Clear Cooperation Policy (2026): What Listing Agents Must Do Now

The Clear Cooperation Policy says that once a listing broker markets a home to the public, the listing has to go into the MLS within one business day. That is the whole rule. Everything else in this fight is about what counts as "the public", what the seller can opt out of, and whether anyone is enforcing it.

It is still in force in September 2026. NAR has not repealed it, and it restated the rule in guidance published this July. What has changed is everything around it: sellers can now sign away public marketing, Zillow rewrote its private listing ban in March, Compass has said it will not follow the rule, and Washington now has a private listing law in force, with Connecticut and Wisconsin to follow.

Below is the rule in NAR's own words, a checker for whether the thing you are about to do starts the one business day clock, how it works in Bright MLS where I list, the fines, the lawsuits, the price data on both sides, and what I would say to a seller who wants to stay off the market.

Where I stand: I run Jamil Academy, which sells coaching, and the blocks below sell my own products. This is information, not legal advice. MLS rules differ and change, so check your own MLS before you rely on any of it.

Is the Clear Cooperation Policy still in effect in 2026?

Yes, on paper. NAR's Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy for 2026 still carries the rule as Policy Statement 8.0, with the note "Adopted 11/19" and no later amendment. When NAR introduced new seller options in March 2025, its announcement said the Clear Cooperation Policy "will remain in place". In July 2026 Rodney Gansho of NAR told Real Estate News the policy "is still applicable when you talk about pre-marketing and office exclusives."

In practice, it is patchier. Compass said in July 2025 that it "has not and will not adhere to CCP or any national NAR MLS rule." Enforcement varies from one MLS to the next, and two columns this May by the same author, Darryl Davis, in Inman and HousingWire, declared the policy dead. Both were opinion pieces, and both conceded that the rule "is not technically dead."

What the Clear Cooperation Policy actually says

Here is the operative sentence, from NAR's policy page:

NAR's board adopted it in November 2019 and told local MLSs to adopt it "by no later than May 1, 2020." It was aimed at pocket listings, where a home is sold quietly to a buyer the listing brokerage already knows.

Four things about that sentence matter more than the rest of the debate:

• It is triggered by marketing, not by signing. The clock starts when you market to the public, not when the listing agreement is signed. Your MLS may have a separate entry deadline from signing, and many do.
• The obligation sits with the listing broker. An agent can create the problem, but the policy names the broker.
• One business day is short. A sign that goes up on a Friday afternoon has to be matched by an MLS entry the next business day, which is usually Monday.
• It does not force every listing into the MLS. NAR's own FAQ answers whether the policy prohibits office exclusives with a plain "No," so long as the listing is not publicly marketed.

If you are still catching up on the rules that changed in 2024, what the NAR settlement changed on the buyer side sits alongside this one. That settlement changed how buyer agents are paid. It did not touch Clear Cooperation.

What counts as public marketing, and what does not

NAR gives a list, and it says the list is not complete:

The 2025 seller options policy added the line that settles most arguments among agents. "One-to-one, broker-to-broker communications about listings do not trigger CCP requirements," but "multi-brokerage communications about a listing will constitute public marketing under CCP." NAR published separate guidelines on one-to-one broker communications in May 2026, which, as reported by Real Estate News, say those conversations must be "pursuant to the seller's informed consent and interests."

Four ways agents start the clock without meaning to

• The Coming Soon rider before the MLS entry. A sign is a sign. If it goes up on a Friday, the listing needs to be in the MLS by the end of Monday.
• The agent group chat. A post in a Facebook group or a group text with agents from several companies is multi-brokerage communication, which NAR counts as public marketing.
• The vague social post. "Just listed in Oakton, message me for details" names no address, but it is a public post about a specific listing. At best it sits in the grey column.
• The automatic website feed. If your brokerage's system publishes new listings to the company website on entry, check that setting before you enter an office exclusive. Brokerage website displays are on NAR's list.

The grey column is where agents get fined. None of those items is named in NAR's list, and each MLS answers them its own way. When in doubt, ask your MLS in writing before you do it, not after.

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Check your situation: does it start the clock?

Two questions come up before almost every pre-market conversation: does the thing I am about to do count as public marketing, and if it does, when is the MLS deadline? Pick what you are about to do, then enter the day it starts.

The deadline panel is where Friday listings go wrong. A sign that goes up on Friday morning gives you until the end of Monday on that reading, but only until the end of Sunday on a straight two calendar day count. If you are in Bright, work to the stricter of the two until your MLS tells you otherwise.

Office exclusives, delayed marketing and Coming Soon

On 25 March 2025 NAR announced what it called Multiple Listing Options for Sellers, and gave MLSs until 30 September 2025 to put it in place. It kept Clear Cooperation and added a formal way for sellers to hold back. NAR's 2026 handbook defines the two exempt listing types this way:

• Office exclusive: "an exempt listing where the seller has directed that their listing not be disseminated through MLS and not be publicly marketed."
• Delayed marketing: "an exempt listing where the seller has directed the listing broker to delay the public marketing of that listing through IDX and syndication for any period as allowed by the local MLS in its unfettered discretion."

The second one is the real change. The listing goes into the MLS, so other agents can see it and bring buyers, but it stays off Zillow, Realtor.com and brokerage sites for a period. NAR did not set that period: "Each MLS will have discretion to determine a delayed marketing period that is most suitable for their local marketplace."

MLSs took very different routes. Stellar MLS in Florida set five calendar days. Prime MLS in northern New England told HousingWire it set the period to zero days, so "functionally, it will not exist in our system," and NorthstarMLS in Minnesota declined the option. Ask your MLS what its number is before you promise a seller anything.

The signature is not optional

Either route needs the seller's signature. NAR's 2026 handbook requires a certification signed by the seller for both exempt listing types. For delayed marketing, NAR's policy page says listing agents "must secure from their seller a signed disclosure documenting the seller's informed consent to waive the benefits of immediate public marketing." NAR's July 2026 guidance put the burden on the brokerage: "The broker is responsible for explaining the applicable pre-marketing listing options and obtaining a signed disclosure from sellers who choose to waive MLS benefits."

Coming Soon is not part of NAR's national policy. It is a status your MLS offers, and the rules for it, including whether showings are allowed and how long a listing can sit there, are set locally.

How Clear Cooperation works in Bright MLS

Bright MLS covers Virginia, Maryland, DC and four other states, and since October 2019 it has run its own version of this rule, which it called the Off MLS policy. Three sources tell you how it works, and they do not all say the same thing.

What Bright's seller form says

Bright's disclosure form for sellers, titled MLS Disclosures and Residential Seller/Landlord Options, puts the deadline this way: subscribers "must submit information to Bright about every property with an exclusive listing within two days of allowing any potential buyers (or renters) to learn about the property." The trigger is broader than NAR's. It is any potential buyer learning about the home, not public marketing.

The form gives the seller four choices: full exposure, MLS only with no websites or apps, Coming Soon until the home is ready for showings, or restricted marketing to the brokerage's own network, which needs a separate form. The copy I read carries no date, so confirm it is the current version before you hand it to a seller.

What the 2024 rulebook says

The rulebook effective 14 August 2024 is the latest full version I could read. It requires entry within two calendar days of the listing agreement being signed, a signed Limited Marketing/Office Exclusive form for an office exclusive, and this: "Once a property that is submitted as an Office Exclusive is publicly marketed, it must within one business day be changed to Active status." It also required the listing broker to cooperate with other agents on an office exclusive "upon another subscriber's request," and let Bright tell any subscriber whether an address is an office exclusive. Coming Soon listings cannot be shown, and Bright dropped its old 21 day limit on that status in 2024.

What changed this summer

In July 2026 Bright announced a new set of statuses. Real Estate News, Inman and HousingWire all reported the same outline: Registered, Office Exclusive, Coming Soon and Active, with a choice on Active of whether the listing goes to consumer websites. Every listing still has to be entered within two days of a signed listing agreement. Sellers can hide the price and most photos from consumer sites while the listing stays visible to agents.

Two of those outlets reported that under the new rules a broker may advertise an office exclusive elsewhere without it being shared through Bright. If that is right, it is a real departure from the 2024 one business day rule. I could not read the new rule text myself, because Bright's rules pages would not load for me, and none of the three articles said whether Clear Cooperation still applies. Until you have read the current rulebook, do not rely on the reports.

Bright's own executives describe the direction, not the detail. Chief executive Brian Donnellan told RISMedia in May: "We still believe in cooperation. We think it's going to look a little bit differently than it did in the past."

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Fines and enforcement

NAR does not fine anyone under this policy. It tells MLSs to adopt the rule and leaves enforcement to them. Its 2026 model rules list an "appropriate, reasonable fine" among the sanctions an MLS may use, with no dollar figure attached.

For years the handbook capped MLS fines at $15,000. NAR's own summary of its 2025 MLS changes shows the words "not to exceed $15,000" struck out, effective January 2026, so there is no longer a national ceiling. Your MLS sets the number.

Bright's enforcement policy dates from 2024, before this summer's rule changes, so its schedule may have moved. Whatever your MLS charges, keep your own record of the day marketing started, because that date is what any complaint will turn on.

Zillow, Compass, the lawsuits and the new state laws

Clear Cooperation used to be an argument between NAR and a few brokerages. Since 2025 it has pulled in the biggest portal, the biggest brokerage and at least four state legislatures.

Zillow's rule, and how it changed

In 2025 Zillow adopted Listing Access Standards that mirrored Clear Cooperation. In its own court filing it summarised them this way: "if a brokerage wants a listing to be on Zillow, that brokerage must share the listing with everyone through the MLS within one business day of publicly marketing it." It began rejecting non-compliant listings on 30 June 2025.

On 17 March 2026 Zillow rewrote the standards. The current version says "If listings are publicly marketed, they should be broadly accessible to buyers," and the MLS is now one way of doing that, not the only one. What Zillow still bans is marketing that shows buyers a brokerage's exclusive inventory but gates access behind a registration wall or a requirement to work with that brokerage. It launched Zillow Preview the same day, a place to show pre-market homes publicly. If Zillow is part of your buyer side, here is what Zillow charges agents for buyer leads.

The court cases, as of September 2026

The judge in Compass v. Zillow wrote that "the record fails to show that Zillow possessed the power to exclude competition from the online home search market." Nothing in that list has struck Clear Cooperation down. The only case still aimed squarely at it is the PLS.com suit, and that trial is a year away.

State laws

Washington went further than NAR. Its law, signed on 16 March 2026 and in force from 11 June, bars brokers from marketing a home "to a limited or exclusive group of buyers or brokers unless the property is concurrently marketed to the general public and all other brokers," with fines of up to $500 a violation. New York's legislature passed a bill in June that would require a seller to sign an acknowledgement that restricting exposure "could negatively impact my ability to sell"; I could not confirm whether the governor has signed it. Connecticut's law, signed on 27 May 2026, takes effect on 1 October and requires a listing to be publicly accessible once any marketing begins, unless the seller signs an opt-out, with fines of up to $5,000. Wisconsin enacted a similar requirement in December 2025.

I found no law in Virginia, Maryland or DC on private listings. Virginia's 2026 session produced none, according to the Northern Virginia and Virginia Realtor associations' summaries. What does apply here is the general duty to the seller: Virginia's statute requires a listing agent to "seek a sale at the price and terms agreed upon in the brokerage agreement or at a price and terms acceptable to the seller," and to present written offers in a timely manner. A seller who chooses privacy in writing is exercising that second option.

Do private listings sell for more or less?

This is the question sellers actually ask, and every side has a study. Note who paid for each one.

Read the method column before the finding column. The biggest number, Bright's 17 per cent, is a raw median. Bright split it by metro and home size, but it did not control for condition or exact location. The studies with fuller controls find differences of a few per cent, in both directions. Compass controlled for more than 50 variables, but its study leaves out listings that expired or were withdrawn, which removes exactly the homes that failed to sell and flatters any strategy.

My read: nobody has shown a private listing reliably gets a seller more, and the careful studies disagree on the direction. The cost that is best documented is time. If Zillow's 2025 figure of 1.5 per cent is right, it is $9,000 on a $600,000 home, which is worth showing a seller alongside what a price difference does to the seller's net.

What I would actually do with a seller who wants privacy

Sellers who ask to stay off the market usually have a real reason: privacy or safety, a divorce, an estate, tenants still in the house, or repairs that are not finished. The request is legitimate. The job is to meet the reason with the least restrictive option, and to leave a paper trail that shows the seller chose it knowing the trade-off.

The order I would offer the options in

• MLS, with consumer websites switched off. Every agent can bring a buyer, and the home stays off the portals. This answers most privacy requests.
• Coming Soon, if the issue is timing rather than privacy.
• Delayed marketing, if your MLS offers it and the seller wants a quiet first week or two.
• Office exclusive last, and only with a date to review it.

What to say

Then do the paperwork the same day: your MLS's seller form, signed and dated; a note in the file of the day any marketing starts; and nothing public, not even a teaser, while the listing is an office exclusive. The seller's options belong in your listing presentation before the question comes up, not after.

What goes in the file

• The seller's signed MLS form choosing the option, dated.
• A one-line note of why the seller chose it, in their words.
• The date and time any marketing started, with a screenshot if it was online.
• The date you agreed to review the choice, and what you decided on that day.

If a complaint ever comes, those four items answer it. Without them it is your word against a screenshot.

One more thing. The agents most tempted by office exclusives are the ones hoping to represent both sides. That can be lawful, but it is exactly the conflict the seller's disclosure is meant to surface, so say it out loud. The better long-term play is still winning the listing in the first place and selling it in the open.

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What I could not verify

• Bright MLS's current rulebook text. Bright's rule pages would not load for me. The summer 2026 changes above come from three trade outlets, not from the rules themselves.
• Bright's current fine schedule. The enforcement policy I read is from 2024, before the summer 2026 rule changes.
• How MLSs treat teaser posts and Zillow Preview. NAR's list does not name either, and local answers differ.
• Whether New York's governor has signed its private listing bill.
• NAR's May 2026 one-to-one guidelines. The tables are images in a PDF I could not read, so I have relied on the policy wording instead.

Common questions about Clear Cooperation

What is the Clear Cooperation Policy in real estate?

It is NAR's MLS Policy Statement 8.0, adopted in November 2019. Within one business day of marketing a property to the public, the listing broker must submit the listing to the MLS so other agents can cooperate on it. Listings that are never publicly marketed, such as office exclusives, are allowed.

Is the Clear Cooperation Policy still in effect in 2026?

Yes. It is in NAR's 2026 Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy unchanged, and NAR restated it in guidance in July 2026. Enforcement is done by each MLS and varies, and Compass has said it will not follow the rule, but it has not been repealed.

What counts as public marketing under Clear Cooperation?

NAR's list includes flyers in windows, yard signs, public websites and social media, brokerage websites including IDX, email blasts, multi-brokerage listing sharing networks and public apps. The list is not complete, so an MLS can treat other activity, such as an open house, as public marketing too.

Can I share a listing with other agents before it is in the MLS?

Inside your own brokerage, yes, as an office exclusive with the seller's signed form. With one agent at another brokerage, one to one and with the seller's informed consent, NAR says that does not trigger the policy. A message to agents at several brokerages does, and starts the one business day clock.

What is a delayed marketing exempt listing?

A listing the seller has directed to be kept off IDX and syndication for a period set by the local MLS. It is in the MLS, so other agents can see it, but not on consumer websites. NAR added it in March 2025, and some MLSs set the period at zero or declined to offer it.

What is the fine for violating Clear Cooperation?

Each MLS sets its own. Bright MLS's 2024 enforcement policy treats a publicly advertised office exclusive not entered within one business day as a $750 violation, and Stellar MLS charges $500 for a first offence and $2,500 for a second. NAR removed its $15,000 national cap from January 2026.