California Real Estate Email Signature Requirements (DRE License Number, 2026)
Updated July 2026 · 7 steps
California is among the strictest states here: your DRE license identification number must appear on first-point-of-contact solicitation materials, and the regulation names e-mail in its own list. Here is what to put in your signature, what the rule says, and the one part that is genuinely unsettled.
This is a plain-English summary of a published rule, not legal advice. Advertising rules change and brokerages impose stricter policies than the state does. Confirm with your broker or the California DRE before relying on it.
Step by step
1
Start with your name as licensed
The baseline. Bus. & Prof. Code § 10140.6(b)(1) requires a licensee to disclose “their name, license identification number… and responsible broker’s identity.”
2
Add your 8-digit DRE license number
The regulation is specific about length: 10 CCR § 2773(a) requires the “eight (8) digit real estate license identification number.” No particular label is mandated — “DRE #”, “CalDRE #” and “Lic. #” are conventions, not requirements.
3
Add your responsible broker's licensed name
Not the team name and not a nickname — the broker’s name as currently licensed. The broker’s own number is optional: you “may, but is not required to” include it.
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“The type size of the license identification number shall be no smaller than the smallest size type used in the solicitation material.” If your signature has 10px fine print at the bottom, the licence number cannot be set at 8px.
5
Using a team name? Size it against the broker
Under § 10159.6, materials must show the team name plus “the name and license number of at least one of the licensed members of the team,” and “the responsible broker’s identity shall be displayed as prominently and conspicuously as the team name.”
6
Two agents in one signature means two numbers
“If the name of more than one licensee appears in the solicitation, the license identification number of each licensee shall be disclosed.” Partner signatures need both.
7
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What the rule actually says
Two provisions do the work. The statute, Business & Professions Code § 10140.6(b)(1), requires disclosure of your name, licence identification number and the “responsible broker’s identity” on solicitation materials intended to be the first point of contact with consumers. The regulation, 10 CCR § 2773(a), adds the eight-digit requirement, the broker-name requirement and the type-size floor.
§ 2773(a) lists seven categories of first-point-of-contact material, and e-mail is named in item (5): “advertisements in electronic media (including, without limitation, internet, email, radio, cinema, and television advertisements…).” The DRE’s own chart RE 559 lists that row’s media as including “mail (regular & email).”
The honest caveat — and most pages will not tell you this. § 2773(c) narrows that electronic-media category to advertisements a licensee “purchases or directly places on an electronic platform.” Read strictly, that describes a bought email ad, not the signature on your day-to-day correspondence. A routine signature more plausibly falls under item (2), “stationery”, which is not qualified as paper or electronic, and under the statute’s catch-all for “other materials designed to solicit the creation of a professional relationship.” We could not find a DRE advisory, FAQ or enforcement action settling it either way. Including the number is the conservative reading, it is what the industry does, and it costs nothing. But if you find a page stating flatly that the DRE has ruled on email signatures, it is claiming more than the published sources support.
What is new for 2026
The disclosure rules above did not change — § 10140.6 was last amended effective 2023 and § 2773 in 2019, both unchanged in the DRE’s 2026 editions. The real 2026 change is § 10140.8 (AB 723), effective 1 January 2026: a licensee including a digitally altered image in an advertisement for the sale of real property must disclose the alteration and link to the unaltered original. Routine lighting, colour, cropping and exposure adjustments are excluded. A listing-advertising rule rather than a signature rule, but it is the genuinely new obligation this year.
State law vs. the NAR Code
Different bodies enforce these. California law requires the licence number; the NAR Code does not. NAR Standard of Practice 12-5 separately requires REALTOR® members to disclose their firm’s name when advertising in any medium “(e.g., electronically, print, radio, television)” — owed to your association, not to the DRE. Firm-name disclosure is required by both; the licence number is California law only.
Sources: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 10140.6, 10140.8, 10159.6; 10 Cal. Code Regs. § 2773; DRE forms RE 559 and RE 27; NAR 2026 Code of Ethics. Verified against the DRE’s 2026 Real Estate Law and Regulations editions, September 2026.
What does your state actually require?
Pick a state. Every answer is taken from the current rule text and checked against that state’s own statute and regulations — not from a template, and not from the regulator’s summary of its own rules, which is wrong in twenty-six jurisdictions.
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Common questions
Does California really require my DRE number in an email signature?
California requires it on “solicitation materials intended to be the first point of contact with consumers,” and the regulation’s list of those materials names email. What is genuinely unsettled is whether a routine day-to-day signature counts or only a purchased email advertisement — § 2773(c) narrows the electronic-media category to ads you buy or place. There is no published DRE ruling either way, and including it removes the question.
Do I need my broker's license number as well as their name?
No. You need the responsible broker’s name as currently licensed. The regulation expressly says you “may, but is not required to” also include the broker’s license identification number.
Is there a required format, like “DRE #01234567”?
No published source prescribes a label or a position. What is prescribed: eight digits, and type no smaller than the smallest type used elsewhere in the material. “DRE #”, “CalDRE #” and “Lic. #” are all conventions.
What if my signature shows a team name?
The team name may appear, but the responsible broker’s identity must be displayed as prominently and conspicuously as the team name, and the name and licence number of at least one licensed team member must be included.
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