Georgia: the rules that touch your website, phones and email

Georgia does not have one law that governs a contractor's website, phones and email. It has a handful of separate rules, each from a different agency, and a few of them are narrower than they sound. This page walks through the ones with a Georgia-specific source, says where the state has nothing special to add, and ends with what it means for the way you set up your lines and your site. It is general information as of October 2026, not legal advice.

The Georgia rules at a glance

Georgia also has the broader business startup steps covered on our Georgia page, and a separate rundown of which Georgia trades need a license. The rest of this page stays on communications and contracts.

Recording calls in Georgia

O.C.G.A. 16-11-66(a) lets a person record a phone or in-person conversation they take part in, or one where a party consented in advance. That makes Georgia a one-party consent state. If your office line, your call tracking number or an AI receptionist records a call between your company and a Georgia customer, the company is a party to the call and the Georgia statute does not stand in the way.

The trouble comes from the other end of the line. A customer calling from an all-party state, or a Georgia customer on a call with someone in such a state, can bring that state's law into play. The safe habit is a recording notice at the start of every call, which costs a few seconds and removes the question. Our guide to recording business calls lays out the notice wording and the state-by-state split.

Georgia's telemarketing law and your outbound calls

Georgia's telephone solicitation statute is O.C.G.A. 46-5-27. The statute was rewritten by Senate Bill 73, signed May 6, 2024, which a law firm summary dates as effective July 1, 2024. Its definition of a telephone solicitation is still a voice communication over a telephone line meant to encourage someone to buy, rent or invest in property, goods or services. It covers calls to residential, mobile and wireless subscribers, whether placed by a live operator, an automatic dialing and announcing device or other means. The bill text we read does not mention text messages. Four details matter to a service company.

• The caller must state who is making the call at the start of the call, meaning the person or company on whose behalf it is made.
• The caller may not knowingly block or get around caller identification.
• Calls made with the subscriber's prior express invitation or permission, or by or on behalf of a person or business with a current or prior business or personal relationship with the subscriber, are not telephone solicitations under the statute.
• A person who gets more than one prohibited solicitation within 12 months may sue, and after SB 73 may sue the business on whose behalf the call was made as well as the caller. The act also allows class actions and attorney's fees. It narrowed the "reasonable practices" defense: a business that hired a caller must have set up and enforced policies aimed at that caller. It added a defense for a number a different subscriber gave in error. The bill text we read lets the Attorney General seek up to $2,000 per knowing violation, while the Division's no-call page says up to $5,000 per violation under state law, so the figures differ by source. We could not confirm the final private damages figure in the enacted text, so ask a lawyer before you rely on the older $2,000 number.

The registry side has changed since the statute was written. Georgia's own list was folded into the National Do Not Call Registry, and the Consumer Protection Division says donotcall.gov is now the only place Georgians register. Numbers take about 31 days to become effective. So scrubbing your list against the federal registry is how you comply with the registered-number part of the Georgia law too. Business-to-business calls are outside the residential registry.

The Public Service Commission's consumer page adds a calling window: live solicitors may not call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. The same page says an automated message call requires the recipient's prior written consent, or consent to a live operator who introduces the call. The page itself carries some older references, so confirm hours and consent wording with the Commission before you build a campaign around them.

Federal rules sit on top of all of this in every state. Texts and prerecorded marketing calls fall under the TCPA, and the TCPA guide for service companies covers consent, quiet hours and opt-out wording.

The ADAD license for automated calling

Georgia requires a Public Service Commission license to use an automatic dialing and announcing device, or ADAD. The Commission's official fee schedule, as listed in October 2026, charges $100 for the application and $100 for the biennial renewal. The Georgia Consumer Protection Division describes the Commission as the agency that issues ADAD permits.

What counts as an ADAD is a question for the Commission, and we did not find a published ruling on AI voice agents. The conservative reading is that a system which dials a list and plays or speaks a message to the person who answers raises the question. A receptionist that only answers inbound calls to your own number is a different thing from an outbound dialer. If you plan outbound voice campaigns, whether recorded, synthetic or AI-driven, ask the Commission in writing which license applies before you launch.

Door-to-door sales and online booking

Many contractors ask whether a three-day right to cancel applies to jobs they sell at the customer's house. Two layers answer that. The federal cooling-off rule, 16 CFR Part 429, covers sales of $25 or more made at the buyer's home, and the Georgia Consumer Protection Division says buyers generally have three business days to cancel a written contract signed there. It requires a completed Notice of Cancellation form, your address, payment terms and the correct date of sale.

Georgia added its own statute in 2023. Senate Bill 149 created the Georgia Door-to-Door Sales Act at O.C.G.A. 10-1-20 through 10-1-27, and the Consumer Protection Division lists July 1, 2023 as the effective date. Its definition of a door-to-door sale is narrow. The sale must be solicited in person, made away from the seller's place of business, and meet all three of these tests: payments of $10,000 or more, a lease, financing or other agreement longer than 120 months, and eligibility, or a seller's claim of eligibility, for federal tax credits. For those sales the buyer gets 30 business days to cancel, the notice must be in at least ten-point boldface, and the seller must say so out loud when the contract is signed. This is aimed at solar-style deals, not at a driveway sealing quote.

The act also excludes a sale where the buyer started the contact and asked you to visit to repair or maintain their property. If you sell additional goods or services during that visit, those extras are not covered by the exclusion. Your online quote form and booking page should still show total price and the cancellation terms before the customer pays, which keeps you clear of the Fair Business Practices Act, the statute the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division enforces.

Sales tax and what your invoices show

The Department of Revenue says Georgia sales and use tax generally applies to tangible goods sold. It adds that Atlanta's 1% municipal option sales tax reaches retail sales of taxable services performed within the city limits, and it does not list which services those are. Contractors are handled differently. The Department's Tax Guide for Contractors says all contractors must register for a sales and use tax account number, called an STN, through the Georgia Tax Center. A nonresident contractor, defined as one without an established Georgia business location for at least one year before bidding, posts a performance tax bond of 10% on any contract above $10,000, with a $10 application fee and the Department's bond forms. Georgia resident contractors do not post that bond.

Put the STN on your records and ask the Department how it wants materials and labor shown on invoices for your kind of work. The contractor guide points to Rule 560-12-2-.26 for the details, and the national sales tax on services guide explains why one job can be taxed differently from the next.

We found no Georgia statute capping card surcharges. Bills in the 2025 to 2026 session (HB 700, for one) would limit a surcharge to the merchant's actual processing cost, and we could not confirm that any passed, so read your processor's terms before you add a fee.

What this means for your setup

Website. Georgia has no website rule we found in the sources above that is specific to contractors, so build the site around the federal rules and the state items already covered: show total price and cancellation terms on online quote and booking forms, and keep your licensing details current. The website service page describes how we build quote forms around that.

Business phone line. Georgia is one-party, but your callers are not all in Georgia. Play a recording notice, keep a do-not-call list that mirrors the federal registry, and say who is calling at the start of every outbound sales call.

AI receptionist. Inbound answering on your own number sits comfortably inside these rules with a recording notice. Outbound automated calling is where the ADAD license question lives. See our AI receptionist page for how inbound handling works.

Email and text. Georgia's statute defines a telephone solicitation as a voice communication over a telephone line. Some law firm commentary reads the 2024 amendments as reaching texts, and we could not confirm that from the statute, so treat marketing texts as covered by the federal TCPA and ask a Georgia attorney about the state law. Email marketing runs on CAN-SPAM. Rules change, so confirm any of this with the agency named above or a Georgia attorney before relying on it.

Frequently asked questions