Nonresident Licensees

Options For Renewal

The Commission recognized that many of its nonresident licensees (persons with North Carolina licenses who live in other states) may hold licenses in other states and are subject to the real estate continuing education requirements of those states. Many nonresident licensees reside a great distance from North Carolina and conduct their brokerage activity primarily in their state of residence. For these reasons, the Commission offers its nonresident licensees the following options for satisfying the continuing education requirements for license renewal or activation.

To be considered a nonresident North Carolina real estate broker, a licensee cannot have EITHER a North Carolina business address, mailing address or residence address.

1. Certify Active Status in Another State

A nonresident licensee with an active real estate license in another state may renew/activate his/her North Carolina license on active status by certifying active license status in another state even if the other state’s continuing education requirement is different from North Carolina’s requirement. Nonresidents who elect this option should not submit any continuing education course completion certificates nor make a special request for continuing education credit. You need to provide the certification information at the time of renewal. If you are also requesting a change from inactive to active status, you must also complete an Activation Form. [Form link ]

2. Take North Carolina CE Courses

A nonresident licensee may fulfill the CE requirement of a resident licensee by taking CE courses that are approved by the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. The course sponsors will notify the Commission of all licensees completing such courses. Do not send course completion certificates to the Commission unless requested to do so.

3. Take CE Courses Approved in Another State

A nonresident licensee for whom Options #1 and #2 are not viable may fully satisfy the CE requirement by completing the eight hours of CE courses which are approved by the real estate licensing agency in the licensee’s resident state or in the state where the course or courses are completed. Such courses must be completed within one year preceding expiration of the nonresident’s North Carolina real estate license.

To obtain credit for a continuing education course or courses completed in another state and not approved by the Commission, the licensee must submit a written request for CE credit accompanied by a nonrefundable processing fee of twenty dollars ($20.00) per request, payable to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. The request for credit must be accompanied by official verification (usually a copy of the course completion certificate) of having completed continuing education approved for CE credit by the real estate licensing agency in the licensee’s resident state or in the state(s) where the course or courses were taken. The official verification must clearly indicate the date the licensee completed each course.

4. Obtain Equivalent Credit

Nonresident licensees may formally request the Commission to evaluate and award continuing education course credit for a course not approved by the Commission or by the licensing agency in their resident state or in the state where the course was taken, or for some other real estate education activity (e.g., teaching or developing an approved continuing education course, writing a text or published scholarly article on a subject matter acceptable for purposes of continuing education). These courses and education activities must be found by the Commission to be equivalent to North Carolina's continuing education requirement.

Each request for equivalent credit must be submitted on a form prescribed by the Commission accompanied by a nonrefundable $30 evaluation fee. Forms and more detailed information on equivalent credit rules and procedures are available here. [Form link ]

No Credit for Prelicensing Courses

Continuing education credit will NOT be awarded for real estate prelicensing courses, even if such courses are recognized for CE credit by the real estate licensing agency in another state.