Yes. CAN-SPAM applies based on the recipient's location, not the sender's. If you send commercial email to anyone in the United States, the law applies to you, whether your company sits in Geneva, Lisbon or Sao Paulo. There is no exemption for senders based outside the US.
What you must do on every US-bound message
- Use accurate From, Reply-To and subject lines that do not mislead.
- Identify the message as an advertisement where that is not already obvious.
- Include a valid physical postal address for your business.
- Give a clear, working way to unsubscribe.
- Honour every unsubscribe within 10 business days.
The full rule set is in the CAN-SPAM definition.
Does it apply to transactional email?
CAN-SPAM separates commercial messages from transactional ones. A receipt, an order update, a password reset or a notice about an existing account is transactional: it is exempt from most of the rules above, though its From and subject lines must still be truthful. The moment you add promotional content to such a message, the commercial rules apply to it again.
Mailpro adds a compliant unsubscribe link to every campaign and suppresses opt-outs across all your lists, so this is handled by default: see unsubscribe management.
If you also email Europe, follow the stricter rule
CAN-SPAM is opt-out based: you may email someone who never asked, provided you give them a clean way out. The GDPR is opt-in and does not allow that first message without consent. When one list spans both regions, the practical answer is to apply the stricter standard everywhere, collect consent, and keep the CAN-SPAM mechanics on top of it. For the data side of US jurisdiction, see whether your data is subject to US law and whether you need Standard Contractual Clauses.
What non-compliance costs
The Federal Trade Commission enforces CAN-SPAM and can impose civil penalties for each individual non-compliant email, an amount it adjusts for inflation every year and which runs into tens of thousands of US dollars. Because every message counts separately, one careless campaign multiplies fast.
Mailpro and compliance
Beyond CAN-SPAM — compliance handled for you
Mailpro is Swiss-hosted and GDPR-native, and adds a working unsubscribe to every campaign automatically, so the legal mechanics stop being your problem.