LicensedAnywhere

Transfer a Real Estate License to Illinois

Verified July 2026 · 41 official sources

Any state now, but a 30-hour course and exam, $208

Forget the nine-state list. Illinois repealed reciprocity by statute on January 1, 2026 and replaced it with an endorsement process open to every jurisdiction, so a Wyoming licensee gets what a Wisconsin licensee gets and there is no state list anywhere. Endorsement waives the 75-hour broker curriculum, the 165-hour managing broker curriculum, and the 100-item national exam portion, and it quietly dropped the old rule that your license be earned BY EXAMINATION, so anyone licensed some other way now has a route they never had. What nobody escapes is a 30-hour Illinois-law endorsement course and the PSI exam on Illinois brokerage laws. Illinois calls its entry tier broker and its supervising tier managing broker, and the salesperson license was repealed in full, so a salesperson anywhere becomes an Illinois broker and a broker anywhere usually does too. And check the revision date on every form, because IDFPR's legacy server still serves the dead reciprocity application under the same form number as the live one.

First year: $208 + 30-hour courseRenewal: $200 / 2 yrs, April 30 even yearsWait: confirming, IDFPR publishes no standardWork while waiting: No, no temporary permit existsTravel required: None, PSI proctors the exam remotely

What carries over to Illinois, and what does not

Comes with you

  • Your active license from any state or jurisdiction, the whole qualification
  • The 100-item national exam portion, waived at both tiers
  • All pre-license hours, 75 broker or 165 managing broker, waived
  • Managing broker time, out-of-state years are the qualifying years
  • 2 or more years of practice, which kills the 45-hour post-license rule

New for this state

  • 30-hour Illinois endorsement course, a different course for each tier
  • PSI exam on Illinois brokerage laws, 75 percent to pass, 90 minutes
  • Certification from EVERY state where you hold a license
  • Sponsor Card from an Illinois designated managing broker, or it issues inactive
  • Non-Resident Consent naming the IDFPR Secretary your agent for service

If you hold a broker license

Managing broker is a different application and a different course. You pay $175 instead of $150 ($233 all in with the $58 exam), sit the managing broker state exam, and must document 2 years of active practice as a managing broker "or its equivalent" immediately preceding the application. How IDFPR judges that equivalence is confirming, since it publishes no equivalence table and no definition of actively practicing, so email fpr.realestate@illinois.gov with your license history before you buy a course. Managing brokers may self-sponsor and owe no post-license education, but they renew April 30 of odd years, so a mid-2026 arrival gets about 9 months before a full $250 renewal.

Working in Illinois without a Illinois license

On a single deal No. Illinois is turf for licensed activity and closes the usual workarounds by absence. There is no cooperative brokerage mechanism anywhere in the Act or in any of Part 1450's thirteen subparts, none of the statute's sixteen exemptions reaches an out-of-state licensee, and nothing splits commercial from residential. The 1-10 broker definition catches anyone acting "whether in person or through any media or technology" for compensation, so a Zoom showing or a text negotiation is inside the Act, and 5-15 has no situs clause and no isolated-transaction exception. Unlicensed practice draws a civil penalty up to $25,000 per offense, is a Class A misdemeanor on a first offense, and 10-15(b) bars you from suing for the fee. Your two lawful options are a share of the money under 10-10(e), or the license.
Referrals Yes, and this is the widest compensation channel of any turf state we have profiled. 225 ILCS 454/10-10(e) permits an Illinois licensee to cooperate with, and to pay compensation to, an individual domiciled and licensed as a broker in another state, with no cap, no filing, no written agreement, no time limit, and no residential or commercial split. It says "payment of compensation," not "referral fee," so on its face it allows a negotiated commission share rather than a token cut, and Illinois attaches no geographic proviso, unlike Rhode Island, which is why it is not a physical-location state either. The limit is the whole ballgame. 10-10(e) protects the Illinois broker who pays you, it does not license you to list, show, negotiate, advertise, or open Illinois property to the public. Rule 1450.780 adds that you must hold an equivalent license in your own state or country, plus a reasonable cause condition.

Your send-off checklist

YOUPin your tier before you spend a dollar. A salesperson anywhere becomes an Illinois broker, and so does a broker anywhere unless you can document 2 years as a managing broker or its equivalent right before applying. IDFPR publishes no test for that equivalence and the two 30-hour courses are different products, so email fpr.realestate@illinois.gov with your license history first. Division of Real Estate
YOUCheck the revision date on every form. The live endorsement application is IL 505-0347 Rev 7/25. The dead reciprocity application carries the SAME form number and differs only by date, Rev 2/25, and IDFPR's legacy server still serves it while the modern site's version 404s, so searching by form number is how people file the obsolete one. Endorsement application, Rev 7/25
STATE BOARDSOrder the Certification by Licensing Agency/Board (IL 505-0340) from every state where you hold a license, not only the one you apply from. Each regulator returns it to YOU, not to Illinois, so start this first, it is the only step in someone else's queue. Illinois publishes no expiry window on an incoming certification, which is confirming, so do not let one sit for months. varies
YOUR SCHOOLComplete the 30-hour endorsement course for your tier with an IDFPR-approved provider and get the Uniform Real Estate Transcript, good 2 years for exam eligibility. Whether any provider runs it fully online is confirming, so call before enrolling, and note that ABR Real Estate Corporation DBA Real Estate School of Illinois courses have not counted since December 16, 2025. varies, school-set Brokerage forms and education
YOUCreate a PSI account and upload your course certificate. Eligibility comes back by email, so you cannot schedule before the course is done, and the $58 fee is non-refundable and forfeited if you do not test within a year. $58 PSI Illinois real estate
YOUPass the Illinois brokerage-laws exam. 75 percent to pass, 90 minutes, plus a few unscored items that eat the clock, and endorsement candidates get unlimited attempts inside a 2-year eligibility window. The exact item count is confirming, because PSI's summary table prints no endorsement row, so ask when you book. Any PSI center nationwide, or remote proctoring. Passing starts a hard 1-year clock to file.
YOUGet a Real Estate Sponsor Card signed by the designated managing broker of an Illinois brokerage. Skip it and the license still issues, but INACTIVE, and an inactive licensee may do no business. Only managing brokers may self-sponsor, so at the broker tier you must find a firm.
YOUPay by ePay or check to IDFPR, then submit the package within 1 year of passing. Three routes, all remote, the online portal, email to fpr.realestate@illinois.gov, or mail to PO Box 7570, Springfield, IL 62791-7570. No form in the set needs a notary. If you file online, do not also send payment with a paper form. $150 Online Services Portal
STATE BOARDSWait for issuance and do no work in the meantime. IDFPR publishes no processing-time standard, so the wait is confirming, and the 2 to 4 business days figure on its site covers renewals, not new applications. The real drivers are the course and exam scheduling, not a background check, since Illinois runs none. 5-15(a) requires a license AND a registered sponsorship before you act, with no temporary permit.

The money

30-hour Illinois endorsement coursevaries, school-set, IDFPR sets no ceiling
PSI Illinois brokerage-laws exam$58, non-refundable and non-transferable
Application for licensure by endorsement$150, non-refundable
License certification, each state you holdvaries, set by the old state
Pre-license education, 75 hours$0, waived, no transcripts reviewed
National exam portion, 100 items$0, waived
Fingerprints and criminal background check$0, Illinois requires neither
E&O insurance, bond, recovery fund$0, Illinois has none of the three
License issuance fee$0, none exists
TOTAL First year, typical$208 plus course and certification fees
Then: renewal every 2 years$200

Watch out in Illinois

  • The stale-documents trap is the sharpest thing here and it does misroute people. IDFPR's legacy server still serves a live-looking nine-state reciprocity page (Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, Wisconsin) and the old Application for Licensure by Reciprocity, neither carrying notice of the repeal, while the modern site's version of that page now 404s. The killer detail is that the dead form carries the same number as the live one, IL 505-0347, differing only by revision date. Rev 7/25 is the live endorsement application. Rev 2/25 is the dead reciprocity form, and it still tells you Illinois must have a written agreement with your state and that you must be licensed by examination, neither of which is true now. Check the revision date, every time.
  • You must be active and in good standing in every jurisdiction that licenses you, not just the one you apply from. A separate certification must be completed by the regulator in each state, and PSI repeats the every-state rule, so a forgotten license going stale in a third state can sink the application.
  • Illinois has the harshest sponsorship rule we have read. Both starting and ending a sponsorship must be reported within 24 hours, and under 5-40 your license goes inactive automatically the moment the association ends, with no grace period. Resign on a Friday and you cannot work Saturday. A transfer costs $35.
  • The two tiers sit on opposite renewal cycles, so timing is worth real money. A broker endorsing in during 2026 holds a license to April 30, 2028, nearly a full term, while a managing broker gets one to April 30, 2027 and then pays the full $250. A managing broker first licensed on or after February 1, 2027 skips that renewal and runs to April 30, 2029, so arriving in March 2027 rather than January 2027 is worth $250 and two years of runway. Separately, under 2 years of practice elsewhere means 45 hours of post-license education by first renewal, and what an exempt arrival owes instead is confirming.

Official links for Illinois

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