How to become a real estate broker in Texas: five steps, zero guesswork.

Complete your 270 core qualifying hours.

The broker license requires 900 hours of qualifying education. Here's the math:

• 270 core hours: seven required 30-hour courses (Principles I & II, Law of Agency, Law of Contracts, Promulgated Contract Forms, Real Estate Finance, and Real Estate Brokerage), plus two 30-hour electives to round out 270. TREC-approved electives include Real Estate Appraisal, Real Estate Law, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Math, Residential Property Management, Real Estate Investments, and Residential Inspections for Real Estate Agents; School Estate offers Property Management, Real Estate Investment, and Real Estate Marketing. Only the Real Estate Brokerage course has a time limit: it must be completed within 2 years of applying.
• 630 additional hours of related qualifying courses acceptable to TREC or approved continuing education courses, built from any combination of:
  • Your existing agent hours (every licensed agent has at least 278 built in, 180 pre-license hours plus 98 hours of SAE, often more with other continuing education)
  • A bachelor's degree or higher from an accredited college or university, any subject: credits up to 300 hours (submit the college transcript awarding the degree)
  • Related college courses taken for academic credit, in areas TREC lists such as accounting, business, construction, finance, law, marketing, property management, and real estate (see the full list below)
  • Experience points earned beyond the required 720 minimum: convert at 2:1, up to 300 hours
  • This bucket must also include the separate 6-hour Broker Responsibility Course (School Estate offers it for $34), no 2-year expiration on this one.

A large share of agents still need to take some additional coursework to close the remaining gap, that's normal, and it's exactly what we're here for. Every School Estate 30-hour course ends with a course final exam that's online and open book: 70% to pass, two attempts, not proctored.

Submit your broker application to TREC.

Already a licensed Texas agent? Good news: you already have a TREC REALM account. No new registration, no activation emails, log into the portal you already use, and apply for the broker license from there.

New to Texas? Creating your REALM account

Coming in as an out-of-state broker? You'll start a REALM account from scratch. Here's the plain-English version.

1. 1Create a free REALM account. It's an account only, not your license application.
2. 2Find TREC's email "Pre-Licensing Education Notification" from no-reply@notices.trec.texas.gov (check spam). Your Pre-Licensing Education Application Number ends in "-QEdu." Enter it when you launch your first course so we can report your courses to TREC.
3. 3Held a Texas license before? If your old records don't show under the "Licenses" tab, use TREC's State ID and PIN Number Lookup to connect them. Or call us; we do this with students every week.

Fingerprinting, if you even need it.

Coming in from out of state? Texas runs a fingerprint background check through IdentoGO by IDEMIA. Booking your appointment online takes about 5 minutes; the visit itself depends on your location and any wait at the center, so leave more time than you'd think. Texas law requires your fingerprints to be on file with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS); prints on file with other agencies don't count, and TREC won't issue a license until the background check clears. The only tricky part is finding one number. Here's exactly where it is.

Finding your UEID number and booking IdentoGO

1. 1Log in to your REALM account after your application is filed.
2. 2Open your application record, your UEID number (your unique fingerprint ID) is listed on it.
3. 3Go to the IdentoGO Texas site, choose the TREC service, and enter your UEID.
4. 4Pick a location and time (booking takes about 5 minutes online), then bring your TREC eligibility letter and a photo ID.

Schedule and pass the Pearson VUE broker exam.

Once TREC approves your application, you'll get an eligibility letter with instructions for scheduling and for getting the exam Candidate Handbook from Pearson VUE, the testing service company that runs Texas license exams. Book your seat at any Pearson VUE testing center in Texas. Two portions in one sitting, and here's the difference from the agent exam you remember: you need 60 of 80 scored questions on the National portion and 38 of 50 on the State portion, roughly 75% instead of 70%. Higher bar, same preparation principle: walk in having already done it.

Why the two numbers: each portion mixes in a handful of unscored "pretest" questions TREC uses to build future exams. They look identical to the real ones and aren't identified, so there's no way to spot them and no reason to try. Answer every question the same, and only the scored ones count toward your passing score.

Pass, and you're a Texas broker, your own name on the license, your own brokerage if you want it. And if test day doesn't go your way the first time, call us. We look at your score report together, build a plan, and you retake it. You retake only the portion you missed, and each attempt is a new $39 exam fee. After three failed attempts, TREC requires additional qualifying education before you can test again: 30 hours if you failed one portion, 60 if you failed both. We pick up the pieces. That's the job.