North Carolina

North Carolina’s Real Estate Commission (NCREC) issues broker licenses only. The first one is a provisional broker license. Calling it a salesperson license on a résumé or a Florida mutual-recognition form is a category error. Pre-license education is 75 hours at an NCREC-certified provider. You apply to NCREC first ($105 effective April 1, 2026), receive eligibility, then sit Pearson VUE. The exam is 80 national and 60 state questions, 75 percent on each. Comprehensive exam fee $63, single-section $53. Criminal records go through the channel NCREC names (ncreccheck.com), not a generic Livescan vendor you picked from a drugstore poster.

A provisional broker practices only when affiliated with a broker-in-charge. Ninety hours of postlicensing — three 30-hour courses — must be finished within 18 months. Miss the window and NCREC places the license on inactive status until the requirements for activation are completed; the provisional status itself does not disappear. After postlicensing, CE is 8 hours annually. Renewal is due June 10 at $50. The BIC Update versus General Update choice is a common annual mistake: taking the wrong update course is how brokers who think they “did their eight hours” still come up short.

Out-of-state licensees may waive the 75-hour pre-license course and the national section, depending on the path on NCREC’s Apply for a License page, and still often land as provisional. That is a waiver into a broker license, usually still provisional — not a North Carolina salesperson license, because none exists. Florida’s mutual-recognition list does not include North Carolina. Georgia’s exam-then-apply salesperson path does not translate. Texas SAE and California DRE courses do not replace NCREC postlicensing.

The full broker guide covers the postlicensing-complete, BIC-eligible status, not a second standard examination. The exam you sat as a provisional is the exam. What changes is education, affiliation, and whether you can be a broker-in-charge.