California advertising rules, for your website.
Your DRE license identification number has to appear on the website you own or control.
What California actually requires
California is one of the strictest states on license identification. Any website a licensee owns or controls must display the DRE license identification number of the person or entity offering the advertised service. The requirement covers solicitation material intended to be a first point of contact, which is exactly what a brokerage homepage is.
AB 1650 removed the earlier print and electronic exemption effective January 1, 2018.
Regulator
California Department of Real Estate (DRE)
Citations
- Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 10140.6
- Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 10235.5
- 10 CCR 2770.1
- DRE forms RE 27 and RE 559
We build websites, we are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Rules change. Confirm the current text with the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) before you launch.
What that means on the page
The rule as a set of decisions your designer and developer have to make before launch, not after.
DRE license identification number
Shown on the site, not buried in a linked PDF. If the entity and an individual both offer services, identify the one actually offering the advertised service.
Brokerage identification
The responsible broker's identity must be clear on material intended as a first point of contact.
What catches people out here
These are the parts that do not transfer from another state's template.
This is the opposite of the Texas rule
California requires the license number. Texas law specifically bars its commission from requiring one. If your site was built from a template made for a Texas brokerage, it is missing the single thing California cares most about.
The 2018 change caught a lot of sites
Before AB 1650 there was an exemption that many older sites relied on. It is gone. A site built before 2018 and never revisited is the most likely to be non-compliant.
If you display listings
If you join CRMLS, its published terms give brokers two IDX data feeds at no additional MLS charge, with a third at $85 per month via Trestle plus $25 for a broker feed. CRMLS also has unusually specific attribution rules: listing credit must sit adjacent to the price and property details, in type no smaller or lighter than the description, and labeled explicitly as the listing broker or office rather than a vague courtesy line.
Data access is billed by your MLS and varies enormously between them. We broke the range down in what a brokerage website costs.
This page covers state advertising rules only. Fair housing, MLS display rules, and consent for lead forms apply everywhere and are covered in our brokerage website requirements guide.
The rules genuinely differ
California requires a license number on your site. Texas law bars its commission from requiring one. Never assume a neighbouring state's template applies.
Do not see your state? We add one only after verifying its rule against the actual statute, because a confident guess about a licensing rule is worse than no page. Ask us and we will read yours with you.
Built to your state's rules,
live before you open.
We read the California rule as part of the build, so the brokerage name, identification and disclosures land where they belong the first time.