Real Estate License Exam Guide (2026)

The real estate license exam is the test your state requires before it will issue a salesperson (called a sales agent in Texas) or broker license. You take it after you finish your state's prelicensing education and file an application with the state real estate agency—the Department of Real Estate (DRE) in California, the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) in Texas.

Most first-timers sit for the salesperson exam. The broker exam comes later, after licensed experience and extra coursework, and it's longer with a tougher standard. This guide is about the salesperson exam.

There's no single national exam. Each state writes its own rules, picks a testing vendor (or runs the exam itself), and sets its own passing standard. What's consistent is the content: nearly every exam tests the same national real estate principles plus your state's license law.

Most states use a testing vendor—usually Pearson VUE (now branded Pearson Professional Assessments) or PSI—and split the exam into two parts:

• National (general) portion: principles that apply everywhere—ownership, agency, contracts, valuation, financing, fair housing, and math.
• State portion: your state's license law, commission rules, and state-specific practice such as required disclosure forms, agency rules, and homestead or community property law.

You generally have to pass both portions, and in split-exam states like Texas you retake only the portion you failed. Not every state splits the exam: California's DRE writes and administers one combined exam.

Here's how the two states we cover in depth compare:

The Texas exam mixes unscored pretest questions in with the scored ones, and you can't tell which are which. Treat every question as if it counts.

Content outlines differ by vendor and state, but they cover the same ground. Here's the Pearson VUE national salesperson outline used for the Texas exam (effective March 1, 2025), with the number of scored items in each area:

PSI states and other Pearson VUE states publish their own outlines with different labels and weights, so download the candidate handbook for your state. California uses its own seven-area outline—see the California guide.

Two themes run through every version:

• Federal law. Expect fair housing—the Fair Housing Act's seven protected classes are race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and handicap (disability)—plus steering, blockbusting, and redlining, RESPA's ban on kickbacks for settlement-service referrals, Truth in Lending advertising rules, lead-based paint disclosure for housing built before 1978, and antitrust (no price fixing, market allocation, or group boycotts).
• Contracts and agency. Together they're the single biggest area on the Pearson VUE outline. Know fiduciary duties, how agency starts and ends, the elements of a valid contract, and the remedies when someone breaches.

Math runs through several areas—commission splits, prorations, loan-to-value, cap rates, and acreage (43,560 square feet per acre). It's rarely hard math, but it's easy to lose points to a skipped step.

Real estate exams are pass/fail, and each state sets its own passing standard:

• California: answer at least 70% correctly on the salesperson exam (75% on the broker exam). DRE doesn't release the actual score to people who pass; unsuccessful examinees get their score and a subject-area breakdown.
• Texas: 56 correct out of 80 scored national items and 28 correct out of 40 scored state items—70% on each portion. Candidates who fail get a numeric score with diagnostic information.

Other states use different standards, and some report scaled scores rather than raw percentages. Don't trust any single “national passing score” you see online—there isn't one. Your state's candidate handbook has the real number.

You can't sit for the exam until you finish your state's required coursework, and requirements vary widely:

• California: three college-level courses—Real Estate Principles, Real Estate Practice, and one elective from DRE's list. Each DRE-approved course is at least 45 hours, and the Practice course must include implicit bias and fair housing components.
• Texas: 12 semester hours of qualifying courses—Principles of Real Estate I and II, Law of Agency, Law of Contracts, Promulgated Contract Forms, and Real Estate Finance.

Every other state sets its own hours and course list. Your state real estate agency's website is the source that counts—course marketing sometimes lags behind rule changes.

The sequence is similar everywhere:

1. Finish prelicensing education.
2. Apply to your state agency and submit fingerprints for a criminal background check.
3. Get approved to test (in Texas you receive an eligibility letter with your TREC ID).
4. Schedule and pass the exam.
5. Get your license issued—and, to actually work, affiliate with a licensed broker.

Fees vary by state. For reference, California's current schedule (RE 206, rev. 7/26) lists $100 for the salesperson exam, $350 for the original license, and a $49 fingerprint fee—$499 if you file the combined exam/license application. In Texas, the Pearson VUE sales exam fee is $58 per the August 2026 handbook; TREC's application and fingerprinting fees are separate, so check TREC for current amounts.

Prelicensing tuition comes on top of that and varies by provider and format.

Your prelicensing course teaches the material. Exam prep is about recalling it quickly and accurately under a clock. Once your coursework is done, a focused month works for many people:

• Week 1 — Diagnose. Take a full practice test cold and sort your misses by content area. Often the problem isn't knowledge, it's vocabulary: mortgagor vs. mortgagee, exclusive agency vs. exclusive right-to-sell, executed vs. executory.
• Week 2 — Fix the heavy areas. Contracts and agency carry the most weight nationally. Drill math in short daily sets: commissions, prorations, LTV, cap rates, and area.
• Week 3 — State law. The state portion is short but specific: deadlines, dollar limits, form names, and who must disclose what. Make a flash card for every number in your state's license law.
• Week 4 — Simulate. Take timed practice tests at real pacing and review every miss, including lucky guesses. Don't cram new material the night before.

Adjust for your background. If you're comfortably above your state's passing standard on timed practice tests, schedule the exam. If you're hovering right at it, give yourself another week.

• January 2026 (Texas): SB 1968 took effect. A license holder working with a prospective buyer of residential property must now have a written agreement before showing any property (or before presenting an offer if nothing is shown), and the IABS notice is no longer required for conversations at an open house about that property. See the Texas guide.
• March 2025: Pearson VUE's current Texas content outlines took effect, organizing the national portion into the eight areas shown above.
• August 17, 2024 (industry): The NAR settlement practice changes took effect. Agents in NAR-affiliated MLSs must have a written agreement with a buyer before touring a home—with compensation that's objectively ascertainable, not open-ended, and stated as not set by law and fully negotiable—and offers of buyer-broker compensation can't be published on the MLS.
• California buyer agreements: Civil Code §1670.50 requires a written buyer-broker representation agreement no later than when the buyer signs an offer, with a maximum term of three months for individual buyers.
• January 2024 (California): The Real Estate Practice course must include implicit bias and fair housing components, with an interactive role-play segment.
• July 2026 (California): DRE's fee schedule (RE 206, rev. 7/26) lists a $100 salesperson exam fee and a $350 original license fee.

Rules move. Before you schedule, reread your state's candidate handbook and your real estate agency's website—and expect newer prelicensing materials to cover written buyer agreements in detail.

• DRE — Salesperson Examination Content (California's outline and weights)
• DRE — Taking the Exam (format, calculators, ID, results)
• Pearson VUE — Texas Real Estate (candidate handbook and content outlines)
• Texas Real Estate Commission (applications, education, forms)
• Texas Real Estate License Act (Occupations Code ch. 1101)

Then test yourself with our free real estate practice tests: a 50-question national portion, a 20-question math set, and California- and Texas-style state law tests.

• California real estate exam guide — DRE requirements, fees, the seven-area outline, and California law like community property, Prop 13, and the TDS.
• Texas real estate exam guide — TREC requirements, the two-portion Pearson VUE exam, IABS, intermediary rules, and homestead law.