Where to take the 63-hour Florida course
All three national schools sell the Florida sales associate course. What separates them here is whether they also cover the 45 hours you will owe before your first renewal.
AceableAgent
- States the 63-hour FREC requirement correctly and describes the course as covering exactly the hours Florida asks for
- Its top tier bundles the 45-hour post-licence course — the only tier of any school here that covers both stages in one purchase, which matters more in Florida than anywhere else given what happens if you miss it
- ⚠️ Worth doing the arithmetic before you pick a tier: its mid tier plus the standalone post-licence course came to more than its top tier when we looked
- Mobile-first self-paced delivery, which Florida permits in full
The CE Shop
- Five tiers from course-only upward, all consistently catalogued at 63 hours with no stale figures in the listing
- Sells the 45-hour post-licence course as a clearly separate product, so the two-stage structure is at least visible
- Could not be confirmed to bundle the 45 hours into any 63-hour package — check before assuming your purchase covers first renewal
- Runs a free trial before you commit
Colibri Real Estate
- The lowest entry point of the three, with a basic tier covering the required 63 hours and nothing else
- Offers livestream classes led by Florida instructors as well as self-paced study
- ⚠️ It sells the 45-hour post-licence course, but bundles it into no pre-licensing package at any price — including its most expensive tier. Every Florida buyer here faces a second purchase
- Careful with naming: its Exam Preparation tiers are full pre-licensing packages with prep bundled
How to get your Florida licence
Five steps — and Florida puts two separate exams in your way, with the first one carrying a rule people only discover after they fail it.
Complete the 63-hour course
Fifty-minute hours, inclusive of examination, built on the FREC I syllabus. A four-year real estate degree exempts you from this entirely, and so does membership in good standing of The Florida Bar.
Pass the end-of-course exam at 70%
This is the one to be careful about. Fail it and you must wait at least 30 days to retest, and you get exactly one retake within a year. Fail that and you repeat the whole 63 hours. Your course completion is then good for two years.
Apply and get fingerprinted
Prints go through an FDLE-approved Livescan provider — the fee varies by provider, so DBPR publishes no figure. Results are held for twelve months, which is your real deadline for getting the rest done.
Pass the state exam with Pearson VUE
One hundred multiple-choice questions in three and a half hours, needing 75 points. Florida Bar members sit a different paper, the Florida Real Estate Law Exam, needing 30.
Activate your licence, then do 45 more hours
Florida issues the licence inactive; it does nothing until a broker activates it. Then the 45-hour post-licence course before your first renewal, which falls 18 to 24 months out — and missing it is the null-and-void trap above.
From the Florida Real Estate Commission (DBPR), Fla. Stat. § 475.17, § 475.182 and § 475.183, Fla. Admin. Code r. 61J2-3.008, 61J2-3.009 and 61J2-3.012, the DBPR sales associate requirements sheet and candidate information booklet, and a DBPR renewal notice, verified August 2026. No application fee total appears here: Rule 61J2-1.011 and a 2019 FREC rule-review document give different figures, and the total widely quoted online matches neither. The exam fee, retake fee, score validity and any limit on attempts are likewise omitted — none is published by an official source. Florida does not publish exam pass rates by school for sales associates; DBPR reports a statewide figure only, which ran at 42% in the month we sampled. The school-level report that circulates belongs to the appraisal board, not the real estate commission.
Florida FAQs
What actually happens if I miss the 45-hour post-licence course?
Your licence becomes null and void. Not expired, not inactive — void. Florida's statute says the licence of a sales associate who does not complete post-licence education before the first renewal "shall be considered null and void," and DBPR's renewal notices say the same thing in plain terms. To get back in you requalify from the beginning: the 63-hour course again, a new application, the state exam again. The only escape is a narrow one — the Commission may reinstate a void licence for illness or economic hardship, but you must ask within six months. Note that the requirement applies whether your licence is active or inactive, so parking it does not pause the clock.
Is it true I only get one retake on the course exam?
Yes, and it is stricter than most states. A 70% is needed to pass the end-of-course exam. Fail and you must wait at least 30 days before retesting, and within one year of the original exam you may retest a maximum of one time. Fail that second attempt and you repeat the entire 63-hour course. Worth factoring into which school you choose, because the quality of the course material is what stands between you and a repeat purchase.
How long is my Florida course completion good for?
Two years from the completion date, per DBPR. Do not confuse it with the 24-month figure in the rules, which is how long the Commission approves a school's course for — a different thing with a coincidentally similar number. One practical consequence: you must present your completion certificate at the test centre every time you sit the state exam, so the certificate's two-year life is effectively your limit on retakes.
Does Florida require errors and omissions insurance?
No. We searched the official DBPR law book, which contains both Chapter 475 of the statutes and Chapter 61J2 of the rules, for errors and omissions, professional liability and surety bond requirements. None is present. The sales associate requirements sheet and the renewal notice do not mention insurance either.
Can I take the Florida course entirely online?
Yes. The statute directs that a distance learning course "shall be approved by the commission as an option to classroom hours," and the rule treats a 50-minute distance hour as equivalent to a 50-minute classroom hour. One thing to be careful of when reading elsewhere: Florida's rule defines correspondence courses separately from distance learning, and correspondence study is restricted to hardship cases. Some guides merge the two and end up claiming you need a hardship exception to study online. You do not.
Does my licence work as soon as I pass?
No. Florida issues the licence in inactive status. It does nothing at all until a broker activates it, which happens after your licence number is issued rather than before. So unlike states where a sponsoring broker signs your application, in Florida you can complete the entire process, hold a real licence number, and still not be able to work.