B2B cold calling in DACH is legal when there is a “presumed consent” of the recipient (German UWG §7 (2) No. 2). For B2C, cold calls without explicit opt-in are prohibited. In practice this means: B2B outbound to a relevant function (Managing Director, Procurement, Head of IT) with a thematically fitting offer is permissible; arbitrary B2B cold calling on irrelevant contacts or off-topic offers is grounds for a cease-and-desist letter. AI outbound is workable in 2026 for reactivation with documented consent — for cold outbound it remains legally risky.
Definition: What is a cold call?
A cold call is a first telephone contact in which the caller and the recipient have no prior business relationship and no explicit consent from the recipient. Three cases must be sharply distinguished: warm call (existing contact, prior interaction), reactivation call (former customer, consent on file) and cold call (no prior contact). Only the third is legally sensitive — and only there is the “presumed consent” actually required.
What German UWG §7 actually says
“Unreasonable harassment is always to be assumed in the case of advertising via a phone call to a consumer without his or her prior explicit consent, or to another market participant without at least his or her presumed consent.” In short: B2C without explicit opt-in is forbidden. B2B requires “presumed consent.”
The decisive question in B2B is therefore: when does “presumed consent” exist? German Federal Court (BGH) case law (notably I ZR 2/03, I ZR 87/11) sets three conditions: the call must have a substantive connection to the prospect's actual line of business AND the person being called must hold the matching role AND a reasonable business person would, with high probability, find the offer interesting. Three conditions — all three must be met.
Concrete examples
The call must be defensible in front of a lawyer as: “This person, in this role, at this company, has — with high probability — a need for exactly this offer.” If that explanation wobbles, the call is legally risky.
Additional obligations in 2026
The 12 tactics that actually work
KPIs & benchmarks B2B DACH 2026
| KPI | Weak SDR | Solid SDR | Top performer | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Calls / day | 50–80 | 35–55 | 25–40 | | Connect rate | 6–10% | 14–20% | 22–30% | | Conversation rate (>2 min) | 30% | 50% | 65% | | Meeting-booking rate | 4% | 8–12% | 15–22% | | SQL rate | 1–3% | 4–7% | 7–10% | | Cost per SQL | €350–600 | €180–280 | €90–160 |
Top performers make FEWER calls, not more. They invest more preparation time, focus on better lists and run longer, higher-quality conversations. If you measure SDR performance purely by activity metrics, you're optimizing the wrong thing.
AI in outbound — a realistic take
AI phone assistants improved sharply between 2024 and 2026, but cold outbound remains the most legally sensitive use case. Three clear paths have emerged:
From 02 Aug 2026, identifying yourself as AI on outbound calls is mandatory (“You're speaking with an AI”). Combined with UWG §7 this creates a double hurdle: lawful B2B cold call + AI identification duty. That makes AI cold outbound a niche play in 2026, not a mass-market motion.
Compliance checklist
AI for inbound + reactivation — Demo
bhomy answers inbound sales calls 24/7 in fluent German, qualifies via BANT, escalates SQL leads to your SDR in real time and reactivates documented lead lists in a GDPR-compliant way. See in 30 minutes how your B2B sales funnel becomes automatable.
Request sales demo