Michigan Real Estate Advertising Rules (MCL 339.2512e) — the Rules Everyone Cites Were Rescinded
Michigan is structurally unlike every other state in this series: its advertising requirements live entirely in statute. The administrative rules everyone still cites were rescinded in 2017 and never replaced. Michigan also has no team rule — the word does not appear in its law at all.
Step by step
Advertise in your employing broker's business name
MCL 339.2512e(3): a salesperson or associate broker “shall only advertise… under the supervision of, and in the business name of, his or her employing broker.”
Include the broker's telephone number or street address
2512e(3)(a) requires “the telephone number or street address of the employing broker.” Note it is a genuine either/or — unlike Pennsylvania and Tennessee, which both demand the phone number specifically.
Set the broker's name in equal or greater type size
2512e(3)(b): the employing broker’s business name must appear “in equal or greater type size than the name of the associate broker, salesperson, or cooperating group.” This has applied to advertising published on or after 1 January 2018.
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Download freeUnlock Pro — one-time, no subscriptionKnow how the regulator measures “type size”
The statute does not define it, so LARA published its test: either the height of the block containing your name does not exceed the height of the block containing the broker’s, or the point size of the majority of letters in your name does not exceed the point size of the tallest word in the broker’s name. LARA also allows a different font and colour, and permits your name to be bold where the broker’s is not.
Skip the license number
A verified negative across the whole of Article 25 and the current rules: nothing requires a licence number in advertising. Only California and Nevada do, of the sixteen states checked.
Use only the name your license is issued in
2512e(5): a broker “shall not conduct business or advertise under a name other than that in which the broker’s license is issued or under an assumed name that is authorized by law.”
Selling your own home? Different rule, and say you are licensed
2512e(4): a salesperson may not advertise to sell real property under their own name “unless the property is the principal residence of the salesperson”, nor advertise property for rent or lease under their own name unless they own it. And under 2512e(2) such an advertisement must “indicate affirmatively” that the seller is a licensed broker or associate broker.
The rules everyone cites no longer exist
Michigan used to regulate advertising through administrative rules in the R 339.223xx series. In 2016 the legislature moved the requirements into statute, and the entire rule series was rescinded — effective 2017. R 339.22301 and its neighbours are marked “Rescinded” in Michigan’s own code today.
Anything citing R 339.22301 for Michigan advertising is citing law that has been dead for nine years.
A second, subtler citation error is even more common: MCL 339.2512 is frequently given as the advertising section. It is not — it covers dual agency, agency disclosure and trust accounts, and contains no advertising provision at all. The advertising section is MCL 339.2512e.
The surviving rules were rewritten and renumbered effective 4 June 2025. None of them concerns licensee advertising. The one current rule with “advertising” in its title governs real estate schools — requiring course advertising to name the approved school — and has nothing to do with agents.
Michigan has no team rule — it has “cooperating groups”
Stated plainly, because the claim circulates: the word “team” appears nowhere in Michigan’s Occupational Code Article 25 or in its current administrative rules.
What Michigan has instead is a statutory term of its own — a “cooperating group of associate brokers or salespersons employed by the same real estate broker”. A cooperating group’s name gets exactly the same treatment as an individual’s: the employing broker’s business name in equal or greater type size, plus the broker’s phone or address.
There is no team-name registration, no approval process, no list of prohibited words, and no requirement that the name include a member’s name. The size requirement is real; describing it as a team-name regulation is not.
The element most summaries drop
For advertising by a broker, 2512e(1) requires three things, and the third is routinely omitted: the broker’s name or business name, the broker’s telephone number or street address, and that the advertisement “shall state that the person doing the advertising is a real estate broker.” Not implied — stated.
Does an email signature count? Michigan does not say
Be careful with anyone who tells you it plainly does. Article 25 contains no definition of “advertisement” or “advertising” at all, and the words email, internet, website and social media appear nowhere in it. Neither does LARA’s advertising guidance mention any medium.
What the statute does say is “any advertising displayed or published”, which is medium-neutral on its face and very likely reaches promotional email. But whether a signature block on ordinary correspondence — as opposed to a marketing email — is itself an advertisement is a question Michigan has not answered, in statute, rule, guidance or published opinion.
The practical answer is unchanged: build the signature to the statute and the question never arises.
Two sourcing cautions
Cornell is not merely stale here — it is describing a different regime. Its Michigan real estate index still presents the pre-2018 architecture, listing Parts 3 through 6 of the rescinded rule series, and does not list the current rules at all.
And LARA’s own general Real Estate FAQ document, which circulated widely, has been removed from its website and now returns a dead link. Its last version contained no advertising content in any case.
One nuance on LARA’s advertising bulletin, which is worth reading but is an enforcement interpretation rather than a promulgated rule: it describes the broker’s name as the name “as on file with the Department”. That phrase is not in the statute — a defensible synthesis with 2512e(5), but LARA’s language rather than the legislature’s.
How current is this?
MCL 339.2512e has never been amended since it was added, effective 29 March 2017. The 1 January 2018 date inside it is a compliance deadline written into the original act, not a later change. The only 2024–2026 amendment to Article 25 concerned right-to-list home sale agreements and did not touch advertising.
State law vs. the NAR Code
Everything above is Michigan licensing law, enforced by LARA. Note that using a title you are not licensed for is a separate offence under MCL 339.601(1) — a misdemeanour — so a salesperson calling themselves a “broker” is not merely an advertising problem. Michigan does define “professional designation”, but only to support continuing-education credit; no Michigan law restricts displaying designations in advertising. That, and REALTOR® usage, are NAR and MLS matters.
Sources: Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 339.601, 339.2501, 339.2512, 339.2512e (added by 2016 PA 502, eff. 29 Mar. 2017), 339.2504a; Michigan Administrative Code R 339.22101–22667 (rules renumbered eff. 4 June 2025; the former R 339.223xx advertising series rescinded 2017); LARA advertising guidance of 18 Sept. 2017; NAR 2026 Code of Ethics. Verified against the Michigan Legislature's published statutes and LARA's administrative rules system, 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.
Broker's name, sized right, on every device
Michigan measures the broker’s name against yours — the kind of proportion that quietly breaks when a signature is retyped on a phone. Autograph builds it once, installs it into Apple Mail in one click, and sets up your iPhone by QR code so the sizes survive.
Download Autograph free See the templatesCommon questions
Is R 339.22301 still Michigan's advertising rule?
No. That rule and the entire R 339.223xx series were rescinded effective 2017 when the requirements were moved into statute by 2016 PA 502. Michigan’s own code marks them “Rescinded”. The operative provision is MCL 339.2512e — and note it is 2512e, not 2512, which contains no advertising provision.
Does Michigan have team advertising rules?
No. The word “team” appears nowhere in Michigan’s Occupational Code Article 25 or its current rules. The statute uses “cooperating group” instead, and subjects a group’s name to the same requirement as an individual’s — the employing broker’s name in equal or greater type size. There is no registration, no approval and no banned words.
Does Michigan require my license number in advertising?
No. Nothing in Article 25 or the current administrative rules requires one. Of sixteen states checked in this series, only California and Nevada do.
How is “equal or greater type size” actually measured?
LARA published a two-part test because the statute does not define it: either the height of the block containing your name does not exceed the height of the block containing the broker’s name, or the point size of the majority of letters in your name does not exceed the point size of the tallest word in the broker’s. LARA also permits a different font and colour, and allows your name to be bold where the broker’s is not.
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