Quick answer: Not banned, but UWG §7(2) requires prior express consent for sales calls to consumers, at least presumed consent for calls to businesses, and prior express consent from everyone for calls by an automatic calling machine. As at 30 September 2026, no German court or regulator text we found says whether an AI voice agent is one, so plan on express consent. Consumer fines: up to €300,000.
Is AI cold calling legal in Germany?
AI cold calling means an unsolicited sales call in which the voice the other person hears is generated by software. In Germany that call is governed by the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG), the Act against Unfair Competition, chiefly §7, headed Unzumutbare Belästigungen (unacceptable nuisance). The Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), the federal network regulator, fines breaches against consumers. The GDPR and the EU AI Act sit on top.
If you are asking “is cold calling legal in Germany, and does my AI voice agent change the answer?”, the AI part turns on one undefined phrase: automatische Anrufmaschine, automatic calling machine. This is German law as read on 30 September 2026, not legal advice. Quotations were checked against the authoritative German text; the official English translation, in the latest capture we could read (29 August 2024), covers amendments only to 24 June 2022.
What UWG §7 says: the three rules for sales calls
UWG §7(2) lists cases in which an unacceptable nuisance is “always” assumed (stets anzunehmen):
- No. 1: advertising by telephone call “gegenüber einem Verbraucher ohne dessen vorherige ausdrückliche Einwilligung oder gegenüber einem sonstigen Marktteilnehmer ohne dessen zumindest mutmaßliche Einwilligung”: to a consumer without prior express consent, or to any other market participant without at least presumed consent.
- No. 2: advertising using an automatic calling machine, a fax machine or electronic mail without the addressee’s prior express consent. This limb makes no distinction between consumers and businesses.
- No. 3: advertising by message where (a) the identity of the sender on whose behalf it is sent is disguised or concealed, (b) it breaches §6(1) of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz or asks the recipient to visit a website that does, or (c) there is no valid address for a request to stop, at no cost beyond basic-rate transmission charges.
Above those sits §7(1): a commercial practice that unacceptably harasses a market participant is unlawful, “in particular” advertising where it is recognisable that the person does not want it. For business calling that means a clear “no” ends whatever presumed consent you had.
This wording has applied since 14 May 2024; the UWG’s latest amendment, of 12 May 2026, did not touch §7, §7a or §20, per the consolidated version history on buzer.de.
Is an AI voice agent an “automatische Anrufmaschine”?
Nobody with authority has said. We found no German court decision and no Bundesnetzagentur publication classifying a conversational AI agent either way, and the UWG does not define the term. Where we looked: the BNetzA pages on unlawful telephone advertising, recorded-message calls and predictive diallers; its 2022 guidance on §7a; its list of fines from February 2025 to July 2026; and a German-language search for case law on AI calls under §7(2) No. 2.
What does exist is the EU text §7 implements. The UWG states that it implements Article 13 of the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC), and Article 13(1) describes the machines as “automated calling and communication systems without human intervention (automatic calling machines)”. The words “without human intervention” are the hinge. An agent that dials, speaks and books with no human in the loop fits that description more naturally than a human caller; one a person supervises live, handing over on request, has an argument the other way. Neither argument has been tested in a German court that we could find.
For consumers, the Bundesnetzagentur has already closed the gap. Its consumer page says the need for prior consent, and the duty to honour its withdrawal, apply “unabhängig davon, ob die Werbeanrufe von einer natürlichen Person kommen oder ob Sie die Bandansage einer automatischen Anrufmaschine hören”: whether the call comes from a person or plays an automatic calling machine’s announcement.
In Germany, the AI-machine question only changes the consent standard for business calls, because consumer calls need prior express consent either way.
The Anrufmaschine Fork: which consent standard your AI call needs
The Anrufmaschine Fork: find your callee and read across. Where the two classification columns agree, the open question does not affect you; where they disagree, the defensive course is the right-hand column.
| Who you call, on what channel | If the AI agent is a telephone call (§7(2) No. 1) | If the AI agent is an automatic calling machine (§7(2) No. 2) | BNetzA fine exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer, voice call | Prior express consent | Prior express consent | Up to €300,000 (UWG §20(1) No. 1, §20(2)) |
| Business, or sole trader called in a business capacity, voice call | At least presumed consent (BGH test below) | Prior express consent | None under UWG §20; civil claims under §8 remain |
| Anyone, email or SMS follow-up | Prior express consent (§7(2) No. 2), unless all four §7(3) existing-customer conditions are met (electronic mail only, not calls or fax) | None under UWG §20; civil claims remain | |
| Consumer, missing or deficient consent record | §7a documentation duty for telephone calls to consumers; BNetzA says it does not cover machine calls | Up to €50,000 (UWG §20(1) No. 2, §20(2)) | |
| Anyone, caller ID suppressed on an advertising call | Forbidden with or without consent (TDDDG §15(2)) | Up to €300,000 (TDDDG §28) | |
Row two is where AI changes the law: a human SDR calling a German company can rely on presumed consent if the facts support it; an AI agent only if it is not an automatic calling machine, the point nobody has ruled on. The UK has its own version of this question, set out in our page on whether AI cold calling is legal in the UK under PECR regulation 19.
Planning AI outbound into Germany? Zian AI runs phone, SMS, email and WhatsApp sales agents in 30+ languages, with SmartReach AI™ orchestrating message, channel and timing by country, industry and profile. Zian is in partnership-application beta.
B2B cold calling in Germany: what “presumed consent” means
The statute does not define mutmaßliche Einwilligung; the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, did. In I ZR 88/05 of 20 September 2007 it held that advertising calls to businesses are lawful with express or implied consent, and also where “aufgrund konkreter tatsächlicher Umstände ein sachliches Interesse des Anzurufenden daran vermutet werden kann”: where concrete facts allow a genuine interest of the called party to be presumed. The test is whether the caller, sensibly assessing the circumstances before the call and the type and content of the advertising, could assume the business expects the call or would at least welcome it. Three limits follow from that judgment and from I ZR 191/03 of 16 November 2006:
- The presumed consent must cover the telephone as a method, not just the offer.
- A general connection between your product and the called firm’s trade is not enough; otherwise, the court said, telephone advertising to businesses would be “nahezu unbeschränkt zulässig”, almost unrestricted.
- An existing business relationship with a factual link to the offer can support it, but not automatically: in I ZR 88/05 a free search-engine directory entry did not justify a call that also pitched a paid upgrade.
The same judgment also says, against caution, “Wer einen Telefonanschluss zu gewerblichen Zwecken unterhält, rechnet allerdings mit entsprechenden Anrufen”: whoever keeps a business line does expect such calls. That is why human B2B calling in Germany is workable. Both judgments cite the business limb under its pre-2022 number, §7(2) No. 2; it is now No. 1.
The Bundesnetzagentur’s page on unlawful telephone advertising says it cannot fine calls to businesses, tradespeople or freelancers. That does not make them lawful. Businesses can act under private or competition law, and UWG §8(3) gives injunction claims to competitors who sell or buy to a not insignificant extent, listed trade associations where the breach affects their members’ interests, qualified consumer associations and qualified entities from other EU member states, chambers and other public-law professional bodies, and trade unions acting for self-employed members. For B2B the realistic exposure is a warning letter (Abmahnung) and an injunction.
Which row you are in is not always obvious. The regulator’s FAQ says that on a business number it depends on whether the call serves a business purpose (office supplies) or a private one (private health insurance), while advertising calls to a private number are in principle consumer calls, whatever capacity the person is addressed in. A sole trader’s mobile that doubles as a private phone can move a call from row two to row one.
The §7a consent record: five years, and the gap for machine calls
UWG §7a, in force since 1 October 2021, says whoever advertises to a consumer by telephone must document the consumer’s prior express consent in appropriate form at the time it is given, keep the proof for five years from consent and again after each use of it, and hand it to the Bundesnetzagentur without delay on request. Breaches are fined up to €50,000.
The Bundesnetzagentur’s §7a guidance of 7 July 2022 adds four points that matter for AI calls:
- The duty falls on both whoever places the calls and the client whose products are advertised, whatever their contract says.
- Consents bought from third parties must be checked, and must not be used if valid consent cannot be established.
- Consent given by phone is documented by a recording (“voicefile”) of the whole passage in which it is given. An email double opt-in does not prove phone consent unless it is otherwise established that the email holder holds the number.
- The five-year clock restarts with each “use”: a call in which advertising took place in a conversation with the consumer.
Then the sentence that cuts across the obvious advice: the guidance says advertising by automatic calling machine is not a “use”, and that §7(2) No. 2 cases fall outside §7a, because Article 13(1) of the ePrivacy Directive regulates automated calls exhaustively. So if your agent is a machine, §7a arguably does not bind you, but GDPR Article 7(1) still requires a controller relying on consent to be able to demonstrate it. Keep a §7a-grade record for every consumer your agent calls; you cannot know which classification a court will pick. Wording and storage are covered in our guide to consent language for AI calls and the records behind it.
Emails, SMS and voicemails your AI agent sends after the call
Under §7(2) No. 2 all electronic mail advertising needs prior express consent, from consumers and businesses alike. The only statutory exception is §7(3), which covers email only, not calls or fax, and needs all four conditions at once:
- you obtained the customer’s email address from them in connection with the sale of goods or a service;
- you use it for direct advertising of your own similar goods or services;
- the customer has not objected; and
- the customer is told clearly and distinctly, when the address is collected and every time it is used, that they can object at any time without costs other than basic-rate transmission costs.
A prospect who took a call but never bought fails condition 1, so post-call email to cold prospects is not covered.
The ePrivacy Directive defines electronic mail in Article 2(h) as “any text, voice, sound or image message sent over a public communications network which can be stored in the network or in the recipient’s terminal equipment until it is collected by the recipient”. On that definition, an SMS or a voicemail your agent leaves sits with email, on the express-consent line. We found no German decision applying it to AI-left voicemail, so treat this as our reading of the directive.
Caller ID: the rule that applies even with consent
TDDDG §15(2) says that on advertising calls the caller must not suppress the number display or have the provider suppress it, and must ensure the number assigned to the caller is transmitted. The fine limb, TDDDG §28(1) No. 9, refers to the suppression half and carries up to €300,000; the Bundesnetzagentur says it treats showing a number not assigned to you as suppression, and that a call centre showing its client’s number is not allowed. Its FAQ says this applies with or without consent, to consumer and business calls alike.
How much can the Bundesnetzagentur fine for an AI sales call?
Under UWG §20, an intentional or negligent advertising call to a consumer without prior express consent, “mit einem Telefonanruf oder unter Verwendung einer automatischen Anrufmaschine”, can be fined up to €300,000, and a §7a documentation or storage failure up to €50,000. The €300,000 limb names the machine alongside the phone call, but only for calls to consumers.
We read every entry on the Bundesnetzagentur’s list of fines for unlawful telephone advertising on 30 September 2026. The regulator notes some decisions are not final and can be challenged before the Bonn local court.
| Measure (17 decisions dated 18 February 2025 to 24 July 2026) | Result |
|---|---|
| Decisions listed | 17 |
| Sum of all fines listed | €1,047,409.25 |
| Largest single decision | €210,000 (energy-sector advertiser, 18 December 2025; objection lodged) |
| Decisions reaching the €300,000 ceiling | 0 in this window (the archive shows €300,000 on 27 July 2017, 3 December 2018 and 10 December 2018) |
| Decisions against a managing director or former managing director personally | 3 |
| Decisions including §7a documentation fines | 5 |
| Documentation fines per breach, where itemised | €177 × 84; €198 × 214; €214.50 × 193; €243.75 × 65 |
| Decisions including caller-ID suppression fines | 2 |
| Decisions whose description mentions an automatic calling machine, recorded announcement or AI | 0 |
Documentation fines are assessed per breach, so they scale with volume: the largest itemised run was 214 breaches at €198, €42,372, against a former managing director. An AI agent calling from a bad consent file multiplies the same way. The list says nothing yet about AI: no entry describes an automated caller, and the older archive records only product, role and amount.
Call timing and retries: the dialler thresholds
The Bundesnetzagentur’s page on harassing call attempts says dialler use is not regulated as such, but harassment is as a rule assumed, for example, for calls on working days before 8 am or after 8 pm, advertising calls on Sundays and nationwide public holidays, or more than three calls a day; its §7a guidance adds more than six attempts a week. A mere attempt with no conversation is not a breach of the telephone-advertising ban, though repeated attempts can still be an unacceptable nuisance under §7(1), per the §7a guidance, and the regulator can pursue them as number misuse. Configure your agent’s retry ceilings to match.
GDPR and the EU AI Act on top of UWG
UWG consent and GDPR lawfulness are separate tests. Dialling a named person needs a GDPR basis, for marketing calls usually consent (Article 6(1)(a)) or legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)). GDPR recital 47 says direct marketing “may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest”, but that does not displace the UWG consent rule for the call. Under Article 21(2) and (3) the person can object to direct marketing at any time and you must then stop; under Article 21(4) that right must be brought to their attention at the latest at the first communication, clearly and separately. Where the data did not come from them, Article 14(3) requires the Article 14 information within a reasonable period and at the latest within one month, and, where the data is used to contact them, at the latest at the first communication.
Article 50(1) of the EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) requires providers to design AI systems that interact directly with people so the people are informed they are dealing with an AI, unless that is obvious to a reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect person in the context. Under Article 113 of the published text the Regulation applies from 2 August 2026, and Article 99(4)(g) allows fines of up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher (for SMEs and start-ups, whichever is lower, under Article 99(6)). The Article 50(1) duty sits with providers; a deployer whose agent uses a cloned voice resembling a real person has its own duty under Article 50(4) to disclose deep-fake audio. We have not verified in the Official Journal whether a later amending act changed Article 50’s timing. Our EU AI Act Article 50 transparency checklist covers the disclosure itself. On our reading, not any ruling, an agent that announces it is an AI arguably looks more like a machine call under the UWG.
When this is a question for a German lawyer
Take advice from a German competition lawyer (Wettbewerbsrecht) before relying on presumed consent for AI calls to businesses, using third-party consent data for consumer calls, calling for energy suppliers (the sector named in 9 of the 17 decision headings above), or answering a warning letter or a Bundesnetzagentur hearing letter. Market and opinion research calls are separate: the regulator says they are in principle not advertising unless they contain hidden advertising.
Frequently asked questions
Is cold calling illegal in Germany?
For consumers, effectively yes: UWG §7(2) No. 1 makes a sales call to a consumer unlawful without prior express consent. A call to a business is lawful with at least presumed consent, which the Bundesgerichtshof requires to rest on concrete facts suggesting the business would welcome the call.
Is B2B cold calling allowed in Germany with an AI voice agent?
Unsettled. A human caller can rely on presumed consent. If an AI agent counts as an automatic calling machine under §7(2) No. 2, express consent is needed for businesses too. As at 30 September 2026, no German court or Bundesnetzagentur text we found decides the point, so the defensive course is express consent.
Can the Bundesnetzagentur fine an unlawful call to a business?
No. Its page on unlawful telephone advertising says it can fine unlawful telephone advertising only where the person called is a consumer. The call is still unlawful, and UWG §8(3) lets competitors, listed associations, chambers and certain other bodies sue for an injunction. Caller-ID suppression is separate: the Bundesnetzagentur can fine it on business calls too, up to €300,000 under TDDDG §28.
How long must I keep proof of consent for telephone advertising?
Five years from when consent is given, restarting after each use, under UWG §7a(2). The Bundesnetzagentur can demand it at any time, and documentation breaches can be fined up to €50,000.
Can I ask for consent at the start of the AI call?
No. The Bundesnetzagentur says consent must exist before the call and obtaining it at the start of the call is not allowed. The consent must also make clear which company wants to advertise by phone and which services or product group.
Can my AI agent send a follow-up email after a cold call in Germany?
Only with prior express consent, unless all four UWG §7(3) conditions are met: the address came from the customer in connection with a sale, the email advertises your own similar products, the customer has not objected, and they are told at collection and in every email that they can object at any time without extra cost.
Where every figure on this page comes from
| Figure | Who published it | Link | Date read |
|---|---|---|---|
| §7(2) No. 1–3 consent standards; §7(3) four conditions; §7 wording in force since 14 May 2024 | Federal Ministry of Justice (gesetze-im-internet.de), via Web Archive capture of 10 Aug 2026; version history on buzer.de | UWG §7 | 30 Sep 2026 |
| §7a: five years from consent and after each use; in force 1 October 2021 | Federal Ministry of Justice, via Web Archive capture of 27 Sep 2026; Bundesnetzagentur | UWG §7a | 30 Sep 2026 |
| €300,000 (consumer calls, incl. automatic calling machine); €50,000 (documentation) | Federal Ministry of Justice, via Web Archive capture of 30 Mar 2025; unchanged since 13 Oct 2023 per buzer.de | UWG §20 | 30 Sep 2026 |
| English translation covers amendments only to 24 June 2022 | Federal Ministry of Justice, via Web Archive capture of 29 Aug 2024 (live site times out from our network) | UWG English translation | 30 Sep 2026 |
| Automatic calling machines = systems “without human intervention”; email definition including voice messages | EU, ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC, Art. 13(1), Art. 2(h) | EUR-Lex | 30 Sep 2026 |
| Presumed consent test for business calls; general connection not enough | Bundesgerichtshof (I ZR 88/05, 20 Sep 2007; I ZR 191/03, 16 Nov 2006) | I ZR 88/05; I ZR 191/03 | 30 Sep 2026 |
| No fines for business calls; consent needed for machine announcements too; consent before the call; consumer vs business test | Bundesnetzagentur | Unerlaubte Telefonwerbung; FAQ | 30 Sep 2026 |
| §7a guidance (7 July 2022): voicefile; double opt-in; machine calls outside §7a; more than 6 attempts a week | Bundesnetzagentur | Auslegungshinweise §7a UWG (PDF) | 30 Sep 2026 |
| Before 8 am, after 8 pm, Sundays and nationwide holidays, more than 3 calls a day | Bundesnetzagentur | Belästigende Anrufversuche | 30 Sep 2026 |
| 17 decisions; €1,047,409.25 total; €210,000 largest; 3 individuals; 5 with §7a fines; 2 with caller-ID fines; per-breach amounts; 9 energy headings; 2017 and 2018 €300,000 fines | Bundesnetzagentur fines list and archive PDF (Stand 18 May 2025); count and sum by Zian AI | Bußgelder Unerlaubte Telefonwerbung | 30 Sep 2026 |
| Caller-ID rule; €300,000 fine for suppression | Federal Ministry of Justice (TDDDG §15(2), §28), via Web Archive capture of 18 Sep 2026 and buzer.de; Bundesnetzagentur FAQ | TDDDG §15 | 30 Sep 2026 |
| GDPR recital 47; Art. 7(1), 14(3), 21(2)–(4) | EU, Regulation 2016/679 | EUR-Lex | 30 Sep 2026 |
| AI Act Art. 50(1); applies from 2 August 2026 (Art. 113); up to €15m or 3% (Art. 99(4)(g)) | EU, Regulation 2024/1689, published text | EUR-Lex | 30 Sep 2026 |
What this means if you run an AI voice agent into Germany
Each market we have mapped has its own version of the machine question: the UK asks whether AI speech is “live”, and Canada whether an AI agent is an automatic dialing-announcing device (see our page on AI cold calling under the CRTC rules). In Germany, consumer calls need prior express consent with or without AI, and AI business calls sit on an unanswered question that decides whether presumed consent is available at all. The plan that survives either answer: express, documented consent for every AI call, caller ID always shown, retries inside the Bundesnetzagentur’s thresholds, and a clear AI disclosure.
We have run outbound acquisition since 2017, and in every market we have mapped the pattern holds: the channel you may use is decided before the agent says a word. Zian AI is in partnership-application beta.