What Nebraska's statutes mean for your site and phone lines

Can a Nebraska business record its calls?

Yes, with one party's consent. Neb. Rev. Stat. 86-290 makes intentional interception of a wire, electronic or oral communication unlawful, but the statute's exceptions allow a person who is a party to the communication, or who holds one participant's prior consent, to intercept it unless the purpose is a criminal or tortious act. Your own phone system or AI receptionist is a party to the call, so recording inbound customer calls is lawful.

A caller in an all-party state may fall under a stricter rule, so most shops add a one-line recording notice to the greeting. See our call recording guide for wording, and call recording laws by state for how Nebraska compares with Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota, the states a Nebraska crew is likely to cross into.

What is Nebraska's robocall law, and does it reach a small contractor?

Nebraska's telemarketing statute is unusual because it regulates the machine. The Automatic Dialing-Announcing Devices Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. 86-236 to 86-257) defines the device as one that selects and dials telephone numbers and automatically plays a recorded message (86-238). A telephone solicitation under the act means a call or message using such a device to encourage a purchase (86-242). A call placed by a live operator with no prerecorded message is excluded, as are calls made with the person's prior express permission and calls to a person with whom the caller has an established business relationship.

That last term has its own definition in 86-241: a prior or existing relationship formed by a voluntary two-way communication, based on an inquiry, application, purchase or transaction about your products or services, which neither side has ended. A customer who called your office last spring qualifies. A name bought from a list does not.

If you do use a dialer that plays a recorded sales message, these rules apply:

• Permit. You may not connect or operate such a device for sales calls without a current permit from the Public Service Commission. The statute sets a $500 fee for each device, and a permit lasts two years (86-250).
• Who is liable. If you hire a third party to run the device, you are jointly and severally liable with them, and you must file the message with the commission, and any change within five days.
• Hours and do-not-call list. No solicitation to a residential line before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the called person's location, and only if you keep a do-not-call list. The minimum standards in 86-248 are a written policy available on demand, staff training, recording each request with the time it was made, and keeping the list for future calls. A residential or business subscriber's request applies to you.
• Message content. The message must name the caller at the beginning, and give a phone number other than the device's, or an address, during or after it (86-247).
• Numbers you may not call. The act bars these calls to emergency lines, hospital rooms, and any number assigned to a paging, cellular or specialized mobile radio service, or any service for which the person called is charged for the call (86-244).

Other duties: the device must release the called person's line within five seconds of hang-up (86-249), may not engage two or more lines of a business's multiline system at once (86-246), and may not dial sequentially (86-251). The commission can issue a short-term cease and desist order, seize devices that break the calling restrictions, and impose administrative fines (86-253, 86-254 and 86-257).

Messages that are not sales messages are covered too. 86-256 requires registration, without a fee, of a device used for other recorded messages, with identity and callback information and a delivery window of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. It exempts messages to people with whom you have an established business or personal relationship, so an appointment-reminder robocall to your own customers is outside it. This is a statute about prerecorded dialing devices. Whether a given AI voice system that places outbound calls counts as one is a question for the Public Service Commission, and we do not offer an answer. An AI receptionist that only answers inbound calls is not dialing anyone.

The federal texting and calling rules sit on top of all this. Our texting rules guide covers consent, quiet hours and opt-outs.

When must a Nebraska contract include a right to cancel?

Nebraska's home solicitation statutes, Neb. Rev. Stat. 69-1601 to 69-1607, cover a sale, lease or rental of consumer goods or services with a purchase price of $25 or more where the seller or representative personally solicits the sale and the buyer's agreement is made at a place other than the seller's place of business. The definition includes sales that follow the buyer's invitation, which surprises contractors. An estimator invited into a kitchen who closes the job there is inside it.

Several exclusions matter to service businesses:

• A sale after prior negotiations at a fixed retail location.
• A sale conducted and finished entirely by mail or telephone.
• A buyer-initiated emergency, if the buyer signs a separate, dated, handwritten statement describing the emergency and waiving the right to cancel.
• A visit the buyer requested to repair or maintain personal property. If you sell extra goods or services on that visit beyond replacement parts, the extra sale does not stay inside this exclusion.

For a covered sale, the seller must identify the individual salesperson, the firm they represent and what is being sold, up front (69-1602). Cancellation is open until midnight ending the third business day after the seller gives the required notice, and the buyer sends it by mail (69-1603). The contract needs a "BUYER'S RIGHT TO CANCEL" notice in 10-point boldface type, or the FTC cooling-off rule notice if it gives at least equal information (69-1604). If you regularly advertise or negotiate in a language other than English, a buyer whose principal language is that other language gets the notice in both languages.

After a cancellation the seller must refund money within ten days (69-1605), and under 69-1606 a seller who performed services before the cancellation is not entitled to compensation. That last point is the one to price into a same-day start. Put the notice in your proposal template, and see what to put in a service contract.

How does sales tax show on a Nebraska invoice?

Nebraska taxes more services than most states. According to the Department of Revenue's Regulation 1-098, building cleaning and maintenance receipts are taxable, including interior and exterior cleaning of homes, apartments and outbuildings. The same regulation excludes cleaning of annexed property that is not attached to, part of or enclosed in a building, so ask the department how a driveway, fence or deck job is treated. The department's notice 6-397 treats pest control services as taxable, and a lawn program that bundles grub control with fertilizer at one price is taxable in full unless the pest control charge is stated separately. The department's 2022 landscaper guide lists lawn mowing, tree trimming and snow removal as exempt services, gives a 5.5 percent state rate plus local rates of 0.5 to 2 percent, and treats live plants as taxable retail sales.

For your setup, that means an online quote form for a cleaning company must add tax before the customer pays, and a lawn company that sells both mowing and plant material needs separate invoice lines. See our sales tax guide and sales tax on home services by state.

Does the Nebraska Data Privacy Act reach a small service company?

Most likely not for general duties, but read the sensitive-data rule. The Data Privacy Act (Neb. Rev. Stat. 87-1101 to 87-1130) sets its reach in Neb. Rev. Stat. 87-1103. It applies to a person that does business in Nebraska or produces a product or service consumed by residents, processes or sells personal data, and is not a small business as determined under the federal Small Business Act as it existed on January 1, 2024. Nebraska has no consumer-count threshold. The test is the federal size standard, which the Small Business Administration sets by industry code, generally by employees or annual receipts. A one-crew company is almost certainly small.

Small businesses still have one duty, on the usual reading of a statute whose wording here is awkward. Under 87-1118, they may not sell personal data that is sensitive data without the consumer's prior consent. A contractor that sells or shares a customer list is unlikely to hold sensitive data, but check any lead-sharing arrangement. The attorney general enforces the act. It must give written notice 30 days before suing, a violation cured in that window ends the action, and the penalty after that is up to $7,500 per violation (87-1122 and 87-1124).

What this means for your Nebraska setup

• Website: Show tax on quotes for cleaning and pest work. Add the cancellation notice to proposals closed at a home. See our website service.
• Phone line: Record with one-party consent and announce it anyway. Skip prerecorded dialing campaigns unless you hold the permit. A business phone system can keep the do-not-call list.
• AI receptionist: Inbound answering falls outside the dialing-device act. Put the recording notice in the greeting. Ask the Public Service Commission before using any outbound voice automation. See our AI receptionist page.
• Email: The Nebraska telemarketing statutes address devices and calls, and email follows federal CAN-SPAM. See email marketing.

Frequently asked questions