A brokerage entering a second state expects to carry three things across: the license, the operating setup, and the way files get reviewed. The license question is the one everybody researches. The other two are where the surprises are, and they surface after the money is spent.
This page is not a fifty-state table. It is the running list of requirements that break an assumption a broker is carrying in from another state. These are the places where “we already do this” stops being true. Every entry is read from the primary source and dated. New entries get added as we find them; the revision log at the bottom is the honest record of what has changed.
Does my existing trust account work in a new state?
Not automatically, and Georgia is the clearest case. Georgia requires a broker to “maintain a separate, federally insured account at a financial institution in this state.” There is a route out. The Commission “in its discretion, may allow a nonresident broker” to keep the account in a bank in the broker’s own state, provided the Commission is authorized to examine it. But discretion is not a plan. A broker who assumed the existing account would carry over is asking for a favor, on someone else’s timetable, in the middle of a market entry. Ga. Code § 43-40-20.
Does my broker of record cover every office?
Not in North Carolina. NCREC requires a broker-in-charge per office: “If your firm has more than one office where real estate brokerage activities are conducted, submit a separate form for each office.” And the eligibility bar is a real constraint on who can fill the role: “at least 2 years of FULL-time or 4 years of part-time real estate brokerage experience in any state within the previous 5 years,” plus the Commission’s 12-hour Broker-in-Charge course before applying. That is a hiring problem with a lead time, not a form.
Can I just cooperate with a local broker instead of licensing there?
In Nevada, only under narrow conditions, and not at all if you live there. Nevada allows an out-of-state broker to work under a cooperative certificate, but the out-of-state broker “shall work through the cooperating Nevada broker or a licensee associated with a Nevada broker,” and “the Nevada broker shall be in charge of the transaction from beginning to end.” The provision that catches people: “A person who resides in this State and holds a real estate license issued by another state is not eligible to hold a cooperative certificate.” Moving to Nevada while holding another state’s license closes the cooperative route rather than opening it. NAC 645.
Will my experience shorten the licensing path?
In California, no. But you do not have to move there either. The California Department of Real Estate states it plainly: “California has no reciprocity with any other state to allow a waiver of any of the requirements to obtain a license.” The half nobody quotes is the good half: “Residency in the state is not a requirement to become licensed.” Out-of-state applicants file a notarized Consent to Service of Process (RE 234). California is hard on the licensing path and easy on the residency question, which is the opposite of how most brokers assume it works.
Does my file review process carry over?
Not into Arizona, where review is a dated act with a deadline and a named signer. Arizona requires that “the designated broker shall review each listing agreement, purchase or nonresidential lease agreement or similar instrument within ten business days after the date of execution by placing the broker’s initials and the date of review on the instrument on the same page as the signatures of the parties.” Delegation is permitted but bounded: “A designated broker may authorize in writing an associate broker who the designated broker employs to review and initial these instruments on the designated broker’s behalf.” Records are kept “for a period of at least five years after the date of the termination of the transaction or employment.” We keep 1,264 review rules across 22 state SOPs for this reason: the Arizona checklist is not the Texas one, and a review process that treats them as the same is wrong in one of the two states.
Two things follow. The review is a licensed act with a clock, so a process that reviews files “before closing” does not satisfy it. And the delegation is to a written-authorized associate broker, which is a different thing from the widely repeated claim that Arizona requires transaction coordinators to be licensed. A.R.S. § 32-2151.01.
And the gate that is not a state at all
MLS admission is granted per market, on an association’s schedule. NAR’s policy requires a Participant to “hold a current, valid real estate broker’s license” and be “a principal, partner, corporate officer, or branch office manager acting on behalf of a principal.” It also closes the workaround brokers reach for while waiting: “solely engaging in referral activities is not sufficient to qualify for MLS participation.” How the four approvals sequence against each other.
What to watch. This list is deliberately incomplete. It covers states where we have read the primary source, not the states where a requirement happens to be interesting, and absence from this page means we have not verified it yet, not that a state is simple. Requirements change; each entry is dated in the log below and should be confirmed with the commission before you rely on it. Empower is not affiliated with, certified by or endorsed by NAR, any state real estate commission, or any local association or MLS. Not legal advice.
The short version. Brokers rarely get hurt by expansion being hard. They get hurt by assuming their own setup carries over. Some of it does. The escrow account, the coverage of the broker of record, and the review process are the three that most often do not, and they are the three a brokerage discovers after it has already told an agent yes.
Revision log
2026-08-29. First publication. Entries verified from primary sources: Ga. Code § 43-40-20; NCREC Broker-in-Charge eligibility; NAC 645; California DRE out-of-state applicants; A.R.S. § 32-2151.01; NAR qualification for MLS participation and IDX.
This log is the point of the page. A requirement set that is not maintained is a snapshot that quietly goes wrong. Every entry records what changed and when we caught it.
Related: broker compliance and back-office operations · what broker file review covers
Related: the sharpest specimen of a requirement that does not transfer is the trust account, which some states require to be held in-state.
