Pennsylvania advertising rules, for your website.
Your employing broker's business name and phone number, at equal size with yours, in every ad.
What Pennsylvania actually requires
Pennsylvania's codified rule is short: licensees hold themselves out only under the business name on their license, nicknames must be registered, and any advertisement by an associate broker or salesperson must carry the employing broker's business name and telephone number at equal size with their own. Much of what other states codify, Pennsylvania leaves to Commission guidance, which is itself worth knowing before you launch there.
The current text dates to a 2004 codification. The Commission discussed amendments in October 2024, so check for updated language before relying on this page.
Regulator
Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission (Department of State, Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs)
Citations
- 49 Pa. Code 35.305(a) to (c)
We build websites, we are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Rules change. Confirm the current text with the Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission (Department of State, Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs) 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.
Business name as licensed
Licensees hold themselves out to the public only under the business name designated on the license. First-name nicknames are allowed if registered with the Commission.
The equal-size rule
An associate broker's or salesperson's ad contains the employing broker's business name and telephone number, at equal size with the associate's. This is the rule Pennsylvania actually enforces.
What catches people out here
These are the parts that do not transfer from another state's template.
The equal-size rule has teeth
The state Realtor association has reported a $5,000 Commission penalty against an associate broker and their broker of record for violating the name and phone size parity rule. For a rule this short, it is actively policed.
The Code says less than you expect
Pennsylvania has no codified every-page rule, no codified team-naming provisions, and no license-number requirement in the rule text. Claims you will find online for all three trace to association or franchise guidance, not the regulation. Build to the codified rule, then treat brokerage-level guidance as house policy.
The rule is under active discussion
Commission minutes from October 2024 show proposed amendments, including swapping telephone number for contact information. Nothing final at our last verification, but this is the one state in our set where the current text may change soon.
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 Pennsylvania rule as part of the build, so the brokerage name, identification and disclosures land where they belong the first time.