Kentucky Real Estate Advertising Rules — and the Rule That Expires in December 2026
Kentucky asks for the brokerage’s full registered name or the principal broker’s — and caps your own name so it can never appear larger. It is also the only state in this series whose advertising rule carries an expiry date, and that date is 16 December 2026.
Step by step
Include the brokerage name — or the principal broker's, with a designation
201 KAR 11:105 Section 2(2): all advertisements shall include “the full name of the real estate brokerage company registered with the commission; or… the full name of the principal broker registered with the commission, with a clear designation of principal broker status.” It is an either/or, not both.
Use the full name as registered
Not an abbreviation and not a shortened form — the full name registered with the commission.
Never let your own name appear larger
Section 3(2)(a) works as a ceiling rather than a floor: the optional content — your name, or your team’s — “shall not appear larger than” the required brokerage or principal-broker name. Equal is fine; larger is not.
A logo will not do it
Section 3(6) is explicit: a logo without written text does not substitute for the required content. The required content must be “in written text” and “clear and visible to a typical observer”.
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Verified: the phrase appears zero times in the advertising regulation, zero times in the definitions regulation, and zero times in the governing statute. Of thirty-five states checked, only California and Nevada require one.
Register a nickname before you use it — one only
Section 2(3) permits an affiliated licensee’s first and last name or a registered alternate name, and allows one nickname per licensee — which must be reflected in the Commission’s online services portal before use.
Team name? It has to end in “Team” or “Group”
Section 4(5): “If the alternate or assumed name applies to a team or group, the alternate or assumed name shall end with the word ‘team’ or ‘group’.” The principal broker must register the name and notify the Commission before permitting team advertising.
Licensed elsewhere? Name the other jurisdiction
Section 3(7): where the principal business location is outside Kentucky, the advertising must indicate the licensee holds a Kentucky licence and name the regulatory jurisdiction of the principal location.
The rule expires on 16 December 2026
Kentucky regulations carry a seven-year life. 201 KAR 11:105 is stamped with an expiry of 16 December 2026 — seven years from the day the current version took effect.
Before that date the Commission must either amend the regulation or file a certification letter to keep it alive. As of the September 2026 Register, neither had been done, and the Legislative Research Commission’s own tracking shows no certification filed.
This is almost certainly administrative — agencies routinely certify late in the window. But it makes Kentucky the one state in this series where the advertising rule itself has a date on it, and anything written about Kentucky now should be re-checked after that date.
The regulation is under active review. The Commission’s February 2026 minutes record it working through this rule and the definitions rule, discussing artificial intelligence, and considering whether a licensee’s advertising name should be required to match their legal birth name rather than a nickname — which would narrow the affiliate-nickname allowance above. Nothing had been filed as of the September 2026 Register.
The regulator addressed email on the record
Kentucky does not name email in the rule. What it has instead is better: a legislative record of the Commission being asked about email, and answering.
The operative text is the definition — advertising means “any manner, method, or activity” by which a licensee makes known a property or any service requiring a licence, and expressly excludes “private communications between a licensee and a client or prospective client”.
At the 2019 subcommittee meeting that adopted this rule, the Commission’s counsel stated on the record that a licensee must self-identify “in an advertisement or in communication, such as mail or email”, and that “advertisements were not exempt; therefore, unsolicited emails should not be a major concern.”
So the position is not inference: a marketing or prospecting email is an advertisement and carries the requirements. A genuinely private email to an existing client is exempt. Because that line is fact-dependent, a standing signature is the safe posture.
Every page and every post is its own advertisement
Section 3(3) treats “each individual viewable page or post” as a separate advertisement. The required content must appear in the header or be visible without scrolling — failing which there must be a “clear, visible, identifiable clickable direct link” to a page carrying it. The Commission calls this the one-click requirement.
Audiovisual advertising gets its own placement rule: an audible announcement or written display at the beginning.
The “Realty” team-name ban lasted 28 days
You will find it asserted that a Kentucky team name may not contain “realty” or “real estate”. That was true for four weeks in 2020.
On 21 May 2020 the Commission passed a resolution declaring such names misleading and a violation, and its General Counsel issued a memorandum announcing it.
On 18 June 2020 the Commission rescinded that resolution, effective immediately, resolving instead to address and adjudicate on a case-by-case basis whether the contents of a team or group name violate the Act or the regulations. It has never been reinstated.
That is why the memorandum returns a 404 on the Commission’s own site. It is not lost — it is withdrawn.
So there is no bright line here. A team name is judged against the regulation’s own test, case by case. What is categorical, and sits in the regulation, is that the name must end with the word “team” or “group”.
The internet rule everyone quotes was repealed in 2019
You will find a detailed Kentucky internet-advertising requirement in circulation: that a company’s home page must show its full non-abbreviated name, a statement where the principal office sits outside Kentucky, and a street address and telephone number for the principal office.
That was 201 KAR 11:420, and it was repealed effective 16 December 2019. The Commission’s own page for it is stamped “no longer current”.
Two percentages that are not yours
Kentucky contains two numeric size rules, and neither is the general advertising standard:
- 25% — applies only to guaranteed sales plan disclosures, under Section 6 of the same regulation.
- 50% — belongs to appraisers, in an entirely different chapter, and mandates a disclaimer sentence rather than a name.
The general rule for your signature is the no-larger-than ceiling, not a percentage.
Kentucky has no “associate broker”
A correction worth making because the tier is widely attributed to Kentucky. The statute defines broker, principal broker, sales associate and designated manager, and the regulations add affiliated licensee. There is no “associate broker” anywhere in the Act or the chapter.
A related trap: the only licence number in this area sits in a different regulation requiring the principal broker to notify the Commission in writing of the team leader’s name and licence number. That is a filing to the regulator, not something displayed in advertising — and it is the most likely source of the claim that Kentucky requires a licence number in ads.
The statute is narrower than the rule
Worth knowing if you are handed the statute rather than the regulation. KRS 324.117(4) requires the company or principal broker’s name in advertisements of listed property. The regulation reaches “all advertisements”.
That gap is deliberate: before the 2019 rewrite the regulation was itself limited to listed property, and its old title said so. The rewrite broadened it and renumbered the sections — so pre-2019 cross-references to this rule are unreliable.
State law vs. the NAR Code
No Kentucky rule restricts professional designations such as GRI, CRS or ABR. The statute does make it unlawful for an unlicensed person to use “any terms, titles, or abbreviations” implying licensure. REALTOR® is an NAR trademark governed by membership contract; your MLS may impose its own advertising fines, which the Commission does not administer.
Sources: 201 KAR 11:011 § 1(2), (39)–(40); 201 KAR 11:105 (Advertising; current version eff. 16 Dec. 2019, expiry 16 Dec. 2026); 201 KAR 11:121 §§ 1(1)(g), 9(7)–(8) (eff. 2 May 2023); 201 KAR 11:420 (repealed eff. 16 Dec. 2019); 201 KAR 30:040 (appraisers, for contrast); KRS §§ 324.010, 324.020, 324.117, 324.160; Kentucky Administrative Register Vol. 46 Nos. 1, 6, 7; Kentucky Real Estate Commission resolution of 21 May 2020; NAR 2026 Code of Ethics. Verified against the Legislative Research Commission's published regulations and registers, 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.
Full registered name, never outsized
Kentucky wants the brokerage’s full registered name in written text, with your own name never larger — a proportion a phone-typed signature does not preserve. Autograph builds it once, installs it into Apple Mail in one click, and sets up your iPhone by QR code.
Download Autograph free See the templatesCommon questions
Is it true the Kentucky advertising rule expires in 2026?
It carries a seven-year expiry of 16 December 2026, and as of the September 2026 Register no amendment or certification letter had been filed to extend it. That is very likely a routine administrative step still to come — agencies commonly certify late in the window — but it does mean anything written about Kentucky advertising should be re-checked after that date.
Does my name have to be smaller than the brokerage's?
Not smaller — just never larger. Kentucky uses a ceiling rather than a floor: the optional content, including your name and any team name, “shall not appear larger than” the required brokerage or principal-broker name. Equal sizing complies.
Does Kentucky require my license number in advertising?
No. The phrase appears nowhere in the advertising regulation, the definitions regulation, or the statute. The likely source of the confusion is a separate rule requiring the principal broker to notify the Commission in writing of a team leader’s name and licence number — a filing, not a display.
Can a Kentucky team name include the word “Realty”?
Yes — subject to the general test. A Commission resolution of May 2020 did declare “realty” and “real estate” misleading in a team name, but the Commission rescinded it 28 days later, on 18 June 2020, reverting to case-by-case adjudication. It has never been reinstated, which is why the memorandum announcing it now returns a 404. What the regulation does require is that the name end with “team” or “group”.
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