What Alabama requires of your site, phone lines and mail

Federal law reaches Alabama too, with the TCPA covering texts and autodialed calls and CAN-SPAM covering email. Our TCPA guide and call recording guide cover those. This page covers only what Alabama adds on top. This is general information current to October 2026, not legal advice, and it is organized by the part of your setup the rule touches.

Does Alabama require a license number on your website and ads?

If you hold a residential home builder license, yes. Ala. Code § 34-14A-7(g) says that whenever a licensee advertises, the licensee must make sure the valid license number issued by the Home Builders Licensure Board (HBLB) is displayed. The statute defines advertising widely in § 34-14A-2(1): print, radio and television, billboards, social media, promotional sponsorships, vehicles, and signs placed in front of ongoing or completed worksites.

The Board's own rules say what that looks like. Under Rule 465-X-1-.01(18), a printed or visual ad can show the number as "HBLB #" or "Alabama HBLB #" followed by the number, and a radio ad has to say it aloud. For social media pages, posts and websites, the number must be easy for the public to find within the page or post. The rule sets no font size and no required location. Vehicle decals, signs and wraps follow the print format. The Board adds that cities and counties may have their own ordinances on what must appear in advertising, so check with each place where you work.

The license itself is triggered by a residential job over $10,000, labor and materials together, or residential roofing over $2,500, per the Board. Our Alabama contractor licenses guide covers who needs one. For a website, the practical result is a license line in the footer of every page, on your Google Business Profile description if you list services there, and on any landing page you run ads to.

The advertising rule also reaches people who are not licensed. The Board's complaint rules say that when it identifies an unlicensed residential home builder or roofer advertising, staff may send a warning letter. If the advertising continues, staff submit the evidence to the Board's investigative committee, and after a finding of probable cause against a second or subsequent unlicensed advertiser, the committee may direct Board counsel to refer the matter to the Attorney General to seek an injunction. An unlicensed site that lists remodeling and roofing services is therefore not a safe place to cut corners on a quote form.

What must your estimates and contracts say?

Online quote tools and booking forms often produce a document the customer signs. For licensed home builders, § 34-14A-7(f) requires a valid written contract for residential home building, and the contract must contain the licensee's license number. The Board's disciplinary rules list failing to use a valid written contract, with offer, acceptance and signatures of all parties and the active license number, as grounds for action.

Separately, § 34-14A-19 requires a builder to disclose in writing, before work begins, whether the builder has obtained and is currently maintaining liability insurance. The disclosure is signed by the builder and the homeowner and attested by one witness the homeowner selects. Failing to do it is a violation punishable by the Board. If you send proposals through a CRM, build the disclosure page and a signature block with a witness line into the template, so the step is not left to memory on a busy week. Our custom CRM service is one way to do that; any proposal tool that can hold a fixed addendum will work.

Can you record calls, and what about an AI receptionist?

Alabama's eavesdropping definition, Ala. Code § 13A-11-30 (the criminal offense is in § 13A-11-31), turns on capturing a private communication when none of the participants has agreed to it. A business that is on the call has its own consent, so recording inbound and outbound customer calls is lawful under Alabama law. This is the one-party rule that also covers call tracking numbers that record, and a voice assistant that answers on your behalf, because the business is a party to those calls.

The complication is the caller's location. A customer calling from a state that requires all-party consent may be protected by that state's law. The safe habit is a short notice at the start of the call, which an AI receptionist can deliver as its first sentence. More in our AI receptionist guide and the call recording laws by state table.

What does Alabama add for outbound sales calls?

Alabama runs its own do-not-call register through the Public Service Commission (PSC). Rule 770-X-5-.31 defines the register as a list of residential subscribers who have enrolled, and it states that business telephone subscribers may not be included. Calls to other businesses, such as property managers, are therefore outside the register, while calls to homeowners are not.

• A telephone solicitor may not knowingly call a number that appeared in the register in effect at least 60 days before the call.
• Solicitors who want the list must apply to the PSC and pay an annual access fee; the rule sets it at $500, covering July 1 through June 30. It must be updated at least once a quarter.
• On residential calls the solicitor must state, within the first 30 seconds, who is calling, the organization represented, and the goods or services being sold.
• Blocking the caller ID display on a solicitation call is prohibited.
• Civil penalties run up to $2,000 per violation, and the rule recognizes a defense for a caller that put reasonable practices and procedures in place with due care.

The rule says the Alabama Telemarketing Act (Ala. Code §§ 8-19A-1 to 8-19A-24) lists exempt persons in § 8-19A-4. We could not read that section from the official host, so confirm with the PSC whether an exemption fits your business before you build a calling list. The rule defines a solicitation as a voice communication, so it does not by itself answer questions about marketing texts. The federal TCPA covers those; see our TCPA guide. The rule has been around since 2000 and was refiled in 2013, so ask the PSC whether it has been revised before you rely on the fee figure.

How do sales tax and card fees show up on invoices?

Alabama's Department of Revenue describes sales tax as a privilege tax on the retail sale of tangible personal property, and its guidance on labor to repair or install property turns on whether the labor is billed as a separate item on the invoice. The Department also treats contractors as users and consumers of the materials they affix to real property, so they pay sales tax to the vendor at purchase. Ask the Department how your specific job types are treated. Local sales taxes sit on top, and some localities collect their own. Our state sales tax table compares this with other states.

A 2026 law changed how card add-ons are taxed. SB221, which cleared the Legislature in April 2026 and is effective September 1, 2026, excludes a credit card transaction fee from the amount on which sales and use tax is assessed. The bill defines the fee as one assessed on purchases made by debit or credit card to offset interchange fees charged to the merchant, and it covers debit and credit cards. It directs the Department of Revenue to write rules to administer it. If you add a processing fee to taxable sales, ask your accountant whether your invoicing software is still taxing that line. The act deals with tax on the fee. It does not say whether you may charge the fee, so check your processor's and the card networks' rules before adding one.

Does Alabama's new privacy law reach a small service business?

Probably not, but the thresholds are worth knowing. The Alabama Personal Data Protection Act, HB351, takes effect May 1, 2027. It applies to a person doing business in Alabama that controls or processes personal data of more than 25,000 consumers (not counting data processed solely to complete a payment) or derives more than 25 percent of gross revenue from selling personal data. Section 4 exempts a business with fewer than 500 employees, provided it does not engage in the sale of personal data.

Enforcement belongs to the Attorney General. Before suing, the Attorney General must send a notice of violation. The business then has 45 days to fix it, and a court may assess a civil penalty of up to $15,000 per violation if it does not. Contractors who resell lead lists or customer data are the ones to watch. Everyone else should still keep a plain privacy statement on the site; ours is at /privacy/.

What this means for your setup

• Website: add your HBLB number in the footer and on service pages if you are licensed. Keep it where a visitor can see it without searching.
• Quote and booking forms: produce a signed contract that carries the number, and attach the insurance disclosure. See our website service for how forms and documents connect.
• Phone line and AI receptionist: recording is allowed in Alabama, and a short greeting about recording protects you with out-of-state callers. Outbound sales calls to homeowners need a check against the PSC register.
• Email: We did not research a separate Alabama email-marketing statute for this page, so treat CAN-SPAM as the baseline and confirm with a lawyer. Keep a working unsubscribe and your mailing address in every marketing email.

Rules change, and agencies reinterpret them. Confirm with the HBLB, the Public Service Commission and the Department of Revenue before acting.

Frequently asked questions