Utah Real Estate Advertising Rules (R162-2f-401h) — the Half-Size Rule Was Repealed
Utah’s rule names email in its definition of advertising, and then asks for remarkably little: the brokerage name, clearly and conspicuously. The elaborate requirements still circulating — the half-size lettering rule, the team disclaimers, the title restrictions — were all repealed in January 2017.
Step by step
Include the brokerage name, clearly and conspicuously
R162-2f-401h(1): a licensee shall not advertise real estate services or property “in any medium without clearly and conspicuously identifying in the advertisement the name of the brokerage with which the licensee is affiliated.” That is the whole general requirement.
Use the name on Division records
401h(4): “The name of the brokerage identified by a licensee in an advertisement shall be the name of the brokerage as shown on division records.”
Skip the license number
Verified across the whole rule and the whole statute chapter: no licence number is required. Utah is not a third number state — California and Nevada remain the only two of eighteen checked.
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Download freeUnlock Pro — one-time, no subscriptionDo not size anything — that rule is gone
There is no size, proportion or font requirement in current Utah law. The word “prominent” appears nowhere in the rule or the statute chapter. The standard is “clearly and conspicuously” and nothing more.
Where a medium genuinely cannot carry it, link instead
401h(2): where it is not reasonable to identify the brokerage in an electronic advertisement, the licensee “shall ensure the electronic advertisement directly links to a display that clearly and conspicuously identifies the name of the brokerage.” The statute frames the same idea as a link “within one click”. An email signature has room, so this is not your route.
Advertising your own property? Use owner-agent or owner-broker
401h(3) excuses the brokerage name only where all three apply: the property is not listed with your brokerage, you have an ownership interest, and the advertisement identifies you as “owner-agent” or “owner-broker”.
Team? The rule is one sentence
401h(5) in its entirety: “A team, group, or other marketing entity which includes one or more licensees shall be subject to the same requirements and restrictions with regard to advertising as is an individual licensee.” No required words, no banned words, no registration.
What Utah repealed in 2017 — and people still quote
Utah rewrote this rule effective January 2017 and deleted a large amount of prescriptive detail. None of the following is current Utah law:
- “The brokerage name must be in lettering at least one-half the size of the licensee’s name.” Repealed — replaced by “clearly and conspicuously”. This is the single most-repeated stale Utah claim.
- “A team advertisement must disclose that the team is not a brokerage.” Repealed.
- “A team may not advertise as owner-agent or owner-broker.” Repealed.
- “An advertisement may not imply a position or status other than sales agent, associate broker, or principal broker.” Repealed — there is now no title-restriction rule in Utah advertising at all.
- “A photo of a non-licensee must identify that person’s role.” Repealed.
- “Guaranteed sales plan disclosures must be at least one-fourth the size of the largest print.” Repealed — now simply “clear and conspicuous”.
A citation caution too: the advertising rule is R162-2f-401h. R162-2f-401j is Standards for Property Management — a different rule that search engines readily confuse with it.
Email is named — and 2025 added a social-media carve-out
R162-2f-102(2) defines advertising as a commercial message through: newspaper, magazine, Internet, email, radio, television, direct mail promotions, business cards, door hangers, signs, other electronic communication, or any other medium. Email is named outright.
Then in 2025 the legislature added a narrower statutory definition, effective 7 May 2025, which is worth reading carefully:
An “advertisement” is a notice or announcement meant to promote the availability of real estate, to offer specific types of brokerage services, or to “specifically solicit the public to contact that licensee for more information”.
And it expressly does not include “a social media post that generally identifies the person as being engaged in the profession of real estate” where it does none of those three things.
The carve-out is real, but narrow — it covers a post that merely says what you do for a living. A signature block that offers your services or invites contact falls inside the third limb, and inside the rule’s “email” medium regardless.
The honest limit: we found no Division guidance or enforcement action addressing an email signature specifically. The published citations in this area are for internet listings and social media posts — several at $500 each, for advertising without properly identifying the brokerage. The requirement is clear; its application to a signature block is a reading, not a ruling.
How current is this?
The rule has not been amended since 16 August 2023, with no proposed or emergency filings pending. The statute changed in 2025 as described, and a further amendment effective 1 October 2026 touches only a cross-reference — the advertising duty itself is unaffected.
On sourcing: Cornell’s text of this rule is substantively correct, but its currency stamp is one version behind and it naturally reflects none of the 2025 statutory additions. Utah’s own administrative-rules publisher is the better citation.
State law vs. the NAR Code
Utah’s single requirement — the brokerage name, clearly and conspicuously — is enforced by the Division, and the published citations show it is enforced in practice. NAR’s Standard of Practice 12-5 asks for the firm name “in a reasonable and readily apparent manner”, and SoP 12-9 additionally asks websites to disclose the firm’s name and state(s) of licensure — an element with no Utah counterpart, owed to your association rather than to the Division.
Sources: Utah Admin. Code R162-2f-102(2), R162-2f-205, R162-2f-401a, R162-2f-401b, R162-2f-401h (Requirements and Restrictions in Advertising; current version eff. 16 Aug. 2023, prescriptive provisions repealed eff. Jan. 2017), R162-2f-401j; Utah Code §§ 61-2f-102(2), (3), (8), 61-2f-201(1)(c), 61-2f-401(1), (12) (as amended by H.B. 419, 2025 General Session, eff. 7 May 2025); Utah Division of Real Estate quarterly newsletters (enforcement citations); NAR 2026 Code of Ethics. Verified against Utah's Office of Administrative Rules and the Utah Legislature's published code, 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.
One requirement, met every time
Utah asks for one thing — the brokerage name as registered, clearly and conspicuously — and the Division does issue citations when it is missing. Autograph builds the signature once, installs it into Apple Mail in one click, and sets up your iPhone by QR code so the mobile version carries it too.
Download Autograph free See the templatesCommon questions
Does Utah require the brokerage name to be half the size of my name?
No, not since January 2017. That rule was repealed and replaced with “clearly and conspicuously”. There is now no size, proportion or font requirement anywhere in Utah’s advertising rule — the word “prominent” does not even appear in it. The half-size claim remains one of the most-repeated stale statements about Utah.
Does Utah require my license number in advertising?
No. The phrase does not appear in the advertising rule or anywhere in the governing statute chapter as an advertising requirement. Of eighteen states checked in this series, only California and Nevada require one.
Is a social media post an advertisement in Utah?
Not always, since May 2025. The statute now excludes “a social media post that generally identifies the person as being engaged in the profession of real estate” — provided it does not promote a property, offer specific brokerage services, or specifically solicit the public to contact you. A post that does any of those three is still an advertisement.
Which rule is Utah's advertising rule?
R162-2f-401h. It is often given as R162-2f-401j, which is actually “Standards for Property Management” — a different rule entirely, and one that search engines return for advertising queries.
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