Hawaii Real Estate Email Signature Requirements — the B / S / R / RA Rule
Hawaii asks for something no other state does: a licence-class designator after your name — B, S, or, if you belong to the Hawaii Association of Realtors, R or RA. It is the only state in this series whose advertising rule turns partly on trade-association membership.
Step by step
Include the brokerage firm's legal or registered trade name
HAR § 16-99-11(a): all advertising and promotional materials “shall include the legal name of the brokerage firm or a trade name previously registered by the brokerage firm with the business registration division and with the commission.” You may abbreviate Incorporated, Corporation, Limited and the partnership and LLC forms, and you may use “dba” with the licensed name.
Include your own name as licensed
§ 16-99-11(e)(1): materials referring to the individual licensee’s name — “including but not limited to business cards” — must include the licensee’s legal name, name as licensed, or sole proprietor’s licensed trade name.
Identify your brokerage firm
(e)(2): the material must “identify the licensee with the licensee’s associating or employing brokerage firm”.
Add the designator: B, S, R or RA
(e)(3), and this is the distinctive one: the material must “specify that the licensee is a broker (B), or salesperson (S), or if a current member of the Hawaii Association of Realtors, Realtor (R) or Realtor-Associate (RA).” The Commission has confirmed the word spelled out also complies — “Pete Aloha, Broker” is one of its own approved examples — and that an all-Realtor board member holding a salesperson’s licence may write R(S) or Realtor(Salesperson).
Or skip the manual setup
Autograph designs the signature on your Mac and installs it into Apple Mail in one click — images hosted at permanent URLs, assigned to the right account, and re-applied automatically when a macOS update or iCloud sync wipes it.
Download freeUnlock Pro — one-time, no subscriptionDisclose your licensee status — even if your licence is inactive
§ 16-99-11(c) is separate and often missed: current individual licensees, “whether active or inactive”, shall disclose their status as a real estate licensee in all advertising and promotional material.
Skip the license number
Verified: no licence-number requirement exists in the Commission’s rules or the governing statute. Of twenty-eight states checked, only California and Nevada require one. The Hawaii claim traces to a 2019 draft chapter that was never adopted.
Advertising on another island? Add the principal office's address and phone
A genuinely Hawaiian rule. Under § 16-99-5.2(3), a licensee residing on a different island from the principal place of business must, in any advertisement on that other island, disclose the brokerage firm name and the address and telephone number of the principal place of business.
Advertising a leasehold? Say so
§ 16-99-11(d): “A leasehold property advertised for sale in any medium shall be identified by the word ‘leasehold’.” Unsurprising in Hawaii, and absent from every other state in this series.
The designator rule, and why it is unusual
Across this series the boundary has been consistent: REALTOR® is a trade-association mark governed by contract, not by state law. Hawaii is the exception. Its rule names the Hawaii Association of Realtors as a factual predicate — you may use R or RA only if you are a current member, and otherwise you use B or S.
The obligation is still the state’s, not the association’s. But it means a Hawaii signature has to state something about your licence class that most states never ask for, and that the four permitted answers are fixed.
Most of what you will read about Hawaii comes from a chapter that does not exist
In November 2019 the Commission’s Laws and Rules Review Committee worked through a proposed Chapter 16-99.1, including a new advertising section and a new team-name section. Among the things discussed: keeping the words “prominent” and “conspicuous”, requiring the brokerage name to be no smaller than the team name, a proportional size rule, and putting a licence number in advertising.
Chapter 16-99.1 was never adopted. The Department publishes exactly one licensee chapter, and no 16-99.1 exists. None of those four requirements is Hawaii law — yet all four circulate as though they were.
In particular: the phrase “prominently and conspicuously” is not in the advertising rule. Those words appear in the Commission’s rules only in provisions about displaying your licence certificate in the office. There is no font-size, proportionality or prominence requirement anywhere in Hawaii’s adopted advertising rule.
A second trap sits alongside it. The Department’s “Proposed Rulemaking” page is stale — it still lists a memo dated July 2013 and a draft from April 2016 as though pending. That rulemaking concluded in 2016. No chapter 99 rulemaking has appeared on any Commission agenda through 2026.
Hawaii has no team rule — and the Commission has said so twice
The word “team” appears zero times in the Commission’s rules and zero times in the governing statute. Unusually, we do not have to infer the negative from silence:
- November 2017 Bulletin: “Hawaii has no rules in place specifically regarding teams.”
- November 2021 Bulletin: “there are no specific laws and rules that oversee ‘teams’.”
What exists is a non-binding interpretation approved at a Commission meeting in February 2015: so long as the team name is advertised in addition to and not as a replacement of the brokerage firm’s name, the brokerage-name requirement is met. The Commission adds that a team is not a real estate entity, may not be a corporation, partnership, LLC or LLP, and may not be used as a licensee’s trade name. Useful — but interpretation, not rule.
Websites are settled. Email is not.
Hawaii’s rule is medium-neutral — “all real estate advertising and promotional materials”, “in any medium”, and materials “including but not limited to business cards”. It does not name email.
For websites the position is now firm. The Commission stated in a 2023 Bulletin that “when a consumer goes to your website, the website is considered advertising” — while candidly conceding that “the advertising rules do not specifically mention” websites. And in March 2026 that determination was applied in a contested-case Final Order, finding a violation of the brokerage-name requirement and imposing a $1,500 fine.
Four errors in the Commission's own publications
Hawaii is the thirteenth state in this series where the regulator’s published material does not match its own rules:
- The November 2021 Bulletin prints “HAR § 16-99-11(a)” and then quotes the text of subsection (e). Anyone copying it cites the wrong subsection.
- The August 2026 Bulletin’s violations table prints “HAR § 16-9-11(a)” — a digit short.
- The Commission’s 2004 advertising guidelines — still its live linked guidance — cite “HAR 16-99-11(1)” for a subsection lettered (a), label two statutory chapters as rules, rely on a condominium statute since superseded whose implementing chapter was repealed in March 2026, and state flatly that an advertisement “MUST” carry the HUD logo. Its source links are dead.
- A 2012 Bulletin announced that the designator rule was “pending rule-making amendments” to require only B or S. That amendment was never adopted — R and RA remain.
Three “advertising” rules that are not yours
Hawaii’s licensee chapter contains two other advertising sections, each with its own definition of the word: one for real estate schools and one for continuing-education providers. Both begin “for purposes of this subchapter”, and neither governs licensee advertising — but they surface readily in searches. Separately, a condominium advertising chapter that older guidance still cites was repealed in March 2026 and replaced.
How current is this?
§ 16-99-11 has not been substantively amended since 21 May 2001. The chapter was compiled in December 2016, but the advertising section was carried through unchanged — we compared the 2016 draft against the adopted compilation and the text is word for word identical.
Sources: Haw. Admin. R. §§ 16-99-3, 16-99-5, 16-99-5.2(3), 16-99-11 (Advertisement; last amended 21 May 2001, compiled 19 Dec. 2016), 16-99-66, 16-99-113; Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 467-1.6, 467-4, 467-7, 467-14; Real Estate Commission Bulletins (Nov. 2017, Nov. 2020, Nov. 2021, Aug. 2023, Aug. 2026), advertising guidelines (2004), the Commission's determination of 30 Aug. 2002, and its Final Order of 27 Mar. 2026; Laws and Rules Review Committee minutes of 6 Nov. 2019 (proposed ch. 16-99.1, never adopted); NAR 2026 Code of Ethics. Verified against the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs' published rules and the Commission's own bulletins, 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.
Name, firm, and the right designator
Hawaii wants your licensed name, your brokerage firm, and a B, S, R or RA after it — on every device. Autograph builds the signature once and installs it into Apple Mail in one click, then sets up your iPhone by QR code so the designator does not get dropped on mobile.
Download Autograph free See the templatesCommon questions
What is the B / S / R / RA rule?
Hawaii requires advertising that names an individual licensee to specify their licence class: broker (B) or salesperson (S) — or, if you are a current member of the Hawaii Association of Realtors, Realtor (R) or Realtor-Associate (RA). The Commission has confirmed the words spelled out also comply, and that a member of an all-Realtor board holding a salesperson’s licence may write R(S).
Does Hawaii require my license number in advertising?
No. There is no licence-number requirement in the Commission’s rules or the statute. The claim traces to a proposed Chapter 16-99.1 discussed in 2019 — which also proposed a size rule and the words “prominent and conspicuous” — and was never adopted. None of those requirements is Hawaii law.
Does the brokerage name have to be prominent or a certain size?
No. There is no font-size, proportionality or prominence requirement in Hawaii’s adopted advertising rule. The words “prominent” and “conspicuous” appear in the Commission’s rules only in provisions about displaying your licence certificate in the office.
Does Hawaii have team advertising rules?
No — and the Commission has said so in print twice, in 2017 and again in 2021. The word “team” appears nowhere in its rules or the statute. All that exists is a non-binding interpretation from February 2015: a team name is acceptable so long as it appears in addition to the brokerage firm’s name rather than replacing it.
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