Where to take the 60-hour Virginia course
All three national schools sell Virginia pre-licensing and all three state the requirement correctly at 60 hours. The differences are in format and in what happens after you are licensed.
AceableAgent
- States the 60-hour DPOR requirement correctly and names the salesperson credential accurately
- Publishes the exam structure as 80 national questions needing 56 to pass and 40 state questions needing 30 — which matches PSI's bulletin exactly, so you can plan against real numbers
- Self-paced online, which Virginia permits in full for the coursework itself
- Mobile-first delivery, which suits a 60-hour requirement you are fitting around a job
The CE Shop
- Sells the 60 hours in tiers from a standard package upward, plus a five-day free trial before you commit
- Also sells Virginia post-licence education, which matters here because every new salesperson owes 30 hours of it inside the first year
- Runs a separate broker track for later, if you upgrade
- Self-paced online with a dedicated Virginia enrolment path
Colibri Real Estate
- Four packages, with an entry tier covering the 60 hours and no exam prep — the cheapest honest route if you only need the requirement
- States both the 60-hour requirement and the split passing scores correctly (70% general, 75% state)
- Individual Virginia pre-licensing course pages are published separately, so you can see what each tier contains before buying
- Careful with naming: its Exam Preparation tiers are full pre-licensing packages with prep bundled, not standalone exam prep
How to get your Virginia licence
Five steps — and two of them, the broker and the full 60 hours, have to be done earlier than most states ask.
Finish all 60 hours before you test
Virginia's rule is explicit that applicants must pass every required course "prior to sitting for the licensing examination and applying for licensure." You cannot sit the exam part-way through the course.
Pass both portions with PSI
Eighty national questions in 105 minutes, needing 56 to pass, and 40 state questions in 45 minutes, needing 30. The exam fee is $60.
Get fingerprinted at a PSI site
$52 in total — a $27 state processing fee and a $25 PSI fee. The results go straight to the Board, and the clock on them is short: see the FAQ, because DPOR publishes two different windows.
Apply with your broker named on the form
The application requires the firm and broker to be identified, and the broker signs to authorise it. So the sponsorship attaches at application, not after licensure. The fee is $244.50 as of July 2026.
Do 30 hours of post-licence education in year one
Due within one year of the last day of the month your licence was issued. Miss it and the Board places your licence on inactive status automatically — and that applies even if your licence was already inactive.
From the Virginia Real Estate Board (DPOR), Va. Code § 54.1-2105 and § 54.1-2105.01, 18VAC135-20-35, -90, -95, -101, -362 and -400, the DPOR salesperson application form, and the PSI Virginia candidate bulletin, verified August 2026. No exam retake fee appears here because PSI publishes none. DPOR does publish pass rates by school, but they report percentage failed and do not separate first-time from repeat takers, so they are not comparable to the first-time rates some states publish.
Virginia FAQs
Do I have to do continuing education in my first renewal cycle?
No — you do the 30-hour post-licence course instead. Virginia's statute says the post-licensure requirement for new licensees "shall be in lieu of the continuing education requirements otherwise specified in this chapter and Board regulations." So it is 30 hours, not 30 plus 16. Roundups very commonly add the two together and produce 46, which is wrong. Worth knowing that the "in lieu of" language lives only in the statute — the Board's own regulation on continuing education does not mention the post-licence course at all, so reading the regulation alone would mislead you.
When exactly is the post-licence course due?
Within one year of the last day of the month in which your licence was issued — not one year from the issue date itself, which buys you a few extra days. The consequence of missing it is automatic: the Board places the licence on inactive status until you finish the curriculum, and it applies even to licensees who are already inactive.
How long are my fingerprints good for?
Ninety days, according to both the application form you actually file and PSI's candidate bulletin — the application must reach the Board inside that window or you pay to be printed again. DPOR also publishes an undated quick-reference flyer that says 45 days. We are flagging the conflict rather than quietly picking one; the two 90-day sources are the operative documents, and the flyer carries no revision date or fee figures. Work to 90 days, and if you are close to it, ring the Board.
Can I take the Virginia course entirely online?
The coursework, yes — the statute expressly permits "correspondence, or other distance learning instruction," and no portion has to be live or in person. But the course's final written assessment must be monitored, so a school advertising a start-to-finish experience with no supervision at any point is not describing Virginia's rule accurately.
Does Virginia require errors and omissions insurance?
No. Nothing in Title 54.1 Chapter 21 or the Board's renewal regulation requires it, and the salesperson application form carries no carrier field, policy field or insurance attestation. Do not confuse this with the Real Estate Transaction Recovery Fund — the $20 assessment bundled into your licence fee — which is a consumer-recovery fund the Board administers, not insurance you buy.
Why is the licence fee $244.50 and not $230?
Because of a technology fee added by the 2026 budget bill. DPOR charges $7.25 per year on top of the published schedule, which over a two-year term takes $230 to $244.50. The fee is scheduled to come off on 30 June 2030. Affiliate pages quoting $170 or $230 for Virginia are working from a stale schedule.