Licensure: Qualifications, Exclusions, Renewal & Changing Brokers

Licensure questions ask who qualifies, what needs a license, who is excluded, and how licenses stay current.

Qualifying for a salesperson license

1. Age and schooling: at least 18, and a high school graduate or the equivalent.
2. Prelicense education: 75 hours of real estate instruction, which must include fair housing and professional ethics. An hour means at least 50 minutes. A bachelor's degree with a real estate major (or equivalent coursework) or a juris doctor degree is deemed to satisfy the education requirement.
3. Examination: a National portion (80 scored items) and a Pennsylvania State portion (40 scored items), with a minimum passing score of 75% on each. Attempts are unlimited within 5 years of finishing the earliest required course, and a candidate who fails one part retakes only that part.
4. Application: the Commission must receive it within three years of passing. If the two parts were passed on different dates, the three years run from the first part passed.
5. Broker's sworn statement: the broker with whom the applicant will affiliate certifies that the broker will actively supervise and train the applicant.

Licenses are granted and renewed only for people with a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity and competence. The application must give complete details of any felony or misdemeanor conviction or guilty or nolo contendere plea, and a knowing failure to give accurate, truthful information is grounds to deny it.

Licensees from other states

• Prior license elsewhere: an applicant actively licensed in another state within the last 5 years still meets the education requirement but takes only the Pennsylvania portion.
• Reciprocal license: for a licensee of another state whose principal place of business is outside Pennsylvania. It generally needs no Pennsylvania exam or CE, but a reciprocal salesperson must affiliate with a standard or reciprocal broker. If the principal place of business moves to Pennsylvania, the licensee notifies the Commission within 30 days and must convert to a standard license by passing the State portion.
• Licensure by endorsement: an applicant whose current license comes from a jurisdiction with substantially equivalent standards, who has practiced actively for at least 2 of the 5 years before applying and, absent a Commission waiver, has not been disciplined there.
• Provisional endorsement license: the Commission may issue one while an endorsement applicant finishes the remaining requirements. It allows practice for up to 1 year, with one extension of up to 1 more year for good cause, and it ends when the Commission grants or denies the license. A second provisional license is never issued.

Activities requiring a license

A broker is anyone who, for another and for a fee, negotiates or helps someone locate or obtain real estate; negotiates a listing, sale, purchase, exchange, lease, time share, financing or option; manages real estate; holds himself out as a real estate consultant, counsellor, agent or finder; promotes the sale or rental of real estate (not an advertising or public relations business); performs a comparative market analysis; or attempts any of these. Anyone who engages in a wholesale transaction, promoting a deal in residential property to assign the interest for a fee without taking title, is also a broker, even when acting for himself.

"Real estate" includes leaseholds and time shares, and land located outside Pennsylvania. A mobile home sale is a real estate transfer when the land or the lot lease goes with it. A broker's employee doing none of these activities needs no license.

An unlicensed person cannot sue for a commission. Unlicensed practice is a crime: the first offense is a summary offense (fine up to $500, up to three months in jail, or both). A second offense is a third-degree felony. A time-share salesperson license (30 hours plus 30 days of onsite training) is not needed by a licensed salesperson. A rental listing referral agent qualifies like a salesperson but need not affiliate with a broker.

Exclusions from licensure

• An owner dealing with property it owns or leases. For a partnership or corporation, the exclusion covers no more than five partners or officers, and never a wholesale transaction.
• An attorney-in-fact under a recorded power of attorney (not used to evade the act; a power of attorney given to a property manager just to avoid hiring a broker is evasion), and an attorney at law.
• A trustee in bankruptcy, administrator, executor, trustee or guardian acting under a court order, will or trust.
• Bank officers selling only the bank's own real estate, and bank staff evaluating real estate for loans.
• Public utility employees and energy or mineral company officers in the ordinary course of business.
• A licensed auctioneer at a bona fide auction.
• An owner's employee managing multifamily property who cannot sign leases, negotiate occupancy terms or hold tenant money. Such an employee may show apartments and give out rents and building rules.

Renewal, continuing education and reactivation

• CE: 14 hours each two-year license period, done by the May 31 renewal deadline, in courses of at least 2 hours. A new licensee's first CE is the Commission-developed 14-hour course. Live online (synchronous) classes count as in-person.
• Waivers: all or part of CE may be waived for illness, emergency or hardship, and a license first issued within 6 months of the biennial period for which renewal is sought is eligible for a full waiver. Requests are due by March 31 of the renewal year.
• Late renewal: $5 for each month or part of a month past the renewal date, on top of the renewal fee. Acting while the license is not in effect is itself a violation.
• Reactivation: document 14 hours of CE completed in the 2 years before applying, without reusing renewal hours. Inactive for five years? Pass the exam again.
• Self-reporting: notify the Commission within 30 days of a felony or misdemeanor conviction or plea, or of receiving notice of discipline by another state.

Change of employment

A salesperson may work only for the broker named on the current license. To switch brokers, the salesperson notifies the Commission in writing no later than ten days after the intended date of change, pays the fee and returns the current license. A copy of the notification is the temporary license; if nothing arrives within 30 days, the licensee must tell the Commission. If the office moves, its licensees apply before the move or within ten days after.

Where this shows up on the exam

Licensure is 8 of the 40 scored State items (Pearson VUE outline effective March 16, 2026). Expect the 18/75/14 numbers, the three-year window, the ten-day notice, exclusions, and reciprocal versus endorsement.

Sources

North Carolina law as published by the General Assembly and the Office of Administrative Hearings, checked 2026-11-05:

• 63 P.S. § 455.201
• 63 P.S. §§ 455.302–455.304
• 63 P.S. § 455.404.1
• 63 P.S. §§ 455.501, 455.511, 455.521–455.522, 455.561, 455.591
• 63 P.S. §§ 455.601–455.603
• 63 P.S. § 455.604(a)(21)
• 49 Pa. Code §§ 35.201–35.204
• 49 Pa. Code §§ 35.221, 35.223, 35.230–35.231, 35.255
• 49 Pa. Code § 35.272
• 49 Pa. Code § 35.290
• 49 Pa. Code §§ 35.382–35.384
• Pearson VUE PA Real Estate Commission Candidate Handbook #093900 (Oct 2026)