Real estate license requirements in Virginia
Virginia requires a 60-hour Principles course, a PSI exam, and 30 hours of post-licensing education in your first year — and its reciprocity rule for neighboring states carries a genuine, unresolved tension worth knowing about before you assume you’re exempt from testing.
Education
The Virginia Real Estate Board (part of DPOR) requires a 60-hour “Principles of Real Estate” course before you can sit for the exam.
| Requirement | Hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Principles of Real Estate | 60 | Single DPOR-approved course |
It’s one course rather than several separate topic modules. Once you’ve finished it, you can move on to the exam and the fingerprint-based background check, which can run in parallel.
What Virginia calls your first license
Virginia’s entry-level license is called “Real Estate Salesperson” — standard terminology. You’ll need to be affiliated with a licensed Virginia broker to activate it and start practicing.
The licensing exam
Virginia uses PSI to administer the exam: 120 total questions across a national and a state-law portion, in one 150-minute sitting.
| Portion | Items | Time | To pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| National | 80 | 105 min | 56 correct |
| Virginia state law | 40 | 45 min | 30 correct |
| Total sitting | 120 | 150 min | Both portions |
The exam fee is $60, non-refundable and non-transferable once paid.
Virginia's fingerprint-based background check runs $52 total ($27 state processing + $25 PSI processing) and is mandatory before licensure, but processing can take 4 to 6 weeks. Get it started as soon as you begin your Principles course, not after you pass the exam.
Fees
| Fee | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| Application & license fee | $230 total | DPOR ($210 + $20, effective April 1, 2026, under 18VAC135-20-15) |
| Exam fee | $60 | PSI |
| Background check | $52 total | $27 state processing + $25 PSI processing |
Budget roughly $342 in state and vendor fees on top of your course costs. The $230 application/license figure reflects the fee schedule effective April 1, 2026 under 18VAC135-20-15 — always confirm the current figure with DPOR before you pay.
How to apply, step by step
Education, background check, and exam scheduling can overlap; this order minimizes waiting on the slowest step.
From a DPOR-approved provider.
Processing takes 4–6 weeks, so begin this as soon as you're able rather than waiting until after the exam.
Both the national and Virginia state-law portions, in one 150-minute sitting.
With the $230 application/license fee, once your background check has cleared.
Your Salesperson license must be affiliated with a licensed Virginia broker to be active.
Within your first year of licensure, covering fair housing, law, ethics, contracts, and more.
After you’re licensed: staying current
Virginia requires 30 hours of post-licensing education within your first year of licensure, under 18VAC135-20-95. It’s broken into specific topic blocks:
| Topic | Hours |
|---|---|
| Fair housing | 2 |
| Law and regulations | 6 |
| Ethics and standards of conduct | 3 |
| Real estate trends | 2 |
| Agency law | 3 |
| Contracts | 6 |
| Risk management | 3 |
| Escrow requirements | 3 |
| Real estate financing | 2 |
Miss the deadline and your license moves to inactive status, so treat this as a first-year priority, not something to put off.
Reciprocity
Virginia’s reciprocity picture has a genuine open question in it, and we want to be upfront about that rather than resolve it for you. Under §54.1-205, Virginia grants license recognition “without examination” to applicants from neighboring jurisdictions — DC, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. But the same statutory framework also allows the Board to require a jurisprudence (state-law) exam regardless. In practice, that means whether you’ll actually need to sit for any exam at all if you’re licensed in one of those states isn’t fully settled from the statute text alone — confirm directly with the Virginia Real Estate Board what’s currently required for your specific state of licensure. Separately, Virginia also runs a standard reciprocity route open more broadly, where out-of-state licensees take only the state-law portion of the exam rather than the full Virginia course and exam.
Common questions
How long does Virginia's background check take?
Typically 4–6 weeks to process, so start it as early in the process as you can rather than waiting until after you’ve passed the exam.
If I'm licensed in a neighboring state, do I still need to take an exam in Virginia?
This is genuinely unresolved in the statute itself. §54.1-205 grants “without examination” recognition to neighboring-state licensees (DC, MD, NC, KY, TN, WV), but the Board also retains authority to require a jurisprudence exam. Confirm directly with the Virginia Real Estate Board what currently applies to your state.
What happens if I miss the 30-hour post-licensing deadline?
Your license moves to inactive status until you complete the requirement.
Is the $230 application fee final?
That figure reflects DPOR’s fee schedule effective April 1, 2026 under 18VAC135-20-15. Confirm the current amount with DPOR before you pay, since fee schedules can change.
Can I complete my background check and coursework at the same time?
Yes — there’s no requirement to sequence them, and doing so in parallel (starting the background check early) is the fastest path through Virginia’s process.
Next step
Virginia Real Estate Board (DPOR) — https://www.dpor.virginia.gov/boards/real-estate/
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