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In Estonia, an AI agent may only make marketing calls to consumers who agreed beforehand. Section 60 of the Law of Obligations Act (võlaõigusseadus, VÕS) requires prior consent for offers to consumers through an automated calling system that needs no human intervention. Calls to companies need no consent, but offer them a free way to refuse further calls. Estonia has no do-not-call register, so a human may call consumers until they object.
This page summarizes the law as of October 2026 to help you plan AI phone calls. It isn’t legal advice. Laws and how regulators apply them change, so check your use case with a lawyer before you start a campaign.

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At a glance

Not to consumers without prior consent. VÕS § 60 reads:
“Pakkumise võib tarbijale teha inimsekkumist mittevajava automatiseeritud kõnevalimissüsteemi, faksi, telefoni automaatvastaja või elektronposti abil üksnes tarbija eelneval nõusolekul.”
In English: you may make an offer to a consumer through an automated calling system that needs no human intervention, a fax, an answering machine, or email only with the consumer’s prior consent. Other channels, such as a call by a human, are fine unless the consumer expressly refused them. Who it protects. VÕS § 60 covers consumers only. The Electronic Communications Act (elektroonilise side seadus, ESS) adds a second layer. ESS § 103¹(1) requires prior consent to use a natural person’s electronic contact data for direct marketing, and sole traders are natural persons. For legal persons, § 103¹(2) only requires a clear, free way to refuse on every contact. The ESS exception for live calls. § 103¹(6) says the section doesn’t apply to “reaalajas toimuvale mitmepoolsele häälkõnele” (real-time multi-party voice calls). The Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, AKI) reads this as excluding phone calls (guide, 2025 letter). DLA Piper limits the exception to non-automated calls. Nobody has settled whether an AI agent’s live conversation falls under it. AI agents most likely count as automated. No Estonian court or authority has ruled on conversational AI agents. An AI agent that dials and runs the call alone needs no human intervention, so treat its consumer calls as automated. Get consent from sole traders too, in case ESS § 103¹(1) applies. A colleague who only listens in or could take over doesn’t change this. Only a call that a human leads is clearly a human call.

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Cold calls by a human

Consumers and businesses. A human may call without consent, unless the consumer expressly refused your calls (VÕS § 60). ESS doesn’t apply. AKI’s 2025 letter says such calls can rest on legitimate interest (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) if you document the balancing test. People can object and stop further calls (GDPR Art. 21). Persistent, unwanted offers by phone count as an aggressive practice under the Consumer Protection Act (tarbijakaitseseadus, TKS) § 18(4)(3). Contracts by phone. A phone deal only binds a consumer after you confirm it on a durable medium and the consumer confirms it in writing or another reproducible form (VÕS § 54²). Otherwise, anything you deliver counts as unsolicited. The rule doesn’t apply when the consumer started the contract. The Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (Tarbijakaitse ja Tehnilise Järelevalve Amet, TTJA) explains it in its telephone sales guide.

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Existing customers and callback requests

No soft opt-in for AI calls to consumers. VÕS § 60 has no customer exception. ESS § 103¹(3) lets you market similar products to your own buyers without consent if you offered a free opt-out at collection and on every contact. That helps with email, SMS, and AI calls to sole traders, but not with AI calls to consumers. Callbacks. A consumer who asks for a call gives the prior consent VÕS § 60 needs. Make sure the request covers a call from an AI agent, and stay on the topic. A practical route is your own ads leading to a form where people ask for a callback from your AI agent.

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Do-not-call register: None

Estonia has no national do-not-call register (ERR, 2018), and we found none set up since. Keep your own blocklist of everyone who refused calls. For AI calls to consumers, you need consent anyway. VÕS § 60 prescribes no form. Where ESS § 103¹(1) applies, consent must meet GDPR standards. AKI’s direct marketing guide and its 2022 letter to lenders spell out what that means: We found no fixed retention period or expiry for consent in Estonian law. Keep the form version, timestamp, number, and exact text as long as you rely on the consent. Before you buy leads, ask the vendor for the consent text, the collection method, and the evidence per contact. botBrains asks for consent evidence before automated campaigns. See before you start outbound campaigns.

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Tell callers they’re talking to an AI

Since August 2, 2026, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires that people know they’re talking to an AI system, at the latest when the conversation starts. This applies to inbound and outbound calls, to consumers and to business contacts, and you can’t count on the exception for obvious cases when your AI agent sounds human. The default introduction already says that your AI agent is an AI, so keep that statement first when you edit it. When you call a consumer to sell something, the Consumer Rights Directive also requires you to name your company, anyone you call for, and the commercial purpose at the start. Estonian law adds these duties:
  • Who and why. When you call a consumer to conclude a contract, give your name, the company you call for, and the commercial purpose at the start (VÕS § 54(6)).
  • Sender and opt-out. Where ESS § 103¹ applies, say on whose behalf you call and how to refuse further contact (§ 103¹(4)). This covers AI calls to companies too.
  • Financial services. Also tell the consumer if you record the call (VÕS § 54¹(3), current wording since September 1, 2026).
  • Language. Information for consumers must be in Estonian unless the consumer agreed to another language (TKS § 4(3)). About 29% of residents speak Russian as their mother tongue (Statistics Estonia), so offer Russian to people who choose it.
Recommended introduction for outbound marketing calls. Replace [teema] or [тема] with the topic the person agreed to:
Estonian
Russian
For inbound calls:
Estonian
Russian
Use guidance to tell the AI agent how to handle a request not to call again, and a Unitool to write it to your CRM.

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Call recording

Criminal law. Penal Code (karistusseadustik) § 156 punishes breaches of the confidentiality of messages. We found no rule or ruling that makes it a crime to record a call you take part in. AKI treats call recording as a data protection question. Data protection. AKI’s August 2024 letter to the Estonian Insurance Association sets out its expectations: The botBrains default fits the quality model: the star key stops the recording and discards it. The transcript stays, so cover it in your privacy notice and retention plan. Voice isn’t automatically biometric data. AKI notes that a voice identifies a person much like a fingerprint. Under GDPR, it only becomes biometric data when you process it to identify someone (GDPR Art. 4(14) and Art. 9). Recording and transcribing for quality doesn’t.

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Caller ID and calling hours

We found no Estonian statute on calling hours or a special prefix for marketing calls. Under TKS § 18(3), timing is one factor in judging whether a sales practice amounts to harassment. The person you call sees your botBrains number, and botBrains provisions Estonian numbers on request. botBrains doesn’t enforce calling hours, so schedule calls at reasonable times yourself. Telia, Elisa, and Tele2 already block calls from abroad that show an Estonian number, and a July 2026 draft would oblige all operators to do so from March 2027 (ERR).

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Sector rules

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Fines and enforcement

AKI supervises ESS § 103¹ and GDPR. TTJA supervises consumer rights, including VÕS (TKS § 61). We found no Estonian case on AI agents or robocalls so far. We also found no pending bill that would change VÕS § 60 or ESS § 103¹.

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Sources

  • Võlaõigusseadus (Law of Obligations Act), §§ 54, 54¹, 54² and 60: riigiteataja.ee
  • Elektroonilise side seadus (Electronic Communications Act), §§ 103¹ and 133: riigiteataja.ee
  • Tarbijakaitseseadus (Consumer Protection Act), §§ 4, 18, 61, 70 and 74²: riigiteataja.ee
  • Isikuandmete kaitse seadus (Personal Data Protection Act), §§ 60, 65 and 66: riigiteataja.ee
  • Karistusseadustik (Penal Code), § 156: riigiteataja.ee
  • Reklaamiseadus (Advertising Act), § 29²: riigiteataja.ee
  • GDPR, Art. 4(14), 6, 9, 15 and 21: EUR-Lex
  • EU AI Act, Art. 50: artificialintelligenceact.eu
  • AKI, electronic contact data in direct marketing (2015): aki.ee
  • AKI, letter on loan offers and ESS (2022): aki.ee
  • AKI, recording phone calls in insurance (August 2024): adr.rik.ee
  • AKI, answer on telephone calls and legitimate interest (February 2025): adr.rik.ee
  • TTJA, consumer guide to telephone sales (January 2025): ttja.ee
  • ITL, good practice for sales calls in the mobile sector (2018): telia.ee
  • DLA Piper, electronic marketing in Estonia: dlapiperdataprotection.com
  • Statistics Estonia, 2021 census on languages: stat.ee
  • ERR, no national register for sales calls (2018): err.ee
  • ERR, draft on blocking spoofed calls (July 2026): err.ee

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Next steps

Phone integration

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