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In Peru, can a debt collector call you at 10pm, phone your boss, or post a notice on your door?

Short answer

No. Article 62 of the Consumer Code prohibits calls and visits between 20.00 and 07.00 and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, telling third parties outside the debt that you are in arrears, posting collection notices at your home, and sending documents that look like court papers; Indecopi enforces it.

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Peruvian State portal (gob.pe) · El Peruano

Checked 1 Oct 2026Next review 13 Mar 2027

What we read and what we did not

Articles 61, 62, 108, 110, 112 and 125 of Ley 29571 were read in the Third Official Edition of the Consumer Protection Code published by Minjus.

The general rule is article 61

The whole subject fits in one sentence of the Code: «El proveedor debe utilizar los procedimientos de cobranza previstos en las leyes. Se prohíbe el uso de métodos de cobranza que afecten la reputación del consumidor, que atenten contra la privacidad de su hogar, que afecten sus actividades laborales o su imagen ante terceros».

Four things are protected: your reputation, the privacy of your home, your work, and your standing with third parties. Article 62 is the list of concrete applications, and it opens: «A efectos de la aplicación del artículo 61, se prohíbe:».

The quotes on this page stay in Spanish on purpose. These are the words you will need when you write to the collector or file with Indecopi.

One thing to be clear about: these articles govern how a debt is collected. They say nothing about whether you owe the money. Abusive collection is the collector’s infraction; it is not a ruling on your debt.

The eight banned methods

Literal	What it bans
a)	«Enviar al deudor, o a su garante, documentos que aparenten ser notificaciones o escritos judiciales.» — documents dressed up as court papers.
b)	«Realizar visitas o llamadas telefónicas entre las 20.00 horas y las 07.00 horas o los días sábados, domingos y feriados.»
c)	«Colocar o exhibir a vista del público carteles o escritos en el domicilio del deudor o del garante, o en locales diferentes de éstos, requiriéndole el pago de sus obligaciones.» — the notice on your door.
d)	Stationing people with debt-related signs, in unusual dress or by similar means, near the debtor’s home or workplace, demanding payment.
e)	«Difundir a través de los medios de comunicación nóminas de deudores y requerimientos de pago sin mediar orden judicial» — with the carve-out set out below.
f)	«Enviar comunicaciones o realizar llamadas a terceros ajenos a la obligación informando sobre la morosidad del consumidor.» — the call to your mother or your boss.
g)	«Enviar estados de cuenta, facturas por pagar y notificaciones de cobranza, sea cual fuera la naturaleza de estas últimas, al domicilio de un tercero ajeno a la relación de consumo» — with the carve-out set out below.
h)	«Cualquier otra modalidad análoga a lo señalado anteriormente.» — anything analogous.

The list ends at h). There is no literal i.

Literal d) is described rather than quoted: the copy we read cuts that sentence off mid-way, and we do not publish as a verbatim quote something we could not read in full.

The two carve-outs the law actually writes in

This is where most of what circulates online overstates the rule. Literals e) and g) contain written exceptions, and it is worth knowing them before you file.

Being reported to the credit bureaux is not banned. After the prohibition, literal e) says: «Lo anterior no comprende a la información que se proporcione a las centrales privadas de información de riesgos reguladas por ley especial, la información brindada a la Central de Riesgos de la Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y Administradoras Privadas de Fondos de Pensiones ni la información que por norma legal proporcione el Estado». So a report to Infocorp or to the SBS’s Central de Riesgos is outside literal e). What literal e) bans is broadcasting debtor lists and payment demands through the media without a court order.

Writing to the address you agreed in the contract is not banned. Literal g) ends: «salvo que se trate de un domicilio contractualmente acordado o que el deudor haya señalado un nuevo domicilio válido». If letters reach your old flat or a relative’s house because that is the address on the contract, literal g) does not apply. Someone phoning that house and telling whoever answers that you are in arrears is a different matter — that is literal f), which has no exception.

And on timing: literal b) marks out a banned window. Outside that window, a call is not unlawful merely for happening. What can make it unlawful is who it goes to, what it says, or that it damages one of the four things article 61 protects.

A decided case, not a rate card

El Peruano, the official gazette, reported a case in which the Comisión of Indecopi’s regional office in Arequipa, sitting as second administrative instance, fined a bank for telling third parties about a consumer’s debt, applying article 62 of the Code. The fine was 3.78 UIT (S/ 20,790 according to the report). In the same piece, Indecopi urges people to report any collection practice that reveals their debt situation to third parties.

Read it for what it is: one resolved case, not a tariff. No case fixes the fine in the next one. Source: El Peruano, «¿El banco informó su deuda a terceros? Indecopi precisa que esa práctica está prohibida por ley».

What it can cost the collector

Article 110 punishes the infractions referred to in article 108 with a warning and fines of up to 450 UIT: minor infractions up to 50 UIT, serious up to 150 UIT, very serious up to 450 UIT. For micro-enterprises the same article sets a cap of 10% of the previous year’s sales or gross income, subject to conditions.

We do not tell you which tier abusive collection lands in, because in the text we read the Code does not assign conduct to tiers in advance: article 108 defines the administrative infraction and article 112 sets the grading criteria the deciding body applies to the case.

What to do, in order

Log the date and exact time of every call or visit. Keep messages, letters and photographs of any notice.
If they contacted a third party, ask that person to write down what they were told and when.
Write to the creditor and to the collection agency asking them to stop, naming the literal of article 62.
File a reclamo with Indecopi if you want the problem fixed.
File a denuncia if you want the collector penalised. Article 125 decides whether an Órgano Resolutivo de Procedimientos Sumarísimos hears it (up to 3 UIT in value) or a Comisión de Protección al Consumidor does.

If the creditor is a bank or a finance company

Articles 61 and 62 draw no distinction between a bank, a finance company, a department store, or a collection agency any of them hired. We looked for a rule of the Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP (SBS) governing collection conduct and found none — do not assume a special SBS rule on this exists. The Arequipa case is exactly that: a bank penalised under article 62.

What we cannot confirm for you

No official text we read names WhatsApp, Facebook or social media. A collector who posts your debt in a WhatsApp group is caught, in our reading, by literal f) — communicating your arrears to third parties outside the obligation — and possibly by literal h), an analogous method. That is our interpretation of the text, not a quote from it. Report it anyway, but know where the argument comes from.

We also do not publish the cost of filing a denuncia: Indecopi refers that amount to its TUPA, and we could not read it in an official source.

Is the debt an unpaid traffic ticket, or an old one?

If you are being pursued over an unpaid traffic ticket, see how to appeal it and what happens if you don’t pay. And if the debt is more than 10 years old, it may already be time-barred: read the statute of limitations on civil debts.

Check your case

If you are being chased for a very old debt, check its prescription period in When does my debt prescribe? before you pay or acknowledge anything.

How to file

Log the time of every call and keep every messageDate, exact time, the number that called, the name of the person and the company they claimed to represent. Screenshot the messages. Photograph any notice stuck to your door. If they called a third party, ask that person to write down what they were told and when. For literal b) the timestamp is the evidence; for literal f), the third party's account is.
Ask them in writing to stop — both the creditor and the collection agencyName the conduct by its literal: «llamadas fuera del horario del artículo 62 b)», «información de mi morosidad a un tercero, artículo 62 f)». Ask for a *reclamo* reference number. If the creditor outsourced collection, write to both the agency and the company that hired it.
File a *reclamo* with IndecopiThis is the route aimed at a settlement between you and the provider. Describe the facts with dates and times and attach what you collected. You can file in Spanish only — keep your log in Spanish if you can.
Reclama Virtual — Indecopi →
File a *denuncia* if what you want is a penaltyA *denuncia* opens a sanctioning procedure against the provider. Under article 125, an Órgano Resolutivo de Procedimientos Sumarísimos hears denuncias whose amount, set by the value of the product or service in dispute, does not exceed 3 UIT; above that, a Comisión de Protección al Consumidor hears it.
Mesa de Partes Virtual — Indecopi →

Want it drafted for you? Escrito listo — S/ 29 · available soon →

What most people believe — and what the law says

The belief

If I owe money, they can call at any hour.

The law

No. Literal b) of article 62 bans visits and phone calls «entre las 20.00 horas y las 07.00 horas o los días sábados, domingos y feriados». The other side of that rule matters too: a call on a Tuesday at 3pm is not banned by literal b) on its own. What can make it unlawful is who it goes to, what it says, or that it breaches article 61.

The belief

Nothing stops them phoning my mother, my boss or my neighbour.

The law

Something does. Literal f) bans «Enviar comunicaciones o realizar llamadas a terceros ajenos a la obligación informando sobre la morosidad del consumidor». The text carries no exceptions: not for relatives, and not for people you listed as references when you applied for the credit.

The belief

Being reported to Infocorp is abusive collection.

The law

It is not. Literal e) expressly carves out «la información que se proporcione a las centrales privadas de información de riesgos reguladas por ley especial», information given to the SBS Central de Riesgos, and information the State provides under a legal rule. What literal e) bans is broadcasting debtor lists and payment demands through the media without a court order.

The belief

If the collection letter arrived at my parents' house, that is always illegal.

The law

Not always. Literal g) bans sending statements, invoices and collection notices to the address of a third party outside the consumer relationship, «salvo que se trate de un domicilio contractualmente acordado o que el deudor haya señalado un nuevo domicilio válido». If that is the address you put in the contract, the mailing does not fall under literal g).

The belief

If the creditor is a bank, this is the SBS's business, not Indecopi's.

The law

Articles 61 and 62 sit in the Consumer Code and do not distinguish between types of creditor. We looked for an SBS rule governing collection conduct and found none. And there is a decided case in which an Indecopi Comisión fined a bank under article 62.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly should I do before reporting abusive debt collection?

Log the exact date and time of every call or visit, and keep messages, letters and photos of any notice. If they contacted a third party, ask that person to write down what they were told and when. Then write to the creditor and the collection agency asking them to stop, naming the specific literal of article 62 they broke.

What's the difference between filing a reclamo and a denuncia with Indecopi?

A reclamo aims at a fix between you and the provider — for example, getting them to stop calling outside the allowed hours. A denuncia opens a sanctioning procedure: under article 125, an Órgano Resolutivo de Procedimientos Sumarísimos hears it if the amount in dispute doesn't exceed 3 UIT, or a Comisión de Protección al Consumidor if it does.

How much can abusive collection actually cost the company?

Article 110 allows fines of up to 450 UIT, split into minor, serious and very serious tiers under article 112. In a real case decided by Indecopi in Arequipa, a bank was fined 3.78 UIT (S/ 20,790) for telling third parties about a consumer's debt — but that was that specific case, not a fixed rate.

If they message me on WhatsApp or expose my debt on social media, does that also count as abusive collection?

No official text we reviewed names WhatsApp or social media directly. In our view, exposing your debt to third parties through those channels fits literal f) of article 62, and possibly literal h) as an analogous method, but that's our own reading of the text, not a direct quote from the rule. You can still report it.

What the fine is

Conduct	Severity	Range	Authority
Visiting or phoning you between 20.00 and 07.00, or on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday Ley 29571, arts. 61, 62 b) and 110 Article 110 runs from a warning up to 450 UIT: minor infractions up to 50, serious up to 150, very serious up to 450. In the text we read, the Code does not assign each collection practice to a tier in advance: article 108 defines what an administrative infraction is and article 112 sets the criteria for grading it. Micro-enterprises have a cap of 10% of the previous year's sales or gross income, subject to conditions.	variable	up to 450 UIT up to S/ 2,475,000.00 up to $715,939	Indecopi
Calling or writing to your family, your employer, your colleagues or your neighbours to tell them you are in arrears Ley 29571, arts. 61, 62 f) and 110 This is the conduct in the decided Arequipa case described below. Literal f) carries no exception for relatives, and none for someone you listed as a reference on a credit application.	variable	up to 450 UIT up to S/ 2,475,000.00 up to $715,939	Indecopi
Putting up collection posters or notices in public view at your home or at other premises, or stationing people with debt-related signs near your home or workplace Ley 29571, arts. 61, 62 c), 62 d) and 110 Literal c) names the home «del deudor o del garante» — the debtor's or the guarantor's. Literal d) is written around the debtor only: it covers the area near the debtor's home or workplace and does not mention the garante.	variable	up to 450 UIT up to S/ 2,475,000.00 up to $715,939	Indecopi
Sending you or your guarantor documents designed to look like court notices or court filings Ley 29571, arts. 61, 62 a) and 110 The document itself is the infraction. You do not need to have been sued, and you do not need to have paid anything because you believed it.	variable	up to 450 UIT up to S/ 2,475,000.00 up to $715,939	Indecopi

Fines are set in UIT. When the UIT moves, every fine moves with it. UIT 2026 = S/ 5,500 (Decreto Supremo N.º 301-2025-EF). Reference conversion only. The debt is owed in soles.FX rate as of2026-10-12: US$ 1 = S/ 3.457.