Step-by-step

How to Move Your Nevada Real Estate License to a Referral Brokerage (Form 505)

A Nevada real estate license transfer is paperwork, not a life decision. Two NRED forms, one broker signature, a $20 filing fee. If you have already decided to change brokers and park your license where it costs nothing, here is the process in order.

By Ken Calder, Broker · You Decide Referral · Updated August 27, 2026

What you need before you start

Gather these first.

• Your license number and the exact name on your license
• Your original license or permit — NRED's process calls for it to be returned with the form
• Your current brokerage's legal name and license number, and whoever signs releases
• Your termination date, addresses, phone, and email
• Your Social Security number or EIN for the W-9, and a way to pay the $20 fee
• Your renewal date, plus your association and MLS account numbers

The steps

1. Step 1 — Get the four documents

   Download NRED Form 505 (Real Estate Termination Form) and Form 504 (Real Estate License or Permit Change Form) from the Division's forms page, and the IRS W-9 and our License Hanging Agreement from our homepage.

2. Step 2 — Complete Form 504, the change form

   This is the form that changes brokers on your license. It asks for your license or permit number, name, addresses and contact details, the new broker's information for the employment change, and declarations about disciplinary or conviction history. It needs your signature and mine.

3. Step 3 — Get Form 505 signed by your releasing broker

   Form 505 is written for your current broker to complete: your licensee information and termination date, the reason for termination, and the broker's or authorized sales-manager's signature. You sign the licensee section. NRED expects it within 10 calendar days of the termination date, so this step has a clock on it.

   If your broker is slow or unreachable. This is the part agents dread, and it is usually smaller than it feels. Send a dated email asking for the signed Form 505 and keep the copy. If you get silence, call me at 702-843-0044 — a broker-to-broker call settles it more often than a tenth voicemail. If it stays stuck, ask the Division at realest@red.nv.gov how to proceed.

4. Step 4 — Sign the You Decide Referral License Hanging Agreement

   Plain language: what you can and cannot do on referral status, how referrals are submitted, and how you are paid. Return it with your W-9 and we open your file.

5. Step 5 — Submit to NRED with the fee

   Send the forms, your original license, and the fee to the Nevada Real Estate Division, 3300 W. Sahara Ave., Suite 350, Las Vegas, Nevada 89102. Form 505 lists realest@red.nv.gov as a contact and states it is accepted by mail or hand delivery, postmark dates not accepted — near the 10-day mark, hand delivery removes the doubt.

6. Step 6 — Confirm the change in NRED's license lookup

   Do not assume it went through. Look yourself up in the public license search on red.nv.gov and confirm your record shows You Decide Referral. If it looks off, call us.

Your MLS access and association membership

Agents on referral status generally do not carry MLS access, because they are not listing, showing, or writing contracts. For an agent who is not producing, that is the point rather than the loss.

What I will not do is tell you what to do about your REALTOR® association membership or your MLS subscription. Those are governed by the associations and the MLS that publish them, not by me or your new brokerage. Full membership is the right spend for a producing agent; whether it is right for you now is your call.

So call your association and your MLS before you file. Ask what changing brokerages does to your account, what a status change costs, and what dates you have to hit.

What changes the day after

You keep your license, your license number, and your years in the business. What changes is how you participate. You can send and accept referrals through the brokerage and be paid on them — 30% of the gross commission on a referral, 70% on new construction and You Decide Realty listings. You cannot list or show property, negotiate for a buyer or seller, or hold yourself out as the agent in a transaction. Your work becomes the part you were already good at: knowing who is moving, and handing that person to someone who will take care of them.

What does not change: you still renew on NRED's schedule and are still responsible for the continuing education the Division requires — NRED sets those rules and is who to confirm with. You still operate under a broker, with the errors and omissions coverage and supervisory obligations that come with it. Nevada requires a broker to hold your license, so this is not a workaround; it is the ordinary broker change every licensee has.

When you should not do this. If you have listings, buyers under agreement, or deals working, do not file until those are resolved or reassigned with both brokers involved. If you closed a healthy number of transactions this year and expect to keep going, full service and full membership are the better spend. Referral status is for an agent whose production has paused, not one having a slow month.

Going back to full active status later

You can. This is not a door that locks behind you. Returning to a full-service brokerage is the same transfer in reverse: your new broker gives you a Form 504, and we sign the Form 505 releasing you. I release agents promptly — no notice period, no exit fee, no questions.

Keep your license current with us and there is nothing to reinstate or retake. You come back with your number, your history, and your relationships intact — the point of parking a license instead of letting it go.

Common questions