Washington advertising rules, for your website.
The firm's licensed name, untruncated, on every standalone piece of online content, until an agency relationship exists.
What Washington actually requires
Washington requires the firm's licensed name or approved assumed name, not abbreviated or partially used, on each standalone unit of online content: a webpage, an email, a social post, a banner. Unusually, that per-message obligation switches off once an agency relationship is established with a specific buyer or seller. A logo or web address alone does not satisfy the requirement.
The current rule text dates to October 31, 2010, making this the most stable rule in our set.
Regulator
Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL)
Citations
- WAC 308-124B-210(1), (2)(a) to (d)
- DOL Real Estate Advertising Guidelines
We build websites, we are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Rules change. Confirm the current text with the Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL) 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.
Firm's licensed name, in full
Or an assumed name licensed with DOL. No truncation beyond commonly understood abbreviations, and a logo or domain name does not count as the name.
Every standalone unit of content
Webpage, email, post, or banner each carry the firm's and the broker's licensed names while no agency relationship exists.
Personal brands need the firm alongside
A personal name, title, or brand without an assumed-name license requires the firm's licensed name clearly and conspicuously in conjunction, advance written approval from the designated broker, and no entity-implying or brokerage-implying terms.
What catches people out here
These are the parts that do not transfer from another state's template.
The disclosure has an off-switch
Once an agency relationship is formally established with a buyer or seller, the per-message name requirement ceases for messages to that client. No other state in our set ties the obligation to the relationship. It is a genuinely dynamic rule in a category that is otherwise static.
Friendlier to personal brands than its neighbours
Washington lets you run a personal brand without licensing it as an assumed name, provided the firm name always rides along. Compare North Carolina, where a brand-only ad is a blind ad, full stop.
Stable since 2010
While Connecticut rewrote its law in 2024 and Colorado in 2021, Washington's rule has not changed in over a decade. Whatever you build to it is unlikely to need a compliance revisit 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 Washington rule as part of the build, so the brokerage name, identification and disclosures land where they belong the first time.