How to become a real estate agent in Texas

This page is independent of any school or brokerage. Requirements change (TREC's fee schedule and the exam vendor's fees are revised from time to time; the exam fee in the September 2026 handbook is higher than the figure on the fee schedule read the same day), so each section names the official page it was read from and the date. If a figure below disagrees with TREC's page today, the board is right and this page is stale: the date tells you how stale.

1Texas real estate licence requirements

• Age and status: 18 years of age or older, and a citizen of the United States or a lawfully admitted alien.
• Residency: not required; Texas has no reciprocity, so out-of-state licensees meet the same requirements, and licensees from states whose national exam is ARELLO-accredited may be exempt from the national portion of the exam on submitting a licence history.
• Education: 180 classroom hours of qualifying education: Principles of Real Estate I and II, Law of Agency, Law of Contracts, Promulgated Contract Forms and Real Estate Finance, 30 hours each.
• Background: fingerprints taken through IdentoGO by IDEMIA and sent electronically to DPS and the FBI; TREC checks the results before issuing the licence.
• Sponsorship: a sponsoring broker is needed to move the licence from inactive to active status.
• Time limit: one year from the date the application is filed to meet every licence requirement, including passing the exam.

Source: TREC, Become a Real Estate Sales Agent, read September 8, 2026; Pearson VUE, Texas Real Estate Candidate Handbook, September 2026 edition, read September 8, 2026.

2Steps to get your Texas real estate licence, in order

1. Complete the six qualifying courses

   180 classroom hours from a TREC-approved provider: Principles of Real Estate I and II, Law of Agency, Law of Contracts, Promulgated Contract Forms and Real Estate Finance, each 30 hours.

2. File the application and pay the fee

   The original sales agent application is $150 plus a $5 Texas Online fee, a $20 Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center fee and a $10 Real Estate Recovery fee, $185 in all. The one-year clock to finish everything starts on the filing date.

3. Get fingerprinted

   Fingerprints are taken at an IdentoGO by IDEMIA enrollment centre and sent electronically to DPS and the FBI; the fee is $38.25 if you have not been fingerprinted for TREC before.

4. Pass both portions of the exam

   Pearson VUE administers the exam once TREC authorizes you: 85 national and 50 state items in 240 minutes, $58 per sitting, with 56 correct on the national part and 28 on the state part to pass. A failed portion can be retaken alone within the one-year window, and three failures mean more coursework before another attempt.

5. Receive the licence and activate it with a broker

   Candidates who pass and whose background check has cleared receive the licence document from TREC by email within 5 to 10 business days; it becomes active only once a sponsoring broker is on file.

Source: TREC, Become a Real Estate Sales Agent, read September 8, 2026; TREC, Fee Schedule (PDF), read September 8, 2026; Pearson VUE, Texas Real Estate Candidate Handbook, September 2026 edition, read September 8, 2026.

3How much a Texas real estate licence costs

TREC's fees are published on its fee schedule and the exam vendor's fee in the candidate handbook; tuition is not published anywhere official. The state figure below is what you pay before a school's price.

Source: TREC, Fee Schedule (PDF), read September 8, 2026; Pearson VUE, Texas Real Estate Candidate Handbook, September 2026 edition, read September 8, 2026.

4How long it takes to become a real estate agent in Texas

The fixed parts are 180 classroom hours, TREC's review of the application and background check, and one exam sitting; TREC gives applicants one year from filing to finish everything and publishes its current processing dates weekly rather than a typical turnaround. Those parts come from TREC's own pages and the exam vendor's handbook, not a school's marketing:

• Courses: 180 classroom hours in six 30-hour courses, at the pace the provider allows.
• Application and fingerprints: TREC reviews the application and the DPS/FBI fingerprint results before authorizing the exam; it posts current processing dates on its website, updated weekly.
• Exam: one 240-minute sitting at a Pearson VUE centre, reservable up to one calendar day ahead subject to availability; a failed portion can be retaken after a 24-hour wait.
• Licence: emailed within 5 to 10 business days of passing, once the background check has cleared; active status waits for a sponsoring broker.
• Deadline: one year from the filing date to meet all requirements, or the application expires and you reapply.

Source: TREC, Become a Real Estate Sales Agent, read September 8, 2026; Pearson VUE, Texas Real Estate Candidate Handbook, September 2026 edition, read September 8, 2026.

5The Texas real estate exam and its pass rate

The sales agent exam is 125 questions in 4 hours, two portions, 85 national items in 150 minutes and 50 state items in 90 minutes, multiple choice on a computer at a Pearson VUE test centre; a few unscored pretest questions are mixed in. You need 56 of the 85 national and 28 of the 50 state questions correct to pass. The score report says pass or fail on the spot; a failed portion comes with a numeric score and diagnostic information by content area. Retakes: only the failed portion is retaken, within one year of the application filing date, after a 24-hour wait and a new $58 fee; after three failures you must complete 30 more hours of qualifying education if one portion was failed, or 60 hours if both, before testing again.

Pass rate

TREC publishes exam results as a rolling two-year first-attempt rate by education provider. In the two years to November 30, 2025 it recorded 29,980 sales agent exam exams and 56.12% were passed. The broker exam ran at 57.01%. That is a first-attempt figure: a student counts as passing only if both portions were passed on the first try, which is why it is lower than the share who eventually pass.

Source: Pearson VUE, Texas Real Estate Candidate Handbook, September 2026 edition, read September 8, 2026; TREC, Provider Exam Passage Rates for Sales Agents and Brokers (data file, period December 1, 2023 to November 30, 2025), read September 8, 2026.

6Reciprocity: already licensed in another state?

None. TREC's answer is: "Texas does not have reciprocity with any state. To become licensed, you must satisfy all current Texas licensing requirements." The one concession is the exam: an applicant holding an active licence in a state whose national exam is ARELLO-accredited can be exempted from the national portion by submitting a licence history with the application.

Source: TREC, Frequently Asked Questions ("Does Texas have reciprocity with any other state?"), read September 8, 2026; TREC, Become a Real Estate Sales Agent, read September 8, 2026.

7Renewal and continuing education

The licence runs two years. To renew you complete 18 clock hours of approved continuing education within the licence period and pay $110 on time, or $143 up to 90 days late and $176 from 91 days to six months late late.

First renewal: the Sales Agent Apprentice Education (SAE) package instead of CE: a 30-hour Real Estate Brokerage course, 60 more hours of qualifying education (two 30-hour courses from finance, appraisal, law, marketing, math, investments, residential inspection or property management), and the 8-hour TREC Legal Update I and II, 98 hours in all.

Later renewals: 18 hours of approved CE each two-year period: 8 hours of TREC Legal Update I and II, 3 hours of contract-related coursework and 7 hours of electives. A licence can be renewed up to six months late, reinstated from six months to two years, and after two years you reapply and retest.

Source: TREC, Renew Your Sales Agent License, read September 8, 2026; TREC, Fee Schedule (PDF), read September 8, 2026.

8How much real estate agents make in Texas

The only independent, dated wage figure for agents is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational survey. For Texas, release May 2025:

BLS counts agents paid as employees and reports wages, not the commissions of self-employed agents, so these are a floor for the occupation rather than what a typical commissioned agent takes home.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, Real Estate Sales Agents (41-9022), Texas, read September 8, 2026.

9After the licence: choosing a brokerage in Texas

A new sales agent licence is only usable under a broker, so the next decision is which brokerage. On September 5, 2026, 34,501 Texas agents had a published brokerage profile; the largest single company was Keller Williams with 9,023 of them, and the largest brand was Keller Williams with 9,023. Realty Census, which counts those profiles, also compares the brokerages a new Texas agent can join, including which ones publish their commission split: see which Texas brokerages publish their pay plan.

Source: Realty Census, Texas count and brokerage ranking, September 5, 2026 (realtycensus.com/texas/), read September 8, 2026.

10Pre-licence schools in Texas

TREC approves qualifying education providers and their instructors and lists them on its site, and it publishes each provider's first-attempt exam pass rate for the past two years, which is the one independent yardstick for choosing a school in Texas. The list is at TREC's approved provider list.

This page carries no affiliate links. If a schools page for Texas is added with affiliate links, it will say so at the top, and schools will be ordered by what the state publishes or alphabetically, never by commission.

Source: TREC, Education Providers and Instructors, read September 8, 2026.

Questions people ask about becoming an agent in Texas

How long does it take to become a real estate agent in Texas?

The fixed parts are 180 classroom hours, TREC's review of the application and background check, and one exam sitting; TREC gives applicants one year from filing to finish everything and publishes its current processing dates weekly rather than a typical turnaround. The six courses are 180 classroom hours at whatever pace the provider allows; the exam is a single four-hour sitting; TREC emails the licence within 5 to 10 business days of a pass once the background check has cleared; and the whole process must finish within one year of filing the application.

How much does it cost to get a real estate licence in Texas?

$281.25 to the state and its vendors ($185 application, $38.25 fingerprints, $58 exam), plus tuition for the pre-licence course, tuition for the six 30-hour courses, which the providers set.

What is the pass rate for the Texas real estate exam?

56.12% of the 29,980 sales agent exam exams taken in the two years to November 30, 2025 were passed, by TREC's own statistics.

How much do real estate agents make in Texas?

The BLS May 2025 median for real estate sales agents in Texas is $45,740 a year, with the middle half earning between $36,920 and $74,660. BLS counts agents paid as employees and reports wages, not the commissions of self-employed agents, so these are a floor for the occupation rather than what a typical commissioned agent takes home.

Does Texas have real estate licence reciprocity?

No. Texas has no reciprocity with any state; every applicant meets the full Texas requirements. Active licensees from states with an ARELLO-accredited national exam can be exempted from the national portion of the Texas exam by filing a licence history with their application.

Sources and dates