New York real estate exam

New York hires no testing vendor. The Department of State writes the salesperson examination, gives it at eleven of its own office buildings on dates you pick in eAccessNY, and tells you exactly one thing about how you did: passed, or failed. There is no numeric score, no diagnostic and no scaled figure, and the Department publishes no question count either — which is why this page carries no format table at all. What it does publish is short and cheap: an hour and a half to answer, $15 to sit, a licence that runs two years, and a rule that you cannot hold one without a broker sponsoring you.

The exam

One paper rather than a national portion and a state portion, and one that no vendor builds. The Department’s own page says only that the examination is multiple choice, that it is based on the 77-hour pre-licensing curriculum, and that an hour and a half is allowed, timed from the end of the instructions. It does not say how many questions there are or what score passes, and it never tells a candidate either — the result posted to your eAccessNY account reads passed or failed and nothing more. A pass is good for two years from the date you sit. The broker examination is the same shape against the 152-hour curriculum, with two and a half hours.

Delivered by the Department of State itself. Every figure here comes from the documents listed at the foot of this page, with the date each was read.

Requirements and fees

Minimum age
18
20 for a broker licence.
Qualifying education
77 hours of approved qualifying education
The syllabus is a regulation, not a vendor outline: 19 NYCRR §176.3 fixes the hours subject by subject and every approved school must teach to it. The regulation totals 80 — the 77 taught hours plus a 3-hour final examination the school gives you, which is a separate paper from the State’s and which you also have to pass. Home-study and correspondence courses are not accepted. The broker course is 152 hours.
Course currency
No expiry once the course has been applied to a licence; eight years for broker credit
The Department’s FAQ says a qualifying course that has been used for a licence does not expire and can be used again for an upgrade. Before that, RPL §441(1-A)(c) is the limit that bites: the 77 hours count towards the broker’s 152 only if they were completed within eight years of the broker application.
Examination fee
$15, the same for salesperson and broker
Set in the statute rather than by a vendor — RPL §441-b(1-A), fifteen dollars — which is why it is a fraction of the $38 to $175 charged elsewhere on this site. Paid to the Department by cheque, money order or a credit card authorization form; cash is not accepted and a returned cheque costs $20.
Time allowed
1½ hours for the salesperson paper, 2½ for the broker
The clock starts at the end of the instructions, not when you sit down.
Results
Passed or failed, with no numeric score, posted to eAccessNY
The Department will not give results over the telephone and does not release a score at all. A passing result is valid for two years, so a pass that is not turned into an application inside that window is spent.
Where you sit it
Eleven Department test sites, booked in eAccessNY
Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Franklin Square, Hauppauge, New York City, Plattsburgh, Pomona, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica — mostly state office buildings, in one case a VFW hall and in another a fire training centre. No one is admitted after the specified starting time.
Identification
A current government-issued photo signature ID, plus your printed Summary of Your Submission
The Department’s list includes a driving licence, a state non-driver ID, an IDNYC card, a military ID, a US or foreign passport, an Employment Authorization Card and the Brazilian, Mexican, Honduran and Ecuadorian consular IDs. The New York Mobile ID is accepted at four sites only — Albany, Buffalo, Hauppauge and New York City. The Summary of Your Submission is the page eAccessNY asks you to print when you book; it carries your candidate number.
What you may bring
A battery or solar calculator that is silent, non-printing and has no alphabetic keyboard
Nothing else: no books, dictionaries, reference material, large bags or briefcases, and there is nowhere at the site to store them. Phones must be off, food and drink are not allowed in, and guests and children are not admitted.
Retakes
Rebook in eAccessNY at $15 a sitting
The Department’s examination pages, read on 5 September 2026, set no attempt limit and no waiting period between sittings; there is also no diagnostic to work from, because a failed result is reported as a bare fail.
Application fee
$65 for a salesperson, $185 for a broker
RPL §441-b(1) splits the salesperson fee into a $55 licence and a $10 surcharge that goes to the anti-discrimination in housing fund for statewide fair housing testing; the broker fee is $155 plus a $30 surcharge. Renewal is the same amount again. Application fees are not refundable.
Licence term
Two years
The renewal application is generated three months before expiry and the link stays open for two years after it. Let both windows pass and you meet the current education requirements and sit the written examination again.
Sponsoring broker
Required to be licensed and required to stay licensed
Your principal broker logs into their own eAccessNY account and authorizes your application before the Department reviews it, and the licence is mailed to the brokerage’s business address. The same rule governs renewal: without a sponsoring broker associated with you, eAccessNY will not let you renew.
Continuing education
22.5 hours in each two-year term
Inside that: 3 hours fair housing, 2.5 ethical business practices, 2 cultural competency, 2 implicit bias, 1 recent legal matters and 1 law of agency, with 2 hours of agency required in the two years before a renewal after the first term. Attorneys admitted to the New York bar are exempt; the 15-year broker exemption was repealed with effect from 1 July 2021. Hours cannot be carried into the next term.
Reciprocity
None, with any state
The Department’s salesperson and broker FAQs both say it in the same sentence. What exists instead is a waiver of the course, not of the examination: a written request with proof of the course you did take, an hour-by-hour outline and a course description. A bachelor’s degree with a concentration in real estate can waive the 152 hours on an official transcript.
Background check
None published
The Department’s requirements list, read on 5 September 2026, is age, the 77 hours, the examination, a sponsoring broker and a current New York photo ID. There is no fingerprint or criminal-history step in it, and no fee for one in the fee list — unlike New Jersey’s $66.05 Live Scan or Oklahoma’s $60 IdentoGO appointment. The Department instead reserves a general judgement of “competency and trustworthiness” under RPL §441-a(1).

What this page does not tell you

  • How many questions are on the examination, and what score passes. New York contracts no testing vendor, so there is no candidate handbook to read: the Department writes and marks the paper itself, and its own pages give the format as “multiple choice, based on the 77-hour pre-licensing curriculum” and stop there. Because results are reported as pass or fail with no number, there is no published passing score either. Figures in circulation for both come from schools rather than from the Department, so they are not on this page.
  • The weighting of the examination by subject. The 77-hour syllabus in 19 NYCRR §176.3 is the only published breakdown and it allocates teaching hours, not questions; the Department does not say that the paper follows those proportions. It is the best guide there is, which is not the same as a content outline.

New York State Department of State, Division of Licensing Services

Practice the material this exam is built on

These questions cover the general real estate principles every state tests — the eight content areas of the national outline. They do not cover New York statute and commission rule, which no national bank does; for that, the state’s own published material is the source.

New York — general practice Question 1 of 10

A buyer with no representation agreement asks a seller’s agent about the property. The agent must:

The state gives its own exam — and only tells you pass or fail

Almost every state on this site buys its examination from Pearson VUE or PSI, and the useful consequence for a candidate is a candidate handbook: item counts, a time allotted table, a content outline with percentages, a fee, and a score report with a diagnostic on the back. New York has none of that, because it has no vendor. The Department of State schedules you through eAccessNY, seats you in one of eleven of its own buildings, allows an hour and a half, and afterwards posts one word to your account. It will not read results down the telephone and it does not release a number at all.

That changes how you prepare rather than how hard the exam is. With no diagnostic, a failed sitting tells you nothing about where you lost it, so the diagnosis has to happen before you go in — which is what a practice test is for here in a way it is not in a state that hands you a content breakdown on your way out. The upside is that a retake is cheap and quick: $15 again, no waiting period published, and the booking is a few clicks in the same account. Take the printed Summary of Your Submission with your candidate number on it and a current photo signature ID, and get there before the starting time, because the site will not admit you after it.

Two years, a sponsoring broker, and reciprocity with nobody

A New York salesperson licence runs two years and costs $65, which the statute splits into a $55 licence fee and a $10 surcharge paid into the anti-discrimination in housing fund for statewide fair housing testing. The application is not yours to complete alone: your principal broker logs into their own eAccessNY account and authorizes it before the Department will review anything, and the licence is posted to the brokerage. The sponsorship is not a one-off either — eAccessNY will not open a renewal for a salesperson who has no broker associated with them, so a licensee between firms cannot simply renew and wait.

Renewal costs another $65 and needs 22.5 hours of continuing education completed inside the term, with fixed slices for fair housing, ethical business practices, cultural competency, implicit bias, recent legal matters and agency. Hours do not carry forward. Miss the deadline and there is no grace period in which you may keep working, though the renewal link stays open for two years after expiry; past that, it is the current education requirements and the written examination again. And there is no side door into any of this: the Department has reciprocity with no other state. An out-of-state licensee may ask in writing for a waiver of the course — with proof, an hour-by-hour outline and a course description — but never of the examination.

What is in the 77 hours, hour by hour

With no content outline published, the syllabus in 19 NYCRR §176.3 is the closest thing to one — and it is unusually specific, because it is a regulation every approved school has to teach to rather than a vendor’s percentage table. Law of Agency takes 11 hours, Legal Issues 10 (estates and interests 3, liens and easements 2½, deeds 2½, title closing and costs 2), and Commercial and Investment Properties another 10. Human Rights and Fair Housing is 6, Real Estate Finance and Construction and Environmental Issues 5 each, Condominiums and Cooperatives 4, and licence law, land use, valuation, taxes and income tax issues 3 apiece.

The short entries are as telling as the long ones. Real Estate Mathematics is one hour — on the Pearson VUE national outline used in most other states, calculations are seven of eighty scored items — and property insurance, licensee safety and mortgage brokerage are an hour each, with municipal agencies and property management at two. Add the 77 to the 3-hour final examination your school gives you and the regulation totals 80. Note the shape of that: New York makes you pass a school paper on this material before it will let you near its own, and it is the only exam in the sequence anybody publishes a length for.

Frequently asked

How many questions are on the New York real estate exam?
The Department of State does not publish a question count. It writes and delivers the examination itself, with no testing vendor and therefore no candidate handbook, and its own pages describe the paper only as multiple choice, based on the 77-hour pre-licensing curriculum, with an hour and a half allowed. Counts you will see quoted come from schools rather than from the Department, so this page does not carry one.
What score do you need to pass the New York real estate exam?
There is no published passing score, because New York does not report scores. Results appear in your eAccessNY account as passed or failed, with no number and no breakdown by subject, and the Department will not give them out over the telephone. A passing result is valid for two years.
How much does the New York real estate exam cost?
$15 a sitting, fixed by Real Property Law §441-b(1-A) rather than by a vendor, and the same for the broker examination — the cheapest examination on this site. After you pass, the salesperson licence application is $65, which is a $55 licence fee plus a $10 anti-discrimination in housing surcharge. Renewal is $65 again every two years, and a broker pays $185 at each of those points.
How long is the 77-hour course good for in New York?
Once it has been applied towards a licence it does not expire, and it can be used again when you upgrade. The deadline that does exist is for the upgrade itself: under RPL §441(1-A)(c) the 77 hours count towards the broker’s 152 only if they were completed within eight years of the broker application. Home-study and correspondence courses are not accepted at any point.
Can I take the New York real estate exam online?
No. You book through eAccessNY, but you sit the paper in person at one of eleven Department of State test sites — Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Franklin Square, Hauppauge, New York City, Plattsburgh, Pomona, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica. There is no remote-proctored option of the kind Oklahoma and New Jersey offer, and nobody is admitted after the specified starting time. Your school’s own 3-hour final examination is a separate paper and its rules are the school’s.
Do I need a broker to sponsor me for a New York real estate licence?
Yes, and at both ends. A sponsoring New York broker is one of the five requirements, and your principal broker has to authorize your application from their own eAccessNY account before the Department will review it. It is also a renewal condition: without a broker associated with you, eAccessNY will not open a renewal. New York has reciprocity with no other state, so an incoming licensee needs a New York sponsor like anyone else.

Other states

CaliforniaTexasGeorgiaPennsylvaniaNevadaVirginiaFloridaMichiganIllinoisOhioArizonaMarylandNorth CarolinaOklahomaNew Jersey National practice test

Sources

Key factual claims on this page are grounded in the documents below, with the day each was read. Rules and requirements change — open the source if you need today's wording.

Page facts last verified September 5, 2026.

Independent exam preparation. Real Estate Exam Bank is not a state-approved pre-licensing course and completing anything here does not satisfy any state education requirement. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by any state real estate commission, Pearson VUE, or PSI. Practice questions here are original study material, not the official exam.