Real Estate Agent License Renewal in New York
New York salespersons renew every 2 years with 22.5 hours of CE, half of it on assigned subjects. Renewal is $65, and there is no grace period.
| Renewal cycle | Every 2 years |
|---|---|
| CE hours required | 22.5 hours 22.5 hours per 2-year renewal, of which 11.5 are assigned by subject: 3 hours fair housing and discrimination, 2.5 hours ethical business practices, 2 hours cultural competency, 2 hours implicit bias, 1 hour recent legal matters, and 1 hour law of agency (2 hours of agency for a salesperson renewing after the initial term). Attorneys admitted to the New York bar are exempt from CE entirely. |
| Renewal fee | $65.00 |
| Mandatory CE topics | Fair housing and discrimination (3 hours), Ethical business practices (2.5 hours), Cultural competency (2 hours), Implicit bias training (2 hours), Recent legal matters (1 hour), Law of agency (1 hour, 2 hours after the initial term) |
| Licensing board | New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services |
Sourced from New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services, verified July 23, 2026. Requirements change. Confirm with your board before relying on this.
New York asks for 22.5 hours, and just over half of that total is assigned to specific subjects before you get any choice. It is one of the most prescriptive CE requirements in the country, and the state removed the escape hatch that long-tenured brokers used to rely on.
Eleven and a half hours you don’t choose
The 22.5-hour total breaks down like this:
- Fair housing and discrimination, 3 hours. The largest single mandate.
- Ethical business practices, 2.5 hours.
- Cultural competency, 2 hours.
- Implicit bias training, 2 hours.
- Recent legal matters, 1 hour.
- Law of agency, 1 hour. A salesperson renewing after the initial term owes 2 hours of agency instruction instead.
That is 11.5 hours spoken for, leaving 11 hours of genuine electives. Note how much of the mandate is fair housing, bias, and cultural competency taken together: 7 of your 22.5 hours. New York built that concentration deliberately, and the fee structure follows the same logic, with part of every license fee going to a fund for fair housing testing.
The 15-year exemption is gone
Brokers licensed 15 years or more used to be exempt from continuing education. That exemption was eliminated as of July 1, 2021, and every licensee now completes the full 22.5 hours. If you are a long-tenured broker who has not taken CE in years because you never had to, this is the sentence on the page that matters to you.
The one exemption that survives: an attorney admitted to the New York bar does not have to complete CE.
No grace period, and a two-year cliff
New York is blunt about this. There is no grace period, so the moment your license expires you cannot work, and nothing about being mid-renewal changes that. You then have two years from expiration to renew. Let that window close and the license is gone in a meaningful sense: you have to retake the state exam and apply fresh under the current education requirements.
You also need a sponsoring broker to be eligible to renew at all. A salesperson between brokerages at renewal time has a sequencing problem to solve before the deadline, not after.
The Department of State sends an email and a postcard about three months out, and renewal runs through eAccessNY.
The fee
A salesperson pays $65 for the two-year license, set by statute as a $55 fee plus a $10 surcharge. A broker pays $185, being $155 plus a $30 surcharge. Those surcharges are not administrative padding, the statute directs them into the anti-discrimination in housing fund for fair housing testing. The same amounts apply whether the license is being issued for the first time or reissued at renewal.
How this compares
New York’s $65 is close to Texas’s $110 and well under California’s $350, but the hour count runs the other way: 22.5 hours every two years is more than Texas’s 18 and more per year than California’s 45 across four. Where New York is genuinely stricter than either is the absence of a grace period. Texas gives you a paid deferral and a late-renewal window, California gives you two years on inactive terms, and New York gives you nothing at all between expiration and renewal.
Add your renewal deadline to your calendar
Enter your expiration date and download a calendar file. Your own calendar will remind you at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days out. We don't ask for your email, we store nothing, and the date never leaves your device.
Works with Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook. This is a convenience, not a compliance service. Confirm your exact deadline with the New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services.
How many CE hours do you have left?
New York requires 22.5 CE hours this cycle. Enter what you've completed and see what's left. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
Hours alone aren't the whole requirement. Some must be these specific topics:
- Fair housing and discrimination (3 hours)
- Ethical business practices (2.5 hours)
- Cultural competency (2 hours)
- Implicit bias training (2 hours)
- Recent legal matters (1 hour)
- Law of agency (1 hour, 2 hours after the initial term)
A convenience, not a compliance service. Confirm your exact requirement with the New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services. This is not legal advice.
Continuing education hours per renewal cycle
New York asks for 22.5 hours. That is above the median of 18 across the 51 states that set a flat hour count, which run from 7 to 45. Ranked lowest to highest, New York is 35 of 51.
Renewal fee
New York charges $65. The median across the 48 states that publish a figure is $115, running from $0 to $578. Ranked cheapest to dearest, New York is 10 of 48.
Each mark is one state. The taller line is the median, the filled dot is New York. States that set no flat hour count, or publish no fee, are left out of that comparison rather than counted as zero.
What will this renewal cost?
New York's renewal fee is filled in from the board below. Add what you expect to spend on CE courses, plus a late fee if you're past due, for a running total. Nothing you type is stored.
The renewal fee is from the New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services and dated on this page; the CE and late-fee figures are your own estimates. A convenience, not a compliance service, and not legal advice. Confirm fees with your board.