Best Real Estate Courses & Schools in Texas (2026)

Texas requires 180 hours of pre-licensing education — six 30-hour TREC-approved courses — more than any other state.

Since Texas requires 180 hours, most candidates take 2 to 4 months to complete their coursework, though accelerated full-time study can finish it in as little as 8 weeks. Add time for your application, background check, and scheduling your exam, and most people are licensed within 3 to 6 months total.

Because Texas requires 180 classroom hours across six mandatory courses, completing your education often takes 2 to 3 months. The biggest mistake Texas students make is finishing Course 1 (Principles I) and not touching that material again until month three. Look for a school that includes rolling practice banks or a standalone exam prep tool you can use alongside your 180 hours. Reviewing earlier concepts for 15 minutes a day while working through later courses prevents you from having to re-learn everything from scratch before taking the Pearson VUE state exam.

Most Texas-approved pre-licensing courses include practice exams as part of the coursework. For additional free practice questions, check YouTube for study walkthroughs, or ask your course provider whether sample questions are available before purchasing standalone exam prep.

No. Under updated Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) rules, proctoring is no longer required for the course final exams of your six pre-licensing classes. You can take all six 60-question course finals directly online through your school’s portal. However, keep in mind that the official Texas licensing exam through Pearson VUE is still strictly proctored and closed-book. When selecting a school, choose one that builds Pearson VUE-style closed-book practice tests into their program so you aren’t caught off guard on actual test day.

TREC enforces a strict rule: students cannot spend more than 12 hours per day on qualifying coursework, and a single 30-hour course cannot be completed in fewer than 3 days. Additionally, you cannot complete more than one 30-hour course within the same 3-day window. This means the absolute fastest you can legally finish all 180 hours of pre-licensing education is 18 days. Choose an online provider with built-in time-tracking controls that automatically log your progress so you stay fully compliant with TREC submission rules.

It has a reputation for being one of the tougher state exams. The test has 125 questions split into an 85-question National section and a 40-question State section, and you’ll need at least 70% correct on each section to pass. Texas’s first-time pass rate runs around 56 to 57%, on the lower end nationally.

125 multiple-choice questions, split into an 85-question National section and a 40-question State section, administered by Pearson VUE.

70% on each section, scored independently — so it’s possible to pass one section and fail the other.

You only need to retake the section you failed, not the whole exam. You’ll wait 5 to 7 days, then pay the $43 fee again to reschedule.

There’s no overall limit, but after 3 failed attempts on the same section, TREC requires you to complete an additional 30 hours of education before you can retake it — sometimes called Texas’s “three-strike rule.”

You can keep your license inactive for up to one year after completing your educational requirements while you look for a sponsoring broker — there’s no rush to activate it right away. If you go past that one-year window without activating, you’ll need to retake the state exam.

In person only — Texas’s exam is administered at Pearson VUE testing centers across the state. There’s no remote or online testing option.

Texas requires 180 hours of coursework, more than any other state, so spacing out your studying rather than cramming matters more here than almost anywhere else. Study both sections separately, since they’re scored independently and it’s common to pass one but fail the other. And pace yourself: with 125 questions in 4 hours, that’s just under 2 minutes per question.