Illinois has two telemarketing statutes, and the one that produces lawsuits is the Automatic Telephone Dialers Act, 815 ILCS 305. It bars playing a prerecorded sales message placed by an autodialer without the called party’s consent, and since 2013 a consumer can seek statutory damages of $500 per violation. The companion Telephone Solicitations Act covers live-operator calls and pays only proven damages. Both statutes were written for voice calls, and the Act’s business-relationship exception has no time limit, which gives a business real room to defend.
What does the Illinois Automatic Telephone Dialers Act prohibit?
Prerecorded sales messages without consent, plus a handful of operating rules. Section 30(b) makes it a violation “to play a prerecorded message placed by an autodialer without the consent of the called party.” Calls to emergency numbers are also violations, and so is any autodialed call that breaks the operating rules in Section 15.
Those rules are stricter than the federal ones in places. Section 15 bars autodialed calls “during the hours between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m.,” which starts the calling day an hour later than the federal 8 a.m. limit. The autodialer must “disconnect within 30 seconds after termination of the call,” it can’t be used to dial numbers “determined by successively increasing or decreasing integers,” and it can’t block caller ID.
The Act also imposes a recordkeeping duty that matters later in litigation. Section 22 requires anyone who autodials a commercial message to “maintain a list of all telephone numbers called” and to keep “records to sufficiently document any exemption claimed under Section 20 of this Act.” A business that can’t produce those records will have trouble proving the exemptions discussed below.
Does Duguid help a defendant under the Illinois Act?
Less than it does under the federal statute. The Supreme Court’s decision in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid narrowed the federal autodialer definition to equipment that uses a random or sequential number generator, as the earlier post on autodialer defenses after Duguid explains. Illinois wrote its own definition.
Section 5 defines an autodialer as a system “capable of storing telephone numbers which is programmed to sequentially or randomly access the stored telephone numbers” and use them to connect a telephone to a recorded message. Dialing a stored customer list in order fits that language. A business that beat a federal autodialer claim with a Duguid argument shouldn’t assume the same argument works in Illinois.
The definition has its own limit, though. It covers only systems that connect a telephone to a recorded message, and the Act defines a recorded message as a “taped communication soliciting the sale of goods or services without live voice interaction.” A campaign that uses live agents or doesn’t sell anything sits outside it.
Does the Illinois Act cover text messages?
The text of the statute points the other way. The definitions in Section 5 describe a recorded message that the autodialer connects to a telephone, and the violation in Section 30(b) is to “play” that message. Neither phrase fits a text. Connecticut, by contrast, wrote texts into its statute by name in 2023, as covered in the earlier post on Connecticut’s telemarketing law.
That’s a strong argument for a business sued in Illinois over a text campaign, and it’s built on the statute’s own words. It doesn’t make Illinois texts risk-free. A text campaign can still draw a federal claim, and the earlier post on state mini-TCPA laws for texting covers the states where texts are squarely covered.
The legislature has looked at changing the law. House Bill 2435 would amend the Telephone Solicitations Act to reach calls made with an automatic telephone dialing system. The bill status page shows it passed the House 113 to 0 in April 2025 and was re-referred to the Senate’s Assignments committee in June 2025. It is not law.
Which calls are exempt from the Illinois Act?
Three groups, and one is broader than its federal cousin. Section 20(a) exempts “calls made in response to an express request of the person called,” calls “to any person with whom the telephone solicitor has a prior or existing business relationship,” and calls for political, charitable, polling, research, or broadcast-rating organizations. The caller ID rule still applies to all of them.
A federal court applied the business-relationship exemption in a case brought by Illinois itself. In United States v. Dish Network LLC, 256 F. Supp. 3d 810 (C.D. Ill. 2017), Illinois sought liability for 5,830 prerecorded calls to Illinois area codes. The court noted that the Act doesn’t define the term and wrote that “The Court gives the exception its ordinary meaning. The exception contains no time limit, such as the 18-month limit in the TSR and the TCPA and FCC Rule.”
That ruling decided the Illinois count. The same calls failed the federal business-relationship test because “the FCC Rule requires a call to be within 18 months of the last purchase and the script text did not prove the last purchase date,” according to the opinion. Under Illinois law, proof that the recipients had been Dish customers at some point was enough, and the court entered judgment for Dish on that claim. The Seventh Circuit later affirmed most of the judgment and vacated the damages award and one federal assistance finding, 954 F.3d 970 (7th Cir. 2020). The appeal didn’t disturb the Illinois ruling.
Dish is one trial-court decision, but it reads the statute’s words as written. A business with old customer records should pull them early, since a former customer from years back may still fall inside the exemption. The earlier post on the established business relationship defense covers the federal version and its 18-month limit.
What does the Telephone Solicitations Act add?
Rules for live-operator calls, with a weaker private remedy. The Telephone Solicitations Act, 815 ILCS 413, defines a telephone solicitation as a communication “by live operators for soliciting the sale of goods or services.” Section 20 says the Act’s provisions “shall not apply to telephone calls made by an autodialer,” apart from the caller ID rule.
For live calls, Section 15 bars sales calls “during the hours between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.” The operator must “immediately state his or her name, the name of the business or organization being represented, and the purpose of the call,” and must “inquire at the beginning of the call whether the person called consents to the solicitation.” The statute also provides that compliance with the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s do-not-call provision “shall constitute compliance” with its removal requirement.
The private remedy is limited to actual loss. Under Section 25(d), “Any customer injured by a violation of this Act may bring an action for the recovery of damages,” and the judgment may be up to three times the actual damages. There’s no statutory damages figure, so a consumer who can’t show a loss has little to recover. The Act also excludes banks, credit unions, licensed insurers, real estate licensees, and their agents.
| Claim | Statute | Who brings it | Exposure | Defenses that answer it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prerecorded sales message by autodialer without consent | 815 ILCS 305/30(b) | Consumer or Attorney General | Statutory damages of $500 per violation, or actual damages trebled for an injured customer | Consent, express request, prior or existing business relationship, live voice, no sales message |
| Autodialed call outside 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. or other operating rule | 815 ILCS 305/15, 30(a) | Same as above | Same as above | Dialer time-zone settings, exemption records under Section 22 |
| Live-operator call without the required opening | 815 ILCS 413/15, 25 | Injured customer or Attorney General | Actual damages, up to three times that amount | Recorded scripts, call recordings, statutory exclusions |
| Federal prerecorded-voice claim | 47 U.S.C. § 227(b) | Consumer | Up to $500 per violation, up to three times that if willful or knowing | Prior express consent, written consent for marketing, emergency purpose |
Preparing the file on an Illinois autodialer claim
- Put the dialer logs, campaign settings, and consent records for the claimant’s number under a litigation hold, and confirm which calls carried a prerecorded message and which were live.
- Pull the opt-out and internal do-not-call history for the number, with dates, across every vendor that dialed it.
- Collect the Registry scrub records and their version dates for each campaign that reached an Illinois area code, since a federal Do Not Call claim usually comes with the state claim.
- Gather the customer-relationship records for the number, the Section 22 call lists, the vendor contracts, and the recorded message files.
- Have a lawyer review the file before the business answers a demand, contacts the claimant, or makes any offer.
Step four is where Illinois cases are often won. Lawyers defending Illinois autodialer claims will look first for any past purchase or account tied to the number, because the state exemption doesn’t expire. The earlier post on TCPA preemption of state telemarketing laws covers why the federal statute rarely displaces a state claim.
Questions about Illinois robocall and telemarketing laws
Does the Illinois Act apply to a company calling from outside Illinois?
Section 10 covers anyone who operates an autodialer “in this State,” and plaintiffs argue that a call received in Illinois is made there. The Dish case involved prerecorded calls to Illinois area codes placed by Dish and its telemarketing vendors. A business dialing Illinois numbers from California should plan as if the Act applies.
Is the $500 in statutory damages automatic?
No. The Act says a consumer “may obtain” statutory damages of $500 per violation, and the consumer still has to prove a violation, which means a prerecorded sales message, an autodialer as Illinois defines it, and no consent or exemption. The statute doesn’t increase that figure for knowing or willful conduct the way the federal TCPA can.
How does the Illinois Act treat consent?
The Act doesn’t define it, and it doesn’t require written consent. When a live operator can’t disconnect within 30 seconds, the statute requires the operator to “inquire at the beginning of the call whether the person called consents to hear the prerecorded message.” For marketing campaigns, the federal written-consent rule is the stricter standard, and a form that satisfies it should satisfy Illinois too.
Do Illinois insurers and banks have to follow these rules?
They’re excluded from the Telephone Solicitations Act, which covers live calls. The Automatic Telephone Dialers Act has no matching exclusion for them, so a prerecorded campaign by an insurer or bank to Illinois numbers still needs consent or an exemption.
Defending Illinois prerecorded call claims
If your company is facing an Illinois claim over prerecorded sales calls, the customer records for each number and the dialer’s own call lists usually decide whether the exemptions apply. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving prerecorded sales calls to Illinois numbers. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.
Sources
The state statutes are the Illinois Automatic Telephone Dialers Act, 815 ILCS 305, and the Telephone Solicitations Act, 815 ILCS 413. The pending amendment is House Bill 2435 of the 104th General Assembly. The federal statute is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, and the federal rule is 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200.
The decision discussed is United States v. Dish Network LLC, 256 F. Supp. 3d 810 (C.D. Ill. 2017), aff’d in part and vacated in part, 954 F.3d 970 (7th Cir. 2020).
This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of July 30, 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Courts and the FCC change the rules in this area often, and the outcome of any claim depends on its facts. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.