The short version: Every real estate salesperson and broker working in California is licensed by one authority — the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) — and every license can be checked in the DRE’s free Public License Lookup in about a minute. Search by the person’s legal name, their company name, or their eight-digit license ID. The record shows the license type, its current status, its expiration date, any disciplinary action, and — for a salesperson — the broker they work under. Only a current, licensed record with a broker affiliation authorizes a salesperson to work for you.
We built Neighborhood Registry on exactly this check — every professional listed in our California directory is matched against the DRE record before their profile is marked verified, and re-checked on a schedule afterward. But you don’t need us for the check itself. Here’s how to run it yourself.
Step by step: checking an agent with the DRE
Step 1: Get the agent’s legal name and eight-digit license ID
California license IDs are eight digits; numbers below ten million carry a leading zero (for example, our Santa Cruz realtor Joe Prather’s ID is 02001091). California law requires that ID to be in front of you before you ever search. Business and Professions Code §10140.6(b)(1) and DRE Regulation 2773(a) — summarized in the Department’s form RE 559 — require every first-point-of-contact solicitation material, including websites the licensee controls, to carry three things: the licensee’s name, the identity of the responsible broker, and the licensee’s eight-digit license ID, with the license number printed in a font no smaller than the smallest font used anywhere on the piece. An agent whose marketing carries no license number at all is a red flag before you search anything.
Step 2: Search the DRE Public License Lookup
Use the DRE’s Public License Lookup — free, public, no login. Search by licensee name, company name, or the eight-digit license ID; the ID search is the most precise. One practical note, stated honestly because it shaped our own process: the DRE portal is JavaScript-driven, so automated checkers (including ours) cannot always read a result. That is why Joe Prather’s verification rests on a person reading his record directly in the DRE’s own lookup — his record was read directly there, most recently on Oct 27, 2026 — and never on the license number he publishes himself.
Step 3: Read the status the way the DRE intends it to be read
- Licensed — current and authorized. For a salesperson, the record must also show an employing broker; a salesperson can only practice under one.
- Licensed — NBA (no broker affiliation) — the license is active but the salesperson is not currently affiliated with a broker, so they cannot legally practice until they join one. This is the California status most often misread as “fine.”
- Restricted — the license is on probation following disciplinary action; the person can practice only under stated conditions.
- Suspended (including conditional suspension for incomplete continuing education) — the person cannot perform licensed activity during the suspension.
- Expired / Revoked — no authority to practice. Revoked is permanent.
Also read the record’s expiration date and any comments the lookup surfaces; the DRE publishes both, including disciplinary history where it exists.
Step 4: Match the record to the person in front of you
Confirm three things line up: the legal name, the license ID, and the broker on the record versus the brokerage on the agent’s marketing. Here is what that looks like on a real record — Joe Prather’s: Prather, Joe Wheaton II, license type SALESPERSON, license ID 02001091, status LICENSED, expires 10/05/2028, broker eXp Realty of California, Inc. (broker license 01878277). The record’s comments read “NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION” and “NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS.” A broker mismatch is the most common legitimate hiccup (agents change brokers), but it should always have a simple explanation — and the record, not the agent’s website, is the source of truth.
How Neighborhood Registry checks California licenses
Licenses are checked directly against the DRE record before a profile can be marked verified, re-checked weekly where the portal allows a machine read and by documented manual review where it does not, and formally re-verified every 12 months. Each California profile shows its last-checked date and its next re-verification date — Joe Prather’s record shows first verified Oct 23, 2026, re-verification due Oct 23, 2027. The full method is on How We Verify.