Cold Calling B2B: Legal Rules in DACH 2026

Cold calling by phone: what applies where?

Telephone-based B2B outreach isn’t governed by uniform law across the DACH region. Each country has its own rules — and the differences are substantial. If you’re using (or adding) email instead, see the legal situation in GDPR and Cold Email and B2B Cold Email Legal Situation; for warning-letter risk in detail, see Cold Email Warning Letters.

Country	Basic B2B rule	Law	Penalty
Germany	Permitted with presumed consent	Sec. 7(2) No. 1 UWG	Cease-and-desist warning (€1,000-5,000)
Austria	Prohibited without consent	Sec. 174 TKG 2021	Up to €58,000
Switzerland	Permitted, except the asterisk register	Art. 3 UWG	Up to CHF 20,000

Germany: presumed consent

What the law says

Sec. 7(2) No. 1 UWG: telephone advertising is an unreasonable nuisance if it happens without prior express consent (B2C) or presumed consent (B2B).

What “presumed consent” means

A court will ask: would the person called plausibly have agreed to the call, had they been asked in advance?

Criteria in favor:

• Your offer relates to the company’s business field
• The contact is responsible for the topic (procurement, IT lead, etc.)
• There’s an objective connection (industry, need)
• The timing is appropriate (business hours)

Criteria against:

• No recognizable connection to the business field
• You keep calling repeatedly despite no interest
• You’re calling private numbers
• The person called has already declined

Practical examples

Permitted (likely):

• An IT service provider calls the IT lead at a manufacturing company because that company recently posted a job listing for an IT project manager
• A logistics software vendor calls the logistics manager at an e-commerce company

Not permitted (likely):

• A cleaning company randomly calls every company in a city
• Repeated calls after a clear rejection
• A call to a managing director’s personal mobile number

Documentation obligation

For every call, keep a record of:

• Why you assume presumed consent exists
• What objective connection exists
• Whether and when the contact expressed interest or declined

Austria: effectively prohibited

What the law says

Sec. 174 of the 2021 Telecommunications Act (TKG) prohibits marketing calls without prior consent — even in B2B. Austria does NOT distinguish between B2B and B2C here.

Exceptions

• Existing business relationship: you may call existing customers to offer similar products
• Opt-in: the contact has explicitly left their phone number for marketing purposes (e.g., at a trade fair with an appropriate note)

Consequence for sales

For the Austrian market, we recommend:

• Email outreach — but not as a way around it: email advertising requires consent in principle in Austria under Section 174 TKG 2021, and prior express consent in Germany under Section 7(2) No. 2 UWG. The channel is not legally looser than the phone, it is stricter
• LinkedIn outreach (no phone-specific restrictions)
• Trade fairs and events (personal first contact → then follow-up)
• Inbound marketing (content, SEO, paid ads → the contact reaches out themselves)

Switzerland: watch the asterisk register

What the law says

Art. 3 lit. u of the Swiss unfair competition law (UWG): marketing calls to individuals are unfair if the person called is listed in the phone directory with an asterisk (*).

Checking the asterisk register

Before every call into Switzerland:

1. Look up the number on local.ch or search.ch
2. If an asterisk (*) is present: don’t call
3. If there’s no asterisk: the call is permitted

Practical tip: many Swiss company main lines are in the asterisk register. Direct-dial numbers (e.g., found on LinkedIn profiles) often aren’t. But when in doubt, check first.

Also relevant: the Telecommunications Act (FMG)

Art. 45c FMG requires providers to stop marketing calls if the person called demands it. A “no” applies immediately and permanently.

Best practices for legal B2B phone outreach in the DACH region

Before the call

Step	Germany	Austria	Switzerland
Research the company	Required (presumed consent)	Not relevant (prohibited)	Recommended
Check the asterisk register	N/A	N/A	Required
Document the objective connection	Required	N/A	Recommended
Identify the contact	Best practice	N/A	Best practice

During the call

1. Identify immediately: name, company, reason for the call within the first 15 seconds
2. Respect rejection: end the call politely at the first “not interested”
3. Don’t deceive: no fake surveys, no fabricated referrals
4. Document: log the outcome of the call in the CRM

After the call

• Note the opt-out: anyone who doesn’t want to be called goes on the blocklist
• Maintain the blocklist: centrally accessible to all salespeople
• Follow up by email: if there’s interest — referencing the call

Recommended channel strategy by country

Country	Primary channel	Secondary channel	Tertiary channel
Germany	Cold email + LinkedIn	Phone (qualified)	Events
Austria	Cold email + LinkedIn	Events/trade fairs	Inbound/ads
Switzerland	Cold email + LinkedIn	Phone (after asterisk check)	Referrals

For all three countries: multichannel beats single-channel. Combining email first contact, a LinkedIn presence, and a qualified phone call delivers the highest conversion rates — within each country’s legal framework.