SMS Quiet Hours Checker
Pick the recipient's state and your planned send time (their local time) to see if the text is allowed.
Note: This checker reflects the federal TCPA baseline and the stricter windows commonly cited for Florida, Oklahoma, and Maryland. It is general information, not legal advice. State laws change — have telecom counsel review your campaigns.
SMS quiet hours are the daily windows during which businesses may not send marketing text messages — federally, before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in the recipient's local time zone. Florida, Oklahoma, and Maryland restrict solicitations further, commonly to 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m., and some add daily contact caps. Use the free checker above to verify any send time before you hit send.
What are SMS quiet hours?
SMS quiet hours are legally restricted time periods when telemarketing texts — and marketing calls — must not be sent. The concept comes from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the FCC rules that implement it, which treat text messages as "calls." The restriction applies to telephone solicitations: promotional messages encouraging the purchase of goods or services.
The single most misunderstood part of the rule is whose clock matters. Quiet hours are measured in the recipient's local time zone, not the sender's. A 9:30 p.m. blast from a New York office lands at 6:30 p.m. in Los Angeles (compliant) — but an 8:30 p.m. Pacific send hits New York inboxes at 11:30 p.m. (a violation). Any bulk SMS workflow that ignores per-recipient local time is building violations into its schedule.
What is the federal TCPA quiet-hours rule?
Under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1), "no person or entity shall initiate any telephone solicitation to any residential telephone subscriber before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party's location)." The FCC has long held that SMS messages are calls under the TCPA, so marketing texts sit squarely inside these quiet hours. The FCC enforces the rule.
Three practical points: first, the rule targets solicitations — purely informational messages such as appointment reminders operate under different consent frameworks, though adding any promotional line ("plus 20% off this weekend!") converts the message into a solicitation. Second, the window applies seven days a week with no weekend or holiday exception. Third, quiet-hours liability stacks on top of consent liability — a valid opt-in does not give you a license to text at 2 a.m. Build a quiet-hours check into your SMS campaign checklist before every send.
Which states have stricter quiet hours?
States may impose tighter windows than the federal 8-to-9 baseline. The most significant overlays are Florida, Oklahoma, and Maryland, which commonly restrict sales calls and texts to 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. and cap contact frequency. Washington layers its own device and registration rules on top of the federal window. The reference table below reflects these overlays as of 2026.
| State | Permitted solicitation window | Extra restrictions |
|---|---|---|
| Federal baseline (all states) | 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. recipient local time | — |
| Florida | 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. (recipient's time zone) | Max 3 calls/texts per 24 hours on the same subject matter (Fla. Stat. § 501.616, as amended) |
| Oklahoma | 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. | Max 3 calls per 24 hours; Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022 |
| Maryland | 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. (commonly cited) | Own consent and operational restrictions under the Stop the Spam Calls Act |
| Washington | 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. (federal baseline) | Additional restrictions on automatic dialing devices and registration in covered cases |
| All other states | 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. recipient local time | State DNC lists and mini-TCPA proposals continue to emerge |
Disclaimer: this is general information, not legal advice. State telemarketing laws change frequently — confirm current requirements with telecom counsel before scheduling campaigns.
Treat any quiet-hours table as a starting point and re-verify it quarterly, as new state bills appear regularly.
How do you schedule SMS campaigns across time zones?
Knowing the rule is easy; applying it across a 100,000-number list spanning four time zones is where violations happen. Follow these scheduling practices:
- Resolve recipient-local time per contact. Area code is a weak proxy — people keep their numbers when they move. Tie timezone data to the contact record and treat unknown timezones conservatively: hold the message or use the narrowest overlapping window.
- Segment sends by timezone. Split the list into Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific cohorts (plus Alaska and Hawaii) and schedule each cohort separately. Most bulk SMS platforms support timezone-based scheduling natively.
- Adopt a conservative house window. Many compliant senders default to 9:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. recipient local time — inside every U.S. rule at once, with margin for clock skew.
- Compute offsets at send time. Daylight saving transitions break stored offsets; resolve the timezone, then compute the local time fresh for each send.
- Respect frequency caps centrally. Florida and Oklahoma limit solicitations per seller per consumer per 24 hours regardless of how many sending numbers you rotate through — count across all numbers and vendors.
Once timing is locked in, keep the message itself efficient: our free SMS character counter shows whether your text fits in a single segment or spills into costly multi-part sends.
What happens if you violate quiet hours?
TCPA violations carry statutory damages commonly cited at $500 to $1,500 per message, and quiet-hours claims are among the most actively litigated — they are easy to prove from send logs and timestamps. Class actions aggregate thousands of messages into eight-figure exposure.
Beyond lawsuits, carriers and 10DLC vetting treat quiet-hours complaints as spam signals. A spike in complaints can trigger campaign suspension, higher filtering, and brand-registration problems that outlast any single campaign. The cheapest compliance tool you own is a clock check before every send — which is exactly what the checker at the top of this page does.
How to stay compliant: a quick checklist
- Verify the send time against the recipient's state window (federal 8–9, stricter 8–8 where applicable).
- Confirm every send time in recipient local time, never your own.
- Segment lists by timezone and schedule each cohort separately.
- Enforce Florida/Oklahoma frequency caps across all sending numbers.
- Honor opt-outs immediately — a STOP at 8:55 p.m. does not license a 9:05 p.m. send.
- Keep messages purely transactional or fully inside solicitation windows — no promotional lines in "reminder" texts.
- Have telecom counsel review campaigns and calling windows periodically. This checklist is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Do SMS quiet hours apply on weekends and holidays?
Yes. The federal rule has no weekend or holiday exception for solicitations — the 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. recipient-local window applies seven days a week. Some brands voluntarily tighten further on Sunday mornings as a courtesy, but the legal window does not change.
What if I don't know the recipient's time zone?
You are still responsible, because the rule is measured at the called party's location — "we didn't know" is not a defense. Maintain timezone data per contact; for unknown locations, use a conservative overlapping window or suppress the send until the timezone is resolved.
Do quiet hours apply to transactional messages like OTP codes?
The restriction targets telephone solicitations. Purely informational or transactional messages — one-time passcodes, delivery alerts, fraud warnings — operate under different consent frameworks. But add any promotional content and the message becomes a solicitation subject to quiet hours, so keep transactional templates strictly informational.
Can a customer consent to texts outside quiet hours?
Prior express consent changes the analysis for many TCPA claims, but quiet-hours provisions have been litigated aggressively even where consent existed. Do not treat consent as a blanket license for 2 a.m. promotional texts; discuss your specific fact pattern with counsel.
Are Florida's contact caps per phone number or per business?
Per the statute's structure, the limit applies to the seller or solicitor per consumer per 24-hour period on the same subject matter. Rotating through multiple sending numbers does not reset the cap — centralize your counting.
How should I handle daylight saving time transitions?
Schedule on recipient-local time computed at send time, not on stored offsets. A contact record stamped with a fixed UTC offset is wrong half the year in observing states — resolve the timezone first, then compute the offset fresh for each send.
Check every send before it goes out. Bookmark this page and run your send times through the checker above — then explore our other free SMS and WhatsApp marketing tools, including the character counter, WhatsApp link generator, and QR code generator. Need compliant, ready-to-message data? Order a verified contact list and pair it with timezone-aware scheduling.