1.2 Oregon License Requirements

Broker License: The Four Gates

To earn an Oregon Broker license you must clear four gates in roughly this order: eligibility, education, background check, and examination, followed by application and association with a principal broker.

1. Eligibility

• Be at least 18 years old
• Hold a high school diploma, GED, or international equivalent
• Have legal authorization to work (no U.S. citizenship requirement)
• Pass a fingerprint-based criminal background check

2. Pre-License Education — 150 Hours, Seven Modules

Oregon requires 150 hours of broker pre-license education from an OREA-approved school, structured as seven required modules. Each module ends with a learning assessment you must pass to demonstrate competency. A representative breakdown:

Note: The course must be Agency-approved and is delivered in modules with required final assessments. Hours from non-approved providers or expired/old curricula do not count toward the current 150-hour requirement.

3. Background Check

Fingerprints are captured (commonly at a PSI test center or approved vendor) and run against state and FBI criminal-history databases. OREA reviews the results for suitability under ORS 696. Background-check clearance is valid for one year — if you do not finish licensing within that window, you repeat the check.

4. Examination Through PSI

The broker exam is delivered by PSI. It contains 130 multiple-choice items split into two separately timed portions, with a handful of unscored pretest questions seeded throughout:

Exam trap: You must pass both portions. Some marketing materials cite a lower "national" cut score, but Oregon requires 75% on each section to be approved; failing either means a retake of the failed portion.

Test-day logistics

You schedule through PSI after OREA authorizes you to test. Bring a valid government photo ID whose name matches your application exactly; mismatches are the most common reason candidates are turned away. The exam is closed-book except for an on-screen calculator, and scratch material is provided and collected. You receive a pass/fail result before leaving the center, with diagnostic feedback by content area on the portion(s) you failed so you know what to restudy.

Principal Broker License Requirements

The Principal Broker license authorizes a licensee to own or manage a brokerage, supervise brokers, and control the clients' trust account. Oregon layers two additional requirements on top of the broker path.

Experience

You must have at least three years of active real estate experience as a licensed broker (or substantially equivalent experience accepted by OREA) within the recent past. "Active" matters — time on inactive status does not count toward the three years.

Additional Education

Complete 60 hours of principal-broker-level education beyond the original 150 broker hours:

You then sit the principal broker exam (same 80 national + 50 state, 75% on each portion structure) through PSI.

Fees You Will Encounter

Note: Treat application/license amounts as approximate — OREA sets fee schedules by rule and they change. The exam tests the exam fee and the structure, not memorized dollar amounts for every line item.

The Application Sequence

The order matters because two clocks (exam pass and background clearance) each run one year:

1. Complete the 150-hour education and pass every module assessment.
2. Get fingerprinted and clear the background check (valid 1 year).
3. Schedule and pass both PSI exam portions at 75% each (valid 1 year).
4. Submit the license application through OREA's eLicensing portal.
5. Associate with a sponsoring principal broker — a broker cannot activate a license alone.
6. Receive an active license once OREA approves and the association is recorded.

Key timing rule: Both your passing exam result and your background clearance expire after one year. Let either lapse and you re-do that step before OREA will issue the license. This is the single most-tested logistics fact on the state portion.

Worked Timeline Example

Consider a candidate who finishes the 150-hour course in January, gets fingerprinted in February, and passes both PSI portions in March. Her exam result and clearance both run roughly to the following March. If she lines up a sponsoring principal broker and applies in April, OREA issues an active license well inside both one-year windows. But if she travels for a year and applies in May of the next year, both clocks have expired — she retakes the exam and re-runs fingerprints. The lesson the state portion drills: plan the steps so application happens while both clocks are still alive.