Established business relationship
An established business relationship is a Do Not Call exemption with an expiry date. The two federal durations, what event each one counts from, which prohibition it lifts, and the calls it does not cover at all.
An established business relationship, often shortened to EBR, is a prior dealing between a caller and a consumer that federal telemarketing rules treat as an exception to the national Do Not Call list. It is narrower than the name suggests. It expires on a fixed count measured from the consumer's own act, and it is not consent for an autodialed or prerecorded call.
The two durations, and what each one counts from
Two agencies define the term, and their durations no longer read the same. The FTC counts 540 days from a purchase, rental, lease or financial transaction, and 90 days from an inquiry or application, at 16 CFR 310.2(q). The FCC counts eighteen months from a purchase or transaction and three months from an inquiry or application, at 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5).
The inquiry figure is the one a lead buyer runs into, because a web form submission is an inquiry rather than a transaction, and the short count applies to it. Both clocks start at the consumer's act. Receiving a record, buying it, or loading it into a dialer a second time restarts neither one, and where both rules reach a call, both counts apply to it.
Which prohibition the exemption actually lifts
The exemption does one job. It addresses the bar on calling a number listed on the national Do Not Call registry, and nothing else. On the FTC side the relationship appears as a named carve-out at 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(2), which holds only where that person has not separately said they do not wish to receive outbound calls from that seller.
The FCC builds it differently. Its carve-out is not in the registry prohibition at all but inside the definition of telephone solicitation at 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(15)(ii), so a call to a person the caller has a relationship with is not a telephone solicitation in the first place. Same result on the registry question, different machinery, and citing the FCC's registry paragraph for the exemption cites the wrong provision.
What an established business relationship does not cover
It is not consent to dial by machine. 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) requires prior express written consent for a telemarketing call placed with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, and the exceptions written into that paragraph are calls by or for a tax-exempt nonprofit organization and HIPAA health care messages. A prior business relationship is not among them.
The FTC reaches the same place by its own route. Under 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(v)(A) a seller may not deliver a prerecorded telemarketing message without an express agreement in writing that is signed, carries the person's telephone number, and was not required as a condition of buying anything. So a prior relationship can answer the registry question and leave the dialing-technology question entirely open.
How the relationship ends before the clock does
Two limits sit inside the FCC definition. Under 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5)(i) a seller-specific do-not-call request terminates the relationship for telemarketing purposes even if the subscriber continues to do business with that seller, so a stop request outranks a recent transaction. Under 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5)(ii) the relationship does not extend to affiliated entities absent a reasonable expectation.
One number a buyer would want is missing here on purpose. How often a purchased lead arrives with a relationship still running is not published by either agency, and the two definitions count different events on different calendars, so no federal dataset could produce a single figure for it. The percentages circulating for this trace to vendor material rather than to a study, and none is printed. Nothing on this page is legal advice about any particular call.
Source: FCC rules implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5) with clauses (i) and (ii), 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(15)(ii), and 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) · FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule, definition at 16 CFR 310.2(q) and the carve-outs at 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B)(2) and 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(v)(A) · the 540 day and 90 day figures were amended into 16 CFR 310.2 at 89 FR 26783, 16 April 2024 · regulation text read 20 September 2026.Questions this page answers
Two federal definitions set the clock and they no longer print the same numbers. The FTC, at 16 CFR 310.2(q), counts 540 days from a purchase, rental, lease or financial transaction, and 90 days from an inquiry or application about that seller's goods or services. The FCC, at 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5), counts eighteen months from a purchase or transaction and three months from an inquiry or application. Each count runs from the consumer's own act and from nothing else, so receiving, buying or re-loading a record restarts neither one. Where both rules reach a call, both counts apply to it.
No, and this is the part most often assumed the other way. 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) requires prior express written consent for a telemarketing call placed with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, and the exceptions written into that paragraph are calls by or for a tax-exempt nonprofit organization and HIPAA health care messages. A prior business relationship is not one of them. The FTC draws the same line separately at 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(v)(A), which requires a signed written agreement before a seller may deliver a prerecorded telemarketing message.
Not by itself. The FTC defines the relationship at 16 CFR 310.2(q) as one between a seller and a person, based on that person's own dealings with that seller, so an inquiry made to one company is not a relationship with a different company. The FCC adds a limit in the definition itself: under 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5)(ii) the relationship does not extend to affiliated entities unless the subscriber would reasonably expect the affiliate to be included, given the nature of what the affiliate offers and who it is.
Buying questions rather than research ones are answered on the FAQ, and anything that is not there gets asked on a call.
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