Illinois

If you arrive in Illinois asking for a salesperson application, IDFPR will not have one. The state retired the salesperson license. The entry credential is a real estate broker license: 75 hours of pre-license education (60 hours plus 15 hours of interactive), a PSI examination, fingerprints, and a sponsoring managing broker before you practice. Older study packets still say 90 hours; the current statute, administrative rules, and PSI bulletin all specify 75. Use the current bulletin for your exam, not a 2019 PDF.

PSI’s structure is 100 national items and 40 state items, scaled passing score 75. Four failed attempts and you re-educate. Exam fee $58 on the current candidate information. Original broker application by examination has been cited at $125 in 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1450.130; confirm the amount at IDFPR checkout. After you pass, the first renewal is not ordinary CE: Illinois requires 45 hours of post-license education. Later cycles are 12 hours of CE on the 2026 fact sheet IDFPR has published. Skipping post-license is how new brokers stall.

Managing broker is the supervising license, not a synonym for broker. It takes 45 additional hours (or a 165-hour stack from zero), age 20, two of the last three years active as an Illinois broker, and another $58 PSI exam. Odd-year renewal. A managing broker is the person who can sponsor other brokers — the functional equivalent of a qualifying or principal broker in states that use those words.

Mobility changed on January 1, 2026. Illinois moved from a reciprocal list to endorsement, with published endorsement fees of $150 (broker) and $175 (managing broker). That is not Florida mutual recognition and not Pennsylvania Act 41, though Florida’s mutual-recognition list currently includes Illinois for nonresidents sitting a 40-question law exam. California DRE and New York DOS still will not waive their exams for an Illinois broker. Georgia is a mutual-recognition partner of Florida, not a shortcut into Springfield.