Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania splits salesperson pre-license into Real Estate Fundamentals (30 hours) and Real Estate Practice (45 hours). Those 75 hours must be completed within five years of passing the exam. Pearson VUE seats 80 national questions in 150 minutes and 40 state questions in 60 minutes; passing is 75 percent on each. Combined exam fee $52, state-only $49. Scores remain valid for three years. Recently active out-of-state licensees can sit the Pennsylvania portion only — a real, published waiver that California and New York do not offer the other direction.

Initial salesperson licensure is $97 ($72 plus $25 into the Pennsylvania Real Estate Recovery Fund). Biennial renewal $96. Fourteen hours of CE per two-year cycle is not required on initial issuance. The Recovery Fund assessment is a line item, not a classroom rumor; it sits on the Commission’s fee schedule next to the license fee.

The broker license is a different mountain. Age 21. Sixteen credits / 240 hours of broker-specific education within ten years of passing the broker exam, including office-management and law credits the Commission names. You may not recycle the salesperson Fundamentals and Practice credits. Three years of qualifying experience is scored on the Commission’s charts; Bhala is the reported reminder that merely holding a salesperson license for three years is not the same as documented activity. You apply in PALS before Pearson will seat the broker exam. Sole-proprietor initial fee $169.50 on the current snapshot.

Reciprocity and Act 41 exist. New York, the neighbor, ended reciprocity in 2022, so the courtesy is one-way: a recently active New York broker may sit only the Pennsylvania portion; a Pennsylvania broker does not skip the DOS exam. Florida mutual recognition does not include Pennsylvania. Illinois endorsement is a Springfield process, not a Harrisburg stamp. The five-year education window on Fundamentals and Practice is also unlike New York’s 77-hour course, which does not split into two named classes and does not carry a five-year completion window tied to the exam date.