spreadsheets.

Common mistakes

Buying lists from third-party brokers and assuming they're DNCR-clean. They're not — always re-wash before calling.
Relying on the "existing relationship" exemption without documenting the relationship. If you can't prove the relationship, the exemption doesn't protect you.
Not re-washing lists that are more than 30 days old. People register their numbers every day.
Assuming B2B calls are exempt. Business landlines can be registered on the DNCR, and calls to registered business numbers require the same compliance as calls to personal numbers.
Using a predictive dialler that generates abandoned calls above the 3% threshold. This is a separate compliance issue from DNCR, but it affects the same calling activity.

How Veyce helps

Veyce is a power dialler built for Australian sales teams. It supports DNCR-washed list imports, per-call logging with timestamps, and full call records for compliance purposes. Every session, every call, and every outcome is logged automatically.

Try Veyce free for 7 days — no credit card required. Your AU number is included and your team is live in minutes.