The call centre industry in Bangladesh includes customer-service and outsourcing operations serving both domestic organisations and foreign clients. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) began issuing call-centre licences in April 2008, with 21 local companies receiving licences in the first batch. By late 2009, 47 call centres with around 1,500 seats were operating in the country. The industry was handling work for companies based in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Development
In 2013, national mobile operators Airtel and Citycell outsourced their call centres to local companies. Around 70 call centres were in operation at the time, according to BTRC statistics reported by The Daily Star.
In September 2013, BTRC introduced a registration-certificate system for BPO and call-centre operations in place of the previous licensing procedure.
By 2021, BTRC reported 212 call-centre entities in Bangladesh. Domestic demand had expanded as government agencies, banks and other organisations increasingly used outsourced call-centre services and helplines. The same report described private operators handling inbound and outbound services, including work for clients in the United Kingdom and the United States. It also noted a broader shift from traditional telephone-only call centres towards contact centres using channels such as email, mobile applications, chat, text messaging and social media.
International operations and current industry
Bangladeshi call centres have continued to handle some outsourced work for overseas clients, although the domestic market has become the larger part of the sector's activity.
A 2026 report by The Business Standard stated that around 150 call-centre operators remained active in Bangladesh. The report estimated that the wider call-centre and business-process-outsourcing ecosystem employed around 100,000 people, while noting that the domestic market accounted for the bulk of industry activity.
Private call-centre operations also continue to serve foreign businesses. In September 2026, The Business Standard reported on call-centre employees in Dhaka working overnight to match American and British business hours. One operation described in the report handled outsourced telesales for an American heating, ventilation and air-conditioning company, while other operators were reported to work primarily with businesses in the United States.
Industry reporting has identified shortages of employees with strong English-language and customer-service skills as a continuing obstacle to expanding international operations. The sector has also faced difficulties retaining skilled workers and expanding from basic voice support and routine processing into higher-value outsourcing services. At the same time, the growth of domestic customer-service outsourcing and the wider use of digital contact channels have broadened the industry's activities beyond conventional telephone call centres.
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