Quiet Hours: The 8am–9pm Rule
TCPA quiet hours limit marketing texts to 8am–9pm in the recipient's local time. Since late 2024 a wave of class actions has targeted sends outside that window — even where the recipient consented. Here's the rule, the live litigation, and how to stay clear.
Quiet hours are a TCPA restriction: telemarketing calls and texts may not be sent before 8:00am or after 9:00pm in the recipient’s local time (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). It applies to solicitation/marketing messages — and it is currently the most active litigation front in SMS compliance.
The rule
- Allowed window: 8:00am–9:00pm in the recipient’s local time — not the sender’s, not the server’s.
- Applies to: marketing / solicitation texts.
- Different treatment: transactional and informational messages the recipient specifically requested (order updates, OTPs, appointment reminders) are treated differently and are not the target of these claims.
The local-time requirement is the trap: a 9:30pm Eastern blast is already past quiet hours for your East-Coast recipients even though it’s only 6:30pm on the West Coast.
The post-November-2024 class-action wave
The pending FCC petition
The industry is pushing back. The Ecommerce Innovation Alliance filed an FCC petition on March 3, 2025, arguing that PEWC forecloses quiet-hours liability — i.e. that a consumer who gave written consent can’t then sue over the send time.
- Comments closed April 10, 2025.
- The petition is still pending / unresolved as of mid-2026. Last verified mid-2026
Until the FCC rules, the safe assumption is that quiet hours apply regardless of consent.
Practical guidance
- Send marketing texts only 8am–9pm in the recipient’s local time. Use the recipient’s known address, or their area code as a proxy, to determine local time.
- Default to the recipient’s most likely time zone when you only have an area code, and bias conservative near the window edges.
- Don’t rely on consent as a quiet-hours defense while the petition is pending.
- Separate transactional from marketing sends — transactional messages the user requested aren’t subject to the same window, but don’t smuggle marketing into them.
Check whether a planned send time is inside the window for a given area code with the Quiet-Hours Helper.
Next
- TCPA basics — the statutory damages that make quiet-hours claims worth filing.
- Opt-out, STOP & HELP — the other live 2025 compliance change.
- Regulatory change tracker — status of this and every other pending rule.