Real Estate Post License Courses (2026): Deadlines, Costs, and Where to Take Them

Twenty six of the 51 US jurisdictions require a real estate post license course after you are licensed. Twenty four require nothing at all. If you are in one of the 26, a clock started the day your licence was issued, the hours run from 8 in Vermont to 90 in North Carolina, and in Florida missing the deadline makes your licence null and void by statute. Below is every jurisdiction, with the deadline, the sourced penalty, and what the coursework costs.

I am Saad Jamil. Licensed since 2007, still selling at Samson Properties in Chantilly, Virginia, with more than $500M and over 800 homes closed. I run real estate coaching for newly licensed agents at Jamil Academy, and Jamil Academy carries a continuing education partner link to The CE Shop. Two interests declared, handled the same way: no school here is ranked or recommended, and every price is that school's own advertised figure with the date it was seen.

This is the companion to how long real estate school takes. That one covers the hours needed to get licensed. This one covers what you owe after the licence arrives, the part nobody mentions until a renewal notice does.

The 26 to 24 split, and where your state lands

Almost every page on this topic is a school selling a course in one state. Here is the national picture, built from the regulators.

The 26 that require it: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

The 24 that require none: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In those, you owe continuing education on your renewal cycle and nothing else.

Pennsylvania is the 51st and a qualified yes. First time renewers take a prescribed 14 hours, a 7 hour General Module plus one 7 hour Residential or Commercial module. That is ordinary CE with a fixed first renewal curriculum, not an extra block, and the Commission never says post licensing. It behaves like it, so it belongs here.

Across the 26 the smallest requirement is Vermont at 8 hours, the largest North Carolina and Washington at 90, the median 30. Fifty of the 51 rows behind this article come from a regulator. One does not, and it is flagged wherever it appears.

Post licensing is not continuing education

This distinction costs people their licence. Post licensing is a one time requirement attached to being newly licensed. Continuing education recurs at every renewal for life. Different obligations, different clocks, and doing one does not discharge the other.

The test is what the clock is tied to. Running from your licence issue date, it is post licensing. Running on your renewal cycle forever, it is CE.

Several states also deliver post licensing inside the CE block. Washington has no separately named post license course: the load sits inside the 90 CE hours due at first active renewal, of which a 30 hour Advanced Practices course and a 30 hour Law course are the new licensee part. Utah puts a 12 hour New Agent Course inside the first 18 hour renewal CE. Oregon delivers Broker Advanced Practices inside the first renewal block, which is why schools call it CE.

South Dakota stacks them instead: 60 postlicensing hours across two postlicensing periods, on top of 24 hours of ordinary biennial CE. A licensee there who does the CE and stops has done about a quarter of what they owe.

The failure mode is always the same. A new agent asks a colleague who is in another state or three renewals deep into CE habits, and the answer is confidently wrong. Ask the commission, not the office, and work from a written plan for the first year rather than what you overhear.

Post license requirements by state, all 51 jurisdictions

Read your own row and ignore the rest. Hours, deadlines and consequences come from that state's regulator except where marked. The last column is deliberately conservative: where a state publishes a deadline but no penalty, it says so instead of guessing.

* Two rows are low confidence. New Hampshire is the only row sourced from a school rather than a regulator, so its 15 hours at first renewal is unverified. Wyoming is scored as requiring nothing, but the Commission describes the broker credential as obtained by converting from salesperson status, and nothing found makes that upgrade mandatory. Both need a phone call.

Two more need care. Oregon contradicts itself on hours: its course outline and educator page say 26, a 2023 Agency article says 27, and the Agency has not reconciled them, so both are reported and neither is picked. Illinois is the one clear yes state where no source gives a precise deadline. It is due before the first renewal, and the source does not state the date.

The 24 states that require nothing, and what they owe instead

If your state is in the 24, this is the part nobody writes, because there is no course to sell you. No post license hours, no deadline, no penalty. You owe continuing education on your renewal cycle, and the first cycle is often lighter than you expect.

Several exempt you outright at first renewal. New Jersey requires no CE if you were first licensed in the second year of the term. The District of Columbia exempts a first renewal granted by examination. West Virginia exempts a licensee who passed both exams in the fiscal year of the first required renewal and renews on time. North Dakota exempts salespersons first licensed in 2026. Colorado and Michigan require no CE in the initial licence period.

Others do not blink. Montana wants 12 hours every licensing year, no first year exemption, no proration. New York wants 22.5 hours per two year term, including two hours on the law of agency in the initial term. California wants 45 hours by the four year expiration date. Minnesota wants 30 hours per renewal, due 30 June, excepting only the first 30 June after licensure.

So no post licensing does not mean no education. It means the education repeats, and the penalty lands at renewal rather than in your first year.

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Deadlines, and the clock most people get wrong

The hours are the easy part. The deadline catches people, because the clock rarely starts where they assume.

Virginia runs one year from the last day of the month the licence was issued, not from the issue date. Licensed 3 March, you have until 31 March the following year, extra weeks nobody realises they had. The full sequence is in how to become a real estate agent in Virginia.

Alaska runs two clocks: 30 hours within a year, then the affidavit inside the next 30 days. Kentucky starts its two years when you obtain an active licence, not at the exam. Idaho has no date at all, only a gate you pass before first going active. Mississippi issues a temporary licence that becomes full only when the 30 hours are done.

Georgia gives a year plus a six month extension. North Carolina gives 18 months, two years outside. Nevada catches people because the first renewal falls after only one year, so 30 hours are due in half the time expected. Florida is tied to the first renewal period, 18 to 24 months depending on when you were licensed.

Start in month two. Year one is when you build a pipeline from nothing and coursework is the first thing to slide. If you are working through your first 90 days as a new agent, put the course in that plan.

Check your own post license deadline

Pick your jurisdiction and the date on your licence. It returns the requirement, the hours, the deadline in the state's own wording, and where a source supports it, the consequence.

Any date shown is arithmetic on your input, 365 days to a year and 30 to a month. It knows nothing about extensions or inactive status. Treat it as a prompt to check.

What actually happens if you miss it

I state a penalty only where a source gave one, and name the states where none was published.

Florida is the harshest, and it is statute

Florida Statute 475.17(3) states that the license of any sales associate who does not complete the postlicensure education requirement prior to the first renewal following initial licensure shall be considered null and void. Null and void is neither inactive nor expired. Two Florida schools add that you then start over with the pre license course and the state exam, a school published claim rather than a regulator quotation, but the statute alone is severe enough to plan around.

One correction. The widely repeated $25 Florida late fee comes from a school blog, not DBPR, and that source concedes DBPR publishes no universal renewal figure. Treat it as a school claim.

The other sourced consequences

Washington is the only state whose regulator publishes dollar penalties: the Department of Licensing charges a $40 late fee and a $100 reinstatement fee on an expired licence, on top of blocking active renewal without the 90 hours. Alaska, the licence lapses if the affidavit is not filed in the 30 days after. Idaho, you cannot go active. Ohio, automatic suspension. North Carolina, the licence goes inactive.

Maine is unusual: the entry credential is a two year, non renewable Sales Agent licence, and missing the 60 hour Associate Broker Course inside that term expires it, with the Commission stating expired Sales Agents are not eligible for reinstatement by that method. A paid extension costs $100. Oklahoma works the same way, the Provisional Sales Associate licence expiring with no upgrade. Mississippi leaves you temporary. Oregon blocks active renewal, with a one year grace period before an expired licence lapses. Pennsylvania blocks renewal and reactivation, with no grace period. Virginia goes inactive, and DPOR adds that an inactive licence cannot be renewed or reinstated more than a year after expiration.

Where the penalty is simply not published

For 15 states the regulator publishes a deadline but the source reached here does not say what happens if you blow it: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont. The dataset defaults those rows to expiry as a structural convention, not a sourced fact, and a default should never be printed as a legal consequence. One call gets you a real answer.

Texas: the hour count almost every article gets wrong

The Texas number in circulation is wrong, including in the dataset behind this article, so here is the correction.

A Texas sales agent owes 90 hours of Sales Apprentice Education plus an 8 hour Legal Update, which is 98 hours at first renewal. The much larger figure quoted everywhere is TREC's cumulative qualifying hours total, and it subsumes the 180 pre license hours you already did. Presenting it as your post license load roughly triples the real requirement and sends people shopping for courses they have taken.

The trap follows directly. Packages advertised as 90 hour SAE, at $369 from Kaplan and $429 from AceableAgent, cover the qualifying hours only and leave out the 8 Legal Update hours due at first renewal. Aceable sells that Legal Update bundle separately at $59, from $79. Buy a 90 hour package assuming it is complete and you are short by exactly the two mandatory courses.

Full 98 hour packages: $215 at 360training, from $299, $439 at Kaplan, $469 at AceableAgent, from $555. Champions School of Real Estate publishes no dollar price for SAE at all, only badges reading SAVE $80 and SAVE $60, so it cannot be compared. All figures are the schools' own advertised prices seen on 17 August 2026.

What a real estate post license course costs

Every price below is a school's own advertised price, seen on 17 August 2026, reported not endorsed. Read sale framing sceptically: one Florida school still showed a code that expired in February 2025.

The cheap tier is real. Moseley Real Estate Schools advertises $1 per credit hour: $45 for Florida's 45 hours, $30 for Virginia's 30, $25 for Georgia's 25, each stating exam attempts and credit reporting are included. That is the whole requirement, not a teaser.

Florida, 45 hours. $45 Moseley, $69 VanEd, $79 and $99 MLS Campus, $99 360training, $109 Colibri and FLCAA, $135 AceableAgent, $149 Rowlett, Azure Tide and Kaplan, $197 Tampa School of Real Estate, $199 to $219 Gold Coast. A 4.9 times spread for identical content, because FREC fixes the syllabus. What differs is narration, practice exams, books, access windows and live instruction.

Elsewhere. Georgia $25 to $135. Virginia $30 to $159, or $189 with a printed book. Louisiana $89 to $135, where the difference is mostly the access window: ProEducate charges $89 for 30 days and $109 for 90, same 45 hours. Illinois is the tightest market found, $269 to $279 across three schools. Alabama $179 to $189. Ohio has one published standalone price, $199 at Hondros College. Kentucky's 48 hours are $299 at Kaplan. Indiana University South Bend charges $275 including the book. Washington's 90 hours run $269 to $369.

Two large providers could not be priced. Every CE Shop course and package page returned HTTP 405, across five states and three partner subdomains, so no CE Shop price was captured. That is a retrieval gap, not a finding about their pricing, and I would rather say it than quietly leave the biggest school out. McKissock Learning lists post licensing for 19 states and publishes no price on its accessible pages, requiring a course finder or a call.

None of this is what year one turns on. That is production, which I worked through in what real estate agents actually make.

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North Carolina: the most expensive requirement in the country

North Carolina is the heaviest requirement in the country and the easiest place to be misled on price.

It is 90 hours as three separate 30 hour courses, Post 301, Post 302 and Post 303, due within 18 months of licensure with a two year outside limit. Each has its own end of course exam. That structure is why the advertised price you see is usually a third of what you pay.

Single course prices found: $158 Fastpass Learning, $165 Kaplan, $225 for a new student at Sea Coast Real Estate Academy, $269 at Superior School of Real Estate, or $215.20 with a code whose stated expiry was the day it was seen. Every one buys a third of the requirement. Budget $165 and you have budgeted for a third.

Full 90 hour prices found: $374 Fastpass Learning, $429 Kaplan, $629 for Kaplan's Career Accelerator, which adds a video course and live coaching. Course by course at Superior's published price the arithmetic is three times $269, or $807, and Superior published no bundled 90 hour price on any page retrieved. Kaplan's three singles come to $495 against its own $429 bundle.

Washington also requires 90 hours and costs $269 to $369. The difference is structural: Washington's 90 are ordinary CE clock hours with 21 to 24 elective hours the student picks, North Carolina's are three fixed courses with proctored exams. Same headline, different product.

The costs that are not in the course price

Four costs sit outside the advertised price often enough to matter.

Proctoring. Colibri charges $15 per exam for online proctoring, paid by the student, and lists Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia as states where the final exam needs a proctor. Only New York has it included in tuition, and in person proctors are found by the student and set their own rates. The CE Shop charges $17.50 per exam in Texas and $25 elsewhere, which multiplies in North Carolina where there are three exams. Kaplan includes virtual proctoring on its North Carolina packages, and Champions advertises free proctoring in Texas.

Access windows. Courses expire. 360training's Alabama course expires 60 days after purchase, Illinois School of Real Estate's package 180 days, and Kaplan grants access for up to 6 months, capped at 18. Colibri publishes 7, 30 and 60 day extension options with no fee amount and says it cannot offer them in every state. Its only published extension figure anywhere is $75 for 30 days, on a product labelled pre license. Kaplan says extensions can be purchased but publishes no price, and applies a $20 registration fee to returns.

Retakes and books. Sea Coast charges $75 to retake a North Carolina course. Others include them: Rowlett gives one free, Tampa School of Real Estate advertises a one year retake guarantee, Moseley unlimited attempts. North Carolina licensees also need the North Carolina Real Estate Manual, sold digitally by the Commission's publisher at $25 per licence year. Gold Coast sells its Florida textbook separately.

State side fees. Washington's $40 late fee plus $100 reinstatement and Maine's $100 extension are the only regulator published dollar figures found anywhere in this research.

Budget the real number: course price, plus proctoring at $15 to $25 per exam if your school charges it, plus the book if your state requires one. In most states that is still under $200. In North Carolina it is realistically $400 to $500 once three exams and the manual are counted.

How to check a provider is actually state approved

Credit is granted only for courses from a provider the regulator approved, and in several states the individual course is approved by number, not just the school. Providers advertise it: one Florida school prints its FREC course number, another its DBPR course number and an approval valid through date, a Georgia school its GREC provider number.

Do not rely on the badge. Look the school up on the regulator list before paying, and match the delivery method, because several states approve classroom, livestream and self paced distance separately. These lists were confirmed on 17 August 2026.

Florida: the DBPR and FREC education page at www2.myfloridalicense.com/real-estate-commission/education/ states the 45 classroom hour requirement and links a public records search for approved courses and providers. North Carolina: ncrec.gov/PostlicensingEducation/DistancePostlicensingProviders lists distance providers and points anyone wanting in person or live online instruction to a separate schedule search. Virginia: dpor.virginia.gov/Boards/Real-Estate/Post-License sets out the nine required topic courses and links the approved course list PDF, which carries an approval expiration date per course.

Louisiana: lrec.gov/post-license-vendors is a dedicated post license vendor list, separate from the pre license and CE lists. Georgia: GREC publishes a 72 page approved schools PDF in which Salesperson Post License is a separately flagged category, so you can confirm approval for post licensing specifically rather than for CE. Washington: the Department of Licensing renewal page sets the 90 hour composition and points to its course search. Texas: TREC runs a daily updated course search, reached from the Education tab at trec.texas.gov.

Illinois is the gap. IDFPR publishes an approved education provider directory and a separate pre license provider directory, but no clearly labelled standalone post license provider list appeared on the pages retrieved. The general directory is the closest equivalent, so confirm by phone.

Courses people mistake for post licensing

Six courses get called post licensing regularly and are not.

South Carolina Unit II. The 30 hour Advanced Real Estate Principles course falls after the exam but before the licence is issued, and its certificate must accompany the application. Pre licence. A stale sentence in the LLR FAQ still mentions provisional salesperson post licensing, but no provisional licence appears in the current application form or the statute, and the state's only other post licensing reference recognises North Carolina's by reciprocity.

Tennessee's Course for New Affiliates. Affiliate brokers must complete the 30 hours before the licence is issued, certificate submitted with the application. Pre licence.

Iowa's 36 hours. Widely mis-reported as post licensing. Iowa's three 12 hour courses in buying practices, listing practices and professionalism are pre licence, live instruction only, giving 96 pre licence hours. The separate 36 hour figure is Iowa's three year CE total. The match is a coincidence.

Arizona's Contract Writing course. The 6 hour class is pre licence, filed with the application. Its only post licence trace is a concession letting a first time renewer credit it toward CE if taken within a year before licensure.

Kansas's 30 hour Practice Course. It carries a six month clock that reads exactly like a post licence deadline: the Commission must receive the application and course certificate within six months of the course date. That clock runs entirely before licensure.

Missouri's 24 hour Practice Course. Taken after the pre examination course but filed with the licence application, so it is pre licensure. Maryland is the subtlest: salespersons licensed on or after 1 October 2023 face a tailored 15 hour first renewal CE curriculum that reads like post licensing, but it is CE, it recurs on everyone else's schedule, and the Commission denies post licensing exists in Maryland.

Housekeeping. Bob Hogue School of Real Estate no longer exists independently. Kaplan acquired it in 2020 and the old domain redirects to Kaplan's Florida page. Any 2026 list naming it as a separate school is out of date, and several still do.

Will your brokerage cover it

New agents assume the brokerage covers this. Nothing found verifiably gives a new licensee their state mandated post licensing hours for free.

Keller Williams KSCORE is the most cited, and KW's own publication is explicit about where free coverage stops. Pre licensing education, career coaching, study materials and exam prep come at no cost. Licence application and exam fees are the student's. Post licensure education gets discounted access, not free access, with no figure published. KSCORE is a real benefit that ends at the licence.

eXp Realty publishes a partnership with The CE Shop covering pre licensing, CE and post licensing, but no free or discounted pricing and no dollar amount appear on that page, and agents are pointed to an enrolment portal. A discount may exist behind it. It is not publicly verifiable. The Real Brokerage's Real Academy is business training by career stage, with no mention of state required education, no CE credit and no prices.

So budget for it yourself. In most states that is under $200, a rounding error against a lapsed licence. The coursework is the compliance floor, not the plan, which is the gap real estate coaching for your first renewal exists to fill.

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Frequently asked questions

Which states require a real estate post license course?

26 of the 51 US jurisdictions require it and 24 require none. The 26 are listed in full in the table above, and include Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia and Washington. Pennsylvania is a qualified case, with a prescribed 14 hour block at first renewal that it never calls post licensing.

What is the difference between post licensing and continuing education?

Post licensing is a one time requirement for newly licensed agents, with a deadline usually tied to your licence issue date. Continuing education repeats at every renewal for the rest of your career. Washington, Utah and Oregon deliver the post license hours inside the first renewal CE block, which is where the confusion starts.

How long do I have to complete post licensing?

It depends on the state and usually runs from your licence issue date. Vermont and Delaware allow 90 days, Alabama and Arkansas 6 months, Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, New Mexico, Alaska and Virginia about a year, North Carolina 18 months, and Indiana, Kentucky and Maine 2 years. Virginia counts its year from the last day of the issuing month. Illinois publishes no precise date.

What happens if you miss the post license deadline?

It depends on the state, and most do not publish an answer. Florida is harshest: Statute 475.17(3) makes the licence null and void. Washington charges a $40 late fee plus $100 reinstatement. Ohio suspends automatically, North Carolina and Virginia go inactive, Alaska lapses, Idaho blocks activation, and Maine and Oklahoma let a non renewable entry licence expire.

How much does a real estate post license course cost?

School advertised prices seen on 17 August 2026 ran from $25 for Georgia's 25 hours at Moseley to $629 for a North Carolina package with coaching at Kaplan. Florida ran $45 to $219, Illinois $269 to $279, Washington $269 to $369, and the Texas 98 hours $215 to $469. The CE Shop pages could not be retrieved, so its prices are not included.

How many post license hours does Texas require?

90 hours of Sales Apprentice Education plus an 8 hour Legal Update, so 98 hours at first renewal. The larger cumulative figure often quoted is TREC's running total of qualifying hours and includes the 180 pre license hours you already did. Packages advertised as 90 hour, at $369 and $429, leave the Legal Update out.

Will my brokerage pay for post licensing?

Nothing publicly verifiable says a brokerage covers your state mandated post license hours. Keller Williams KSCORE covers pre licensing at no cost but gives only discounted access to post licensure education, with no figure published. eXp publishes a CE Shop partnership with no price benefit shown, and Real Academy is business training, not state required education.

Requirements, hours and deadlines came from state regulator sources, and school prices from the schools' own pages, in August 2026. Rules change, prices change, and one row in the dataset is school sourced and flagged as such. Nothing here is legal advice. Educational content only. Confirm your requirement, your deadline and your provider's approval with your regulator before you enrol.