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In Portugal, an AI agent may only make marketing calls to private individuals, including sole traders, who gave prior express consent. You may call companies and other legal persons until they object or join the national opt-out list of the Directorate-General for Consumers (DGC). The key law is Lei n.º 41/2004, Art. 13.º-A and 13.º-B, which the data protection authority CNPD enforces.
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

Only with consent when you call a natural person. Art. 13.º-A(1) of Lei 41/2004 reads:
“Está sujeito a consentimento prévio expresso do assinante que seja pessoa singular, ou do utilizador, o envio de comunicações não solicitadas para fins de marketing direto, designadamente através da utilização de sistemas automatizados de chamada e comunicação que não dependam da intervenção humana […].”
In English: unsolicited direct marketing to natural persons needs their prior express consent, in particular through automated calling systems that work without human intervention. AI agents count. No Portuguese regulator or court has ruled on conversational AI agents. An AI agent that runs the call alone works without human intervention, so treat it as automated. In Portugal the label changes little: the CNPD guideline Diretriz/2022/1, point 3, applies the same regime whether a machine or a human makes the call. A human who supervises or can take over doesn’t change the answer. Companies are opt-out. Art. 13.º-A(2) exempts subscribers that are legal persons. You may contact them, automated calls included, until they refuse and register on the DGC list. Sole traders and anyone on a private number are natural persons and must consent. The GDPR still protects the contact person, so honor every objection right away (GDPR Art. 21).

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Cold calls by a human

Two laws overlap. Lei n.º 6/99, still in force, bans advertising calls to numbers on an opt-out list (Art. 5) and exempts professionals and long-standing customers (Art. 7). Lei 41/2004 Art. 13.º-A and Decreto-Lei 24/2014, Art. 8, require the consumer’s prior express consent. The CNPD applies the stricter rule. Without a prior relationship, only prior express consent permits the call, whoever dials (Diretriz/2022/1, points 3, 22, and 83). Some industry guides still describe human B2C calls as opt-out. We follow the regulator. Calls by a human to legal persons are opt-out.

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Existing customers and callback requests

Existing customers. Art. 13.º-A(3) lets you use contact details from a sale to market your own similar products. Offer a free, easy way to refuse when you collect the details and on every contact, and state your identity each time (Diretriz/2022/1, points 22 to 25). Other products need consent. Callbacks. A call the person asked for isn’t unsolicited. Keep the request with its timestamp, number, and form text, say on the form that an AI agent will call, and stay on topic.

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Do-not-call register: DGC list and AMD opposition list

Screen both lists before every campaign, even when you hold consent. A registration made after the consent suggests the person changed their mind. botBrains doesn’t screen lists for you. Purchased lists don’t work. The CNPD rules out calls to contacts bought from brokers, and hiring a vendor because it already holds “consented” data (points 52, 53, 62, and 63). Partners in a joint campaign can collect consent together if the form names each of them (points 64 and 65). Lei 41/2004 sets no expiry date for consent. Before you start, read what botBrains needs for 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. Decreto-Lei 24/2014, Art. 5(7), also requires you to state your company and the commercial purpose at the start of any call to a consumer. A recommended introduction in European Portuguese for outbound marketing calls:
For inbound calls:
When someone objects to more calls, stop calling them. Use guidance to tell the agent how to handle objections, and a Unitool to write the objection to your CRM.

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Call recording

You need the consent of the person you record. Under Código Penal Art. 199.º, recording someone’s words without consent, even words spoken to you, carries up to one year in prison. Lei 41/2004 Art. 4.º(3) permits recordings as proof of a transaction only after you tell the person and they consent. The CNPD Deliberação 629/2010, which predates the GDPR, caps retention at 90 days for transaction proof and 30 days for quality monitoring. The botBrains introduction announces the recording, and the star key stops the recording and discards it. The transcript stays. No Portuguese source says whether staying on the line counts as consent, or whether a transcript counts as a recording. For marketing calls, ask for a clear yes and mention the transcript. A voice recording is biometric data only when you use it to identify the person (GDPR Art. 4(14) and Art. 9).

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Caller ID and calling hours

We found no Portuguese statute that sets calling hours, a frequency cap, or a special prefix for marketing calls. The person you call sees your botBrains number, and botBrains provides Portuguese numbers on request. botBrains doesn’t enforce calling hours, so pick reasonable times yourself. On voicemail, the agent hangs up without a message, which matters because Lei 41/2004 Art. 2(1)(b) treats a stored voice message as electronic mail.

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Sector rules

Decreto-Lei 24/2014 covers every consumer contract closed by phone, including energy and telecommunications. Under Art. 5(8), the consumer only becomes bound after signing the offer or sending written consent, unless the consumer made the first call. Under Art. 6(1), you confirm the contract on a durable medium within five days. If you sell energy, credit, insurance, or telecommunications, also check your sector regulator’s conduct rules.

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Fines and enforcement

The CNPD received about 4,000 complaints about unsolicited marketing between May 2019 and January 2022 (Diretriz/2022/1, note 1). We found no published Portuguese decision about AI voice agents.

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Sources

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Next steps

Phone integration

Set up your phone line, introductions, and outbound calls.

Calling laws by country

Compare consent rules for AI calls across the EU, the UK, and the US.