Hawaii Real Estate Schools

Salesperson to broker

Upgrading to a Hawaii real estate broker license

Updated 20 August 2026 · sourced from the Hawaii Real Estate Commission

The experience certificate is the real gate, not the exam. Before you can even enter the broker examination you must hold a valid, unexpired Broker Experience Certificate — and earning that takes three years of full-time work, not a course.

Most people researching the broker upgrade start by shopping for the course. The course is the easy part. The sequence below is in the order Hawaii actually enforces it.

1. The Broker Experience Certificate

You may apply for a Broker Experience Certificate if you have practical experience as a full-time Hawaii-licensed salesperson — defined as devoting at least 40 hours per week — associated with a Hawaii-licensed real estate broker, for at least three of the five years immediately before you submit the application.

Read the window again: three years out of the last five. Part-time years do not count toward it, and time that has aged out of the five-year window cannot be recovered. If you are close to the edge of that window, the order you do things in matters more than which school you pick.
Experience earned outside Hawaii is not automatically dead. The standard route is association with a Hawaii-licensed broker, but the Commission also evaluates out-of-state experience under its equivalency rules, case by case. If your three years were served on the mainland, ask before you assume you are starting over.

2. The 80-hour broker pre-licensing course

Disclosure: the school links below marked with an arrow are affiliate links. If you buy a course through one, this site may be paid a commission by the school. Your price is the school’s own price either way, and no school can buy a better review, a higher position, or a badge here. Full detail: Affiliate Disclosure.

Hawaii requires an approved 80-hour broker pre-licensing course. This is separate from and additional to the 60 hours you took as a salesperson. Providers who teach the broker course include The CE Shop, Colibri and Abe Lee Seminars in a Honolulu classroom.

3. The examination

You must present a valid, unexpired Broker Experience Certificate — in addition to the pre-licensing education — to be admitted to the broker examination. Turning up with the course and not the certificate does not get you in.

You also need to be at least 18 by the examination date, hold a high school diploma or equivalent, and be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or otherwise authorized to work in the U.S. by that date.

4. Applying, and the two-year clock

Apply within two years of passing the state examination. Pass and then let two years go by, and the pass stops being worth anything.

5. The renewal trap in an even-numbered year

2026 is a renewal year, which creates a specific sequencing problem. On passing the broker examination you may not renew your salesperson license; you submit the broker license application instead, with an effective date of 1 January 2027. You are still responsible for completing the continuing education requirement for the biennium.

So: you skip the salesperson renewal, and you still owe the 20 CE hours by 30 November 2026. Those two facts together are what catches people who assume passing the broker exam ends their CE obligation for the cycle. Details on our CE requirements page.

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The order that saves you the most time

  1. Check your three-of-five-years window today, before anything else.
  2. Apply for the Broker Experience Certificate.
  3. Take the 80 hours while that application is processing.
  4. Sit the exam with the certificate in hand.
  5. File the broker application, and finish your CE regardless.

Broker requirements are set by the Hawaii Real Estate Commission. Confirm the current experience definition, hours and forms at the Commission's examination and license applicant page before acting on this page.