Where to take the 116-hour South Dakota course
Your course has to be Commission-approved, and most national schools do not carry South Dakota at all. Only one of the two schools we normally compare sells the pre-licensing course here.
The CE Shop
- Named on the Commission's own approved distance-learning list, so the certificate you finish with is one the state will accept
- Covers all 116 hours in one purchase, which is the entire education requirement between you and the exam
- Sold in four tiers — course only, standard, value and premium — so you can leave out exam prep if you don't want to pay for it
- Uses the correct licence name throughout, which matters when you are cross-checking your course against Commission paperwork that never says "salesperson"
- Self-paced online, which is the practical way to fit 116 hours around a job
Colibri Real Estate
- Sells South Dakota exam prep, which is worth a look separately once your 116 hours are done elsewhere
- Carries South Dakota continuing education through its sister school McKissock, for the renewals that come later
- Does not sell the South Dakota pre-licensing course and is not on the Commission's approved provider list — so it cannot be your route to the exam here
- Useful if you want your exam prep from a different school than your coursework, which some people prefer
How to get your South Dakota licence
Five steps — and step four runs on a 60-day clock that cancels your exam result if you miss it.
Complete the 116-hour course
One Commission-approved broker associate pre-licensing course, covering South Dakota licence law, agency, contracts, finance, closings and the federal statutes. Distance-education courses count, so long as the Commission has approved the provider.
Register and sit the exam with PSI
You cannot register until the coursework is finished. The exam splits into a 90-question national portion and a 52-question South Dakota portion, and you need 75 on each. Pass one and fail the other and you retake only the part you failed.
Get fingerprinted — but not before you apply
A $50 background check runs through the Division of Criminal Investigation. Submit prints before the Commission has your signed application authorising the check and the results are destroyed and the payment forfeited. Order matters here.
File the application within 60 days
State law gives you sixty days from the date of your pass notice to file the application and supporting documents. Miss it and your registration and every right deriving from that passing score are cancelled outright. Separately, the coursework must have been completed within the two years before you apply.
Line up a responsible broker and E&O cover
A broker associate works under a responsible broker, and proof of errors and omissions insurance must be on file before the licence is issued. The Commission runs a group policy you can join, or you can insure independently if the cover meets the state minimum.
From the South Dakota Real Estate Commission, its exam information and fee pages, SDCL §§ 36-21A-30, 30.1, 30.2, 36.1, 43, 61, 62 and 119–122, ARSD art. 20:69, and the PSI broker associate candidate bulletin, verified August 2026. We have deliberately not published an exam fee. The Commission's fee page says $294 across "3 portions", its own exam page says $105 at registration, and PSI's bulletin says $98 — and the exam has two portions, not three. Budget around $100 and confirm the figure with PSI when you register.
South Dakota FAQs
How many hours of pre-licensing does South Dakota require?
116 class hours in a Commission-approved course. The figure is set in state law — SDCL 36-21A-30.1 requires that an applicant for a broker associate licence "must have completed one hundred sixteen class hours of education in a course of study approved by the commission." Independent study and distance education courses count, provided the commission has approved them, so an online course is a valid route.
Why does South Dakota call it a broker associate and not a salesperson?
Because that is genuinely the entry-level licence here. A broker associate is defined in SDCL 36-21A-1 as "any broker acting in association with or under the auspices of a responsible broker" — the equivalent of what most states call a salesperson. South Dakota's salesperson licence still exists but the Commission's fee schedule marks it "reciprocal only". If you are searching for a South Dakota salesperson course you will keep landing on pages built for other states; search for the broker associate course instead.
Is 116 hours really all the education I need?
No, and this is the part most comparison pages leave out. SDCL 36-21A-30.2 requires every broker associate first licensed after 30 June 2009 to complete a further 60 class hours of post-licensing education — 30 during the initial licensing period and 30 during the second — with all sixty hours in the Commission's required subject areas. Those hours do count toward your continuing education, so it is 30 rather than 24 plus 30. But the honest total before you reach the ordinary CE track is 176 hours, and it is worth knowing that going in.
How long do I have to apply after passing the exam?
Sixty days. SDCL 36-21A-36.1 is unusually blunt about it: if you do not file the application and proof of education within sixty days of the pass notice, "the person's registration and all rights deriving from a passing score are canceled." There is a second, longer clock running alongside it — your coursework must have been completed within the two years before the date of application. The 60-day one is the one that ends careers before they start.
Do I have to take the national portion if I'm licensed in another state?
No. SDCL 36-21A-43 lets an applicant who holds an active licence in another state, and passed that state's licensing exam, obtain the equivalent South Dakota licence by passing only the South Dakota portion. You will still need a certificate of licensure from every state you have ever been licensed in, completed within 30 days before you apply. And there is a bonus most pages miss: under the Commission's rules a non-resident licensee is not required to meet South Dakota's continuing education requirements at all.