Quick answer: On statute text read on 28 September 2026, nine US states require every party’s consent or knowledge for at least some call recording, several only where the recording is secret or the call is private: California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Five more are split or contested. For AI calls, California Penal Code 631 adds a second test: a vendor learning the call’s contents in transit.
The federal Wiretap Act sets a one-party baseline: 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d) permits a private person to intercept a call they are a party to, or where one party has given prior consent, unless the purpose is a criminal or tortious act. The states below attach stricter conditions under their own statutes, and an AI voice agent that dials across state lines meets all of them. This page is a map of the statute text, not legal advice; the “notable limb” column is there because the limbs are where a plain “two-party state” label goes wrong.
Which states are two-party consent for recording calls with an AI agent?
Every row below was read from the legislature’s own page (or a dated Wayback Machine capture of it where the live site would not load from our server). “All-party” means the statute requires the consent or knowledge of everyone on the call; the fourth column is the condition or exception that changes the answer for a business running AI calls.
| State | Statute section | Phone call rule on the text | Notable limb or exception |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | Penal Code 632, 632.7, 631 | All-party | 632 applies only to a “confidential communication” and excludes circumstances where parties may reasonably expect to be overheard or recorded; 632.7 (cellular or cordless calls) has no confidentiality limb; 631 covers reading contents in transit |
| Florida | Fla. Stat. 934.03 | All-party (prior consent of all parties, 934.03(2)(d)) | The 934.03(2) exceptions include switchboard operators and service providers, the FCC, law enforcement, telephone-company call tracing, 911 and published emergency lines, publicly accessible and radio communications, some recordings by or for children, and injunction holders; none is a general sales or service exception (the 934.02 definitions were not read) |
| Illinois | 720 ILCS 5/14-2, 14-3(j) | All-party, but only for recording done “in a surreptitious manner” of a “private conversation” | 14-3(j) exempts marketing, opinion research and telephone solicitation monitoring of employees’ conversations with one active party’s consent, only for quality control, training or internal research, with no onward disclosure, employee notice and signage, and personal-only staff lines; its definitions refer to “live operators” and a “live telephone interviewer” |
| Maryland | Cts. & Jud. Proc. 10-402 | All-party: the recorder must be a party and all parties must give prior consent (10-402(c)(3)) | Lost if the purpose is a criminal or tortious act; violation is a felony (10-402(b)) |
| Massachusetts | G.L. c. 272, s. 99 | All-party, but “interception” means to secretly hear or record | The “intercepting device” definition excludes telephone equipment furnished by a carrier under its tariff and used by the subscriber in the ordinary course of its business |
| Montana | MCA 45-8-213(1)(c) | All-party knowledge, for a “hidden” device | Does not apply to persons given warning; “If one person provides the warning, either party may record” (45-8-213(2)(a)(iii)) |
| New Hampshire | RSA 570-A:2 | All-party (class B felony without consent of all parties) | 570-A:2, I-a separately makes interception by a party, or with one party’s consent, a misdemeanour where the II(d) approval (a law-enforcement route) is absent |
| Pennsylvania | 18 Pa.C.S. 5703, 5704(4) and (15) | All-party (5704(4): all parties have given prior consent) | 5704(15) lets “personnel” of a telephone marketing or customer service business record with one party’s consent, solely for training, quality control or monitoring; recordings usable only for training or quality control and destroyed within one year unless law requires otherwise |
| Washington | RCW 9.73.030 | All-party, for a “private” communication or conversation | Consent is obtained when one party announces the recording “in any reasonably effective manner” and the announcement is itself recorded (9.73.030(3)); one-party exceptions for emergencies, threats, anonymous, repeated or extremely inconvenient-hour calls, and hostage situations; separate rules for news gathering and custodial interrogations |
| Connecticut | C.G.S. 52-570d; 53a-187, 53a-189 | Split: civil statute is all-party for recording an “oral private telephonic communication”; criminal eavesdropping is one-party | 52-570d is satisfied by (1) all-party consent in writing or recorded at the start, (2) a recorded verbal notification at the beginning, or (3) a tone about every fifteen seconds |
| Delaware | 11 Del. C. 2402(c)(4); 1335(a)(4) | Conflicting on the face of the code | 2402(c)(4) permits a party or one consenting party to intercept, unless the purpose is a criminal or tortious act; 1335(a)(4) makes it an offence to intercept “without the consent of all parties”, but 1335(a) opens “except as authorized by law”, and the text does not say whether 2402(c)(4) is that authorisation |
| Michigan | MCL 750.539c, 750.539a | Text says all-party; application to a participant is contested | 539c covers a person “who is present or who is not present”, but 539a defines eavesdropping as recording “the private discourse of others”, so the text points both ways on a participant recording their own call; 539a(2) also says it does not “modify or affect any law or regulation concerning interception, divulgence or recording of messages transmitted by communications common carriers”; court readings not verified for this page |
| Nevada | NRS 200.620, 200.650 | Stricter than one-party for phone calls on the text | 200.620(1) requires one party’s prior consent and an emergency in which a court order is impractical, followed by court ratification; in-person conversations (200.650) need only one party’s authorisation; 200.620(4) and (5) carve out emergency-agency lines and NRS 179.463 circumstances (179.463 not read) |
| Oregon | ORS 165.540, 165.535 | One-party for phone calls; all participants informed for in-person conversations | “Conversation” excludes telecommunications but includes “a communication occurring through a video conferencing program” (165.535(1)); read from the 2025 edition |
Nine rows are all-party on the text (California to Washington), and five are split, conflicting or contested (Connecticut to Oregon). We did not verify the remaining states and the District of Columbia from primary text for this page; the fact that a state is absent from the table is not evidence that it is one-party.
What the word “all-party” hides: secrecy limbs
A two-way label treats Illinois and Maryland as the same kind of state. They are not. Maryland’s lawful-interception clause, 10-402(c)(3), requires that the person intercepting be a party and that all parties have given prior consent. There is no secrecy limb: an open recording without everyone’s consent is still outside the exception.
Illinois, Massachusetts and Montana write the prohibition around concealment. Illinois 14-2(a)(2) applies to a party who uses an eavesdropping device “in a surreptitious manner”, and 14-1(g) defines surreptitious as “obtained or made by stealth or deception, or executed through secrecy or concealment”. Massachusetts defines interception as to “secretly hear, secretly record” a communication without prior authority from all parties. Montana’s offence is recording with “a hidden electronic or mechanical device” without the knowledge of all parties.
California sits in between. Section 632 needs a “confidential communication”, which 632(c) defines as one carried on in circumstances that reasonably indicate a party wants it confined to the parties, and which excludes circumstances where the parties may reasonably expect to be overheard or recorded. But 632.7, which covers calls where either end is a cellular or cordless phone, contains no confidentiality limb at all: it requires the consent of all parties to intercept or receive and intentionally record the call. 632.7 lists the pairings it covers (cellular, cordless and landline phones in combination), so for most calls with a mobile at one end the confidentiality argument under 632 does not do the work many teams assume it does. The section does not say whether an AI agent’s VoIP or SIP endpoint counts as a “landline telephone”.
The practical consequence is simple: an announced recording goes to the secrecy limb in Illinois, Massachusetts and Montana and to the confidentiality limb of California 632, but California 632.7, Maryland, Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania ask for the consent of all parties, and an announcement is only as good as the consent it produces. Washington is the one state in the table whose statute says outright that a recorded announcement counts as consent.
Recording the call vs an AI vendor listening in: Penal Code 632 vs 631
Most recording-consent articles stop at “tell people you are recording”. For AI calls that answers only half of the question, because California has two different statutes aimed at two different acts.
| Question | Penal Code 632 | Penal Code 632.7 | Penal Code 631 |
|---|---|---|---|
| What act is covered | Using an electronic amplifying or recording device to eavesdrop upon or record | Intercepting or receiving and intentionally recording a call | Tapping a line, or reading or learning the contents of a message in transit, or using what was learned |
| Consent needed | All parties | All parties | All parties (the section also reaches reading done in any other unauthorised manner) |
| Communications covered | Confidential communications, in person or by phone (not radio) | Calls between the listed pairings of cellular, cordless and landline phones (VoIP endpoints not addressed) | Messages passing over a wire, line or cable, or sent from or received at any place in California |
| Who is liable beyond the actor | Not stated in the section | Anyone who assists | Anyone who “aids, agrees with, employs, or conspires with” the actor |
| Excluded | An individual known by all parties to be overhearing or recording (632(b)); utilities, tariffed equipment, correctional systems, hearing aids | Utilities, tariffed equipment, correctional systems | Utilities, tariffed equipment, correctional systems |
| Criminal fine, first offence | Up to 2,500 dollars per violation | Up to 2,500 dollars | Up to 2,500 dollars |
| Civil action (637.2) | Greater of 5,000 dollars per violation or three times actual damages; actual damage is not a prerequisite | ||
The distinction that matters for an AI deployment: when your business records its own call, the question is 632 or 632.7 consent; when a separate company’s system hears the call as it happens, the question is also whether that company is a third person learning the contents in transit under 631. The business is a party to its own call. A speech-recognition, analytics or voice-AI provider processing the audio is, on the text, a different “person”, and 631 reaches both whoever reads the contents without all parties’ consent and whoever “employs” them to do it.
Read that way, the question for any provider is whether it is merely the business’s tape recorder or a separate listener, and the text leaves more room for the second reading where the provider may use call content for its own purposes, such as improving its models. We have not read any court decision on this point, and nothing on this page depends on one. What the statute text alone tells you is enough to act on: a disclosure that covers “this call is recorded” but not “and processed by our service provider” leaves the 631 question unanswered.
There are two structural ways to narrow that question. The first is contractual and technical: a vendor that is restricted to processing audio only for you, and cannot keep or reuse it, looks more like an extension of your business than an independent listener. The second is architectural: keep the model inside your own infrastructure so there is no separate company in the audio path. Zian offers private model deployment on customer infrastructure; it changes who holds the audio, and it is not a substitute for the consent line.
The Recorder-and-Listener test for AI calls
We call the working rule the Recorder-and-Listener test: before an AI agent goes live on US calls, answer two questions separately. Is anyone recording or transcribing? That engages the all-party statutes in the table. Is anyone other than the two parties hearing the call as it happens? That engages 631-style third-party liability. The opening line has to cover whichever answers are yes.
| Your setup | Recorder question | Listener question | What the opening line has to cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent runs on your own infrastructure, no audio or transcript kept | No recording; live processing may still be “eavesdropping” under 632’s “eavesdrop upon” limb | No separate company in the path | That the call is handled by an automated system; treat live transcription as recording |
| Agent runs on your infrastructure, audio or transcript kept | Yes: all-party consent in the nine states (or, in Illinois, Massachusetts and Montana, recording that is not secret), announcement in Washington, notice or tone in Connecticut | No separate company in the path | That the call is recorded, before the substantive conversation starts |
| Hosted voice-AI or speech-to-text vendor, restricted to processing for you | Yes | Yes: a separate person hears the contents in transit | That the call is recorded and processed by a service provider on your behalf |
| Vendor that may keep or reuse call content for its own purposes | Yes | Yes, and this is the fact pattern the 631 third-party theory targets | Recording, the provider, and the provider’s use; renegotiate the reuse term if you cannot say it on a call |
| A human supervisor can listen in live | Depends on whether audio is kept | A person known to be listening is excluded from 632’s “person” only if known by all parties | That the call may be monitored |
The first row is the one teams underestimate. A voice agent that “never stores audio” still runs speech recognition on every word. Florida and Maryland prohibit “intercepting”; California 632 covers a device used to “eavesdrop upon” as well as to “record”. On their face, none of those words depends on whether a file is written to disk.
What counts as consent on an AI call
Five of the statutes say something concrete about how consent or notice is given, and the differences decide what your agent’s first sentence must do.
- Washington: consent “shall be considered obtained” when one party announces “in any reasonably effective manner” that the call is about to be recorded, and if it is recorded, the announcement must be recorded too (RCW 9.73.030(3)). An agent that starts recording after its greeting breaks the second half of that clause.
- Connecticut: any of three routes under 52-570d(a): all-party consent obtained in writing or at the start of the recording; a verbal notification recorded at the beginning by the recording party; or an automatic tone repeated at intervals of approximately fifteen seconds.
- Montana: the offence does not apply to “persons given warning of the transcription or recording”, and one party’s warning lets either party record.
- Illinois and Massachusetts: the prohibition is on surreptitious or secret recording, so a clear announcement goes to the element of the offence rather than to an exception.
- Maryland, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, California: the text requires consent from all parties and has no general announcement clause (the Pennsylvania and New Hampshire warning or tone clauses cover only utility, emergency and excavation calls); an announcement matters because it gives the other party the choice to continue on those terms or hang up. Whether continuing counts as consent is a question the statute text does not answer.
Two business exemptions look as though they should save an AI call programme and may not. Illinois 14-3(j) covers monitoring of “telephone solicitation” and “marketing or opinion research” conversations by an employee of the business, with one active party’s consent, but only for quality control, training or internal research, with no onward disclosure to law enforcement, proceedings or third parties, with unrelated conversations destroyed, only with notice and signage for employees, only with personal-only lines provided for staff, and its definitions describe communications “by live operators” and interviews by “a live telephone interviewer”. Pennsylvania 5704(15) covers “the personnel of a business engaged in telephone marketing or telephone customer service”, for the sole purpose of training, quality control or monitoring, with recordings usable by the business only for training or quality control and destroyed within one year unless another law requires them. Whether an autonomous agent is a “live operator” or “personnel” is not answered by either text, and the one-year destruction term collides with most teams’ retention plans (see our breakdown of AI call recording storage and retention costs). Neither exemption is a safe foundation for an AI programme; a clear opening disclosure is.
Recording consent is also a different duty from telling people they are speaking to an AI. Several states now impose that second duty separately, and we map them in the US state AI call-disclosure patchwork. One opening line can satisfy both, and our AI agent disclosure scripts for live calls show wording that puts the AI disclosure and the recording notice in the first breath.
Interstate AI calls: design to the strictest state
The statutes do not ask which side dialled. California 631 reaches a message “sent from, or received at any place within this state”, and Washington’s RCW 9.73.030(1)(a) covers private communications “between points within or without the state”. An outbound agent calling from a one-party state into Seattle or Los Angeles is inside those words; Florida’s 934.03 has no comparable place clause, so the text we read does not settle whether it reaches an inbound agent in Texas answering a caller in Florida; do not assume it does not.
Area codes do not tell you where someone is standing, and mobile numbers follow people across state lines. The decision rule that survives this is blunt: one all-party opening on every US call, recorded, before the conversation that you intend to keep. It costs a few seconds per call. The alternative is a per-call jurisdiction guess that is wrong whenever a Californian with a Texas number picks up in Sacramento.
What a breach costs, statute by statute
| State | Criminal exposure on the text | Civil remedy on the text |
|---|---|---|
| California | Fine up to 2,500 dollars per violation (632) or up to 2,500 dollars (631, 632.7), and/or imprisonment; up to 10,000 dollars after a prior conviction | Greater of 5,000 dollars per violation or three times actual damages (637.2) |
| Florida | Third-degree felony (934.03(4)(a)) | Not read for this page (934.10) |
| Maryland | Felony: up to 5 years and/or up to 10,000 dollars (10-402(b)) | Not read for this page |
| Massachusetts | Up to 10,000 dollars, up to 5 years in state prison or 2.5 years in a house of correction, or both | Actual damages, but not less than 100 dollars per day or 1,000 dollars, whichever is higher; punitive damages; legal fees (s. 99 Q) |
| Michigan | Felony: up to 2 years and/or up to 2,000 dollars (750.539c) | Not read for this page |
| Nevada | Category D felony (200.690) | Actual damages or 100 dollars per day, not less than 1,000 dollars; punitive damages; costs and legal fees (200.690) |
| New Hampshire | Class B felony (570-A:2, I); misdemeanour under I-a | Not read for this page |
| Pennsylvania | Third-degree felony (5703) | Not read for this page (5725) |
| Connecticut | Eavesdropping is a class D felony (53a-189), but only on the one-party definitions in 53a-187 | Damages, costs and a reasonable legal fee (52-570d(c)) |
California’s civil figure is the one that scales. At 5,000 dollars per violation and no requirement to prove damage, a programme that places 1,000 undisclosed calls into California has exposure of 5,000 x 1,000 = 5,000,000 dollars on the statutory minimum alone, before the question of whether each call is one violation or several is argued.
Where this map has holes
- We did not verify the other states or the District of Columbia from primary text. Absence from the table is not a classification.
- Illinois 14-1, 14-2 and 14-3 were read from Wayback captures dated April and June 2025; later amendments were not checked.
- Pennsylvania 5704 was read from a Wayback capture dated 16 July 2021; later amendments were not checked. The 5703 capture is dated 14 December 2025.
- Oregon was read from the 2025 edition of ORS chapter 165. The legislature’s page notes that sections in chapter 165 were amended in the 2026 regular session; we did not check whether 165.535 or 165.540 were among them.
- Florida’s definitions (934.02), New Hampshire’s definitions (570-A:1) and the civil remedy sections for Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania were not read.
- Case law was not read. Michigan’s participant question, Delaware’s conflict and Nevada’s phone-call rule are stated here only as the text presents them.
For Australian calls, the rules are state surveillance-devices acts plus the Commonwealth interception regime, and they are covered separately in call recording laws in Australia for AI agents. Nothing on this page is legal advice; it is a reading of statute text to help you brief counsel with the right questions.
If you are building an AI calling programme that has to get this right across states, Zian is in partnership-application beta. Apply For Partnership.
Frequently asked questions
Is California a two party consent state for recording calls?
Yes, for the statutes that matter to a voice agent. Penal Code 632 requires the consent of all parties to record a confidential communication, 632.7 requires the consent of all parties to record a call involving a cellular or cordless phone, and 631 covers reading or learning the contents of a call in transit without the consent of all parties. Section 632 has a confidentiality limb: it excludes circumstances where the parties may reasonably expect to be overheard or recorded. Under Penal Code 637.2 a person injured by a violation can sue for 5,000 dollars per violation or three times actual damages, whichever is greater, without proving actual damage.
Is Florida a two party consent state for recording calls?
Yes. Florida Statutes 934.03(2)(d) makes an interception lawful when all of the parties to the communication have given prior consent, and 934.03(4)(a) makes an unlawful interception a third degree felony. The listed exceptions include switchboard operators and service providers, law enforcement, emergency and 911 lines, certain recordings by or for children, and people protected by an injunction. None of the exceptions listed in 934.03(2) is a general business exception for sales or service calls.
Is Texas a two party consent state?
Texas was not part of the set we verified from primary text for this page, so we do not classify it here. Its autocomplete demand is real, which is why we say so plainly rather than guess. Read the current Texas statute before relying on any list that places it.
What states are two party consent states for recording phone calls?
On the statute text we read, nine states require the consent or knowledge of every party before a phone call is recorded: California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Five more have split or contested text: Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon. Several of the nine only bite when the recording is secret, hidden or surreptitious, which is why an announced recording changes the answer.
Does announcing that the call is recorded count as consent?
In Washington the text says so directly, and several other states give notice a defined role. RCW 9.73.030(3) treats consent as obtained when one party announces to all other parties, in any reasonably effective manner, that the call is about to be recorded, and the announcement must itself be recorded. Connecticut accepts a verbal notification recorded at the beginning of the call, or an automatic tone repeated about every fifteen seconds. Montana exempts persons given warning of the recording. Illinois and Massachusetts only prohibit surreptitious or secret recording. California has no announcement clause: an announcement goes to whether a call is confidential under 632, but 632.7 still asks for the consent of all parties.
If my AI agent calls from a one party state into California, which law applies?
Design to the stricter state. California Penal Code 631 reaches messages sent from or received at any place within California, and Washington RCW 9.73.030 covers calls between points within or without the state. An AI agent that dials nationally cannot know in advance which rule applies to each person, so one all party disclosure at the start of every call, before recording begins, is the design that fits every row of the table except Nevada, whose phone-call text asks for more than consent (see the Nevada row).
Is the AI vendor a third party on my calls?
Possibly, and that is a separate question from recording. California Penal Code 631 covers anyone who, without the consent of all parties, reads or learns the contents of a communication in transit, and anyone who aids, agrees with, employs or conspires with them. The business is a party to its own call; a vendor that processes the audio is a different person. Whether a given vendor counts as the business tool or as a separate listener depends on facts such as what it may do with the audio, which is why the disclosure should cover the service provider and not only the recording.
Do these laws apply to AI transcription with no audio saved?
Do not assume a transcript-only setup escapes them. California 632 covers a device used to eavesdrop upon or record, Florida and Maryland prohibit interception, and California 631 covers reading or learning the contents of a message in transit. None of those limbs is written around whether an audio file is kept. Treat live transcription as needing the same consent as recording.
Where every figure on this page comes from
| Figure | Who published it | Link | Date read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal one-party exception, 2511(2)(d) | US Code, via Cornell Legal Information Institute | 18 U.S.C. 2511 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| California all-party rules; 2,500 dollar and 10,000 dollar fines | California Legislative Information | 632, 632.7, 631 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| 5,000 dollars per violation or three times damages | California Legislative Information | Penal Code 637.2 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Florida all-party consent; third-degree felony | Florida Legislature (Online Sunshine), 2026 Florida Statutes | 934.03 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Maryland all-party consent; 5 years, 10,000 dollars | Maryland General Assembly | CJP 10-402 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Massachusetts secrecy limb; 100 dollars per day, 1,000 dollars, 10,000 dollars, 5 and 2.5 years | Massachusetts General Court (Wayback capture 25 Sep 2026) | c. 272, s. 99 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Illinois surreptitious limb and 14-3(j) exemption | Illinois General Assembly (Wayback captures 17 Jun, 24 Jun and 2 Apr 2025) | 14-2, 14-1, 14-3 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Pennsylvania all-party consent; one-year destruction under 5704(15) | Pennsylvania General Assembly (Wayback captures 16 Jul 2021 and 14 Dec 2025) | 5704, 5703 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Montana hidden-device and warning limbs | Montana Legislature, MCA 2025 | 45-8-213 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| New Hampshire class B felony and I-a misdemeanour | New Hampshire General Court (Wayback capture 20 Sep 2026) | RSA 570-A:2 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Washington announcement rule | Washington State Legislature | RCW 9.73.030 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Connecticut three routes; fifteen-second tone | Connecticut General Assembly (Wayback captures 16 Sep and 28 Sep 2026) | 52-570d, 53a-187, 53a-189 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Delaware conflicting sections | Delaware Code Online | 2402, 1335 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Michigan all-party text; 2 years, 2,000 dollars | Michigan Legislature (Wayback captures 11 Aug 2026) | 750.539c, 750.539a | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Nevada phone rule; 100 dollars per day, 1,000 dollars | Nevada Legislature (Wayback capture 25 Sep 2026) | NRS chapter 200 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Oregon telecom vs conversation split | Oregon Legislature, ORS 2025 edition (Wayback capture 11 Aug 2026) | ORS chapter 165 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Nine all-party, five split; 5,000,000 dollar worked example | Zian, counted and calculated from the rows above | This page | 28 Sep 2026 |