Real Estate Agent License Renewal in Maryland

Fifteen hours every two years is the easy part of Maryland. The hard part is that almost none of it is your choice, and the deadline is not the deadline you think it is.

The hours are due a month early

Maryland moved this into statute: continuing education must be complete not later than 30 days before the license expires. Since October 1, 2024, missing that window does not simply delay you, it drops you into reinstatement, which carries a $168 fee on top of the renewal.

Compounding it, CE providers have up to 14 days to upload your credits into the MREC system. Finish a course on day 31 and it may not post until day 17. Work backward from expiration and treat 45 days out as the real target.

Three topics can never be substituted

For every licensee, three of the topics are locked:

• Legal and Legislative Update, 3 hours
• Ethics, 3 hours
• Principles of Brokerage Relationships and Disclosure, 3 hours

The ethics requirement is specific in a way that trips up REALTORS: it must cover the Maryland Code of Ethics, flipping and predatory lending, and professionalism, and the Commission states plainly that NAR ethics is not a substitute. Taking the national course does not clear the Maryland one.

Around that core, a residential salesperson or associate broker adds Fair Housing (2 hours) and 4 elective hours. A commercial-only licensee swaps Fair Housing for 2 hours of federal ADA.

Supervisors give up elective hours

Brokers, designated branch office managers, and team leaders carry the same 15 with the electives cut to 2.5 to make room for 1.5 hours of Supervision. There is also a clock on it: once you take a supervisory role, you have 90 days to complete the MREC Required Supervision Course if you did not already do it in the previous renewal period. Becoming a team leader mid-cycle starts that countdown.

New licensees have no electives at all

Anyone initially licensed on or after October 1, 2023 faces a fully prescribed first renewal, and the list has nothing in common with the standard one:

All 15 hours mandatory, none substitutable, and specifically not satisfiable with continuing education from another state where you also hold a license. Note also that Maryland does not recognize post-licensing education, so nothing you took elsewhere under that name transfers.

Inactive is not a pause

The Commission puts it bluntly: you must complete CE and renew to remain inactive. Maryland’s inactive status keeps the license alive but does not suspend the education. All hours due for each renewal period must also be complete before a reactivation application will be accepted.

The fees

Renewal is $78 for a salesperson, $123 for an associate broker, and $191 for a broker, effective April 27, 2026. The costs of getting it wrong are steeper than the renewal itself: $168 reinstatement, a $75 CE late fee, $28 to reactivate an inactive license. Reinstatement stays open for three years after expiration; past that, back fees and coursework will not bring the license back.

How this compares

Fifteen hours sits between Massachusetts’s 12 and Virginia’s 16, but Maryland prescribes a larger share than either, 11 of the 15 for an ordinary salesperson and all 15 for a new one. It is also the only state here that pulls the deadline forward by a month as a matter of law, which effectively makes it stricter than states asking twice the hours. Washington polices when your courses were taken; Maryland polices when they were reported.