1.3 License Maintenance and Renewal

License Term and Renewal Basics

An Oregon real estate license is issued for a two-year term and must be renewed on or before its expiration date through OREA's eLicensing portal. Renewal has two components: completing the required continuing education (CE) and paying the renewal fee. You may renew on active or inactive status, but an inactive licensee may not conduct professional real estate activity.

Continuing Education — and the 2026 Overhaul

The 30-hour total never changes, but how those hours are allocated changed on January 1, 2026. The exam, refreshed for 2026, tests the new allocation.

First Active Renewal

Your very first active renewal still centers on a license-type Advanced Practices course, but its length was cut to make room for Fair Housing:

Updated rule: Before 2026, the first renewal used a 30-hour Advanced Practices course that absorbed a 3-hour LARRC. Under the 2026 rules, Advanced Practices is 26 hours, LARRC drops to 2 hours, and a separate 2-hour Fair Housing course is added. Watch for stale prep that still says "Advanced Practices includes 3-hour LARRC."

Second and Subsequent Renewals

The pre-2026 split was 3 hours LARRC + 27 hours electives. The arithmetic to remember: 2 + 2 + 26 = 30, and Fair Housing is now mandatory for all active renewals — brokers, principal brokers, and property managers alike.

Recordkeeping and Audits

You do not mail CE certificates to OREA with your renewal. Instead, you certify completion and retain proof for three years after the renewal date, because OREA conducts random CE audits. If audited and you cannot document the hours, the renewal can be invalidated and discipline can follow.

License Status — and Why "Inactive" Still Costs You

An inactive license is still a live license — you keep your number — but you cannot list, sell, or collect commissions until you reactivate (associate with a principal broker and satisfy CE). Practicing on an expired or inactive license is unlicensed activity and a disciplinary violation.

Late Renewal vs. a Truly Lapsed License

The key fork is the two-year mark after expiration:

Warning: You may not conduct any professional real estate activity during any gap, even a short late-renewal window. There is no grace period to keep working.

10-Day Reporting Duties

Licensees must notify OREA, generally within 10 days, of changes that affect the public record or supervision:

• Change of business or mailing address
• Change of legal name
• Change of associating principal broker (a broker moving firms)
• Certain events affecting suitability (e.g., specified criminal convictions)

All of these are filed through eLicensing. Missing the 10-day window is itself a violation, even if the underlying change was routine.

Exam focus: The most-tested maintenance facts are the 2-year term, 30 CE hours, the 2026 LARRC-2 + Fair-Housing-2 split, the 3-year certificate retention, the 10-day change-reporting rule, and the bright line that you cannot practice while expired or inactive.

Common Renewal Scenarios

Work through these patterns; they map directly onto state-portion items:

• First-renewal broker, 2026 cycle: takes the 26-hour Broker Advanced Practices course, then 2-hour LARRC and 2-hour Fair Housing — exactly 30 hours, no general electives in the first cycle.
• Third-time principal broker: needs 2-hour LARRC + 2-hour Fair Housing + 26 elective hours; the Advanced Practices course is a first-renewal item, not repeated.
• Broker switching firms mid-term: no CE triggered, but the change of associating principal broker must be filed through eLicensing within 10 days, or the broker is technically unsupervised and in violation.
• Licensee who lets the license go inactive to take a year off: keeps the license number, owes no commission-earning activity, and must satisfy CE and re-associate to reactivate; time inactive does not count toward principal-broker experience.

Mastering these scenarios, plus the expired-over-two-years "start over" rule, covers the bulk of what the maintenance cluster asks.