REALTOR® Emeritus Award Process FAQs

Contact your local board/association of REALTORS® to begin the application process. The local board/association will submit an online application to NAR on your behalf. They may ask you to provide information regarding your membership to see if you qualify. Also see Eligibility below.

The status is a completely voluntary award, and is not automatically granted. Many members apply several years after they become eligible, however, there is no provision for receiving a refund for dues already paid. Your local board and state association, where the majority of your dues are allocated, may have more leeway in what they are able to do for you. We can only recommend that you explain your circumstances to them, and ask if they are able to make an accommodation.

REALTOR® Emeritus members do not pay dues to the National Association and are exempt from the NAR mandated Code of Ethics Training requirement.

The REALTOR® Emeritus status does not affect the mandatory State licensing continuing education requirements.

There is no REALTOR® Emeritus logo available. REALTOR® Emeritus is considered a “status” not a Designation.

Yes.

• April is the deadline for application submissions for award approvals in May. The application process for this deadline opens every Jan 15th.
• October is the deadline for application submissions for award approvals in November. The application process for this deadline opens every June 15th.

If an application was submitted after the deadline it will be reviewed for the next round of approvals. Once approved, the local board will be contacted by NAR's Finance team within a few weeks after the Board of Directors meeting. Certificates (emailed to boards via PDF) and lapel pins are mailed to the boards within a few weeks after each meeting.

Information about serving on a National Committee is available here.

The first step is to create an Expertise Profile.

You will simply need to use your nar.realtor login credentials in order to set it up. If you are unsure what your login credentials might be, you can contact our Member Support team to help reset your password. They can be reached at 800-874-6500 Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. CT.

You can find out if you served on a National Committee here (member log-in required).

Please contact the NAR Governance team if you have questions about NAR's committees.

NAR’s REALTOR® Emeritus status will waive the NAR portion of your board dues. The dues waiver does not take effect until the following dues season. Local and state associations have their own criteria as to when they recognize a REALTOR® Emeritus member for waivers for their own dues, and it is up to your local board’s discretion. For a waiver of local and state dues you will need to converse with them.

Your REALTOR® emeritus status stay’s with you, it is up to the secondary board to what dues or fees they may charge for membership.

In order for the member to be backed out of the NAR dues count, the POE of the board will need to update the member record in M1 by changing the field Dues Waived National to Yes. Please make this change before you begin your next dues billing so the M1 record is correct.

NAR’s REALTOR® Emeritus status will waive the NAR portion of your board dues. The dues waiver does not take effect until the following dues season. Local and state associations have their own criteria as to when they recognize a REALTOR® Emeritus member for waivers for their own dues, and it is up to your local board’s discretion. For a waiver of local and state dues you will need to converse with them.

The status eligibility requirements are:

• Forty (40) or more years of REALTOR® or REALTOR-ASSOCIATE® (or a combination of both) membership.
• One (1) year of service* at the National Association level.

* “Service” is defined as serving as a NAR officer, director, committee member, Federal Political Coordinator, Global Ambassador, or Global Coordinator to a country with which NAR holds a reciprocal agreement.

You will keep your status.

No, it does not count.

Contact your local board of REALTORS® to begin the application process. The local board will submit an online application to NAR on your behalf. They may ask you to provide information regarding your membership. The REALTOR® Emeritus status is a completely voluntary award, and is not automatically granted. There is no provision for receiving a refund for dues already paid.

For those members who would have qualified (1979 or earlier join years) but failed to be submitted before 2020 we will make an exception and allow you to submit their online application only if they’ve served on a local committee. This will waive their National portion of their 2021 dues. It is up to the state and local boards discretion to also waive your portion of dues.

To order a replacement pin, please follow the payment instructions provided below.

Access the secure NAR Member Support Payments portal:

• Under Type of Service, please select REALTOR® Emeritus Replacement Pins.
• Under Payment Information, for Total Payment, please enter $35.00 for each replacement lapel pin.

Note: Credit card payments processed through NAR’s Ecommerce portal will appear on your statement as either “National Association of REALTORS®” or “REALTOR® Association / MLS.”

Members:

• View a basic list of past REALTOR® Emeritus recipients.

Board Staff:

• See the Insights Hub on the main M1 menu for a detailed count.

Emeritus:

This dashboard allows you to search and display the approved REALTOR® Emeritus members that are active in M1. You can select the list by any state association as well as by any local association. You can also search by a particular member name or member ID. Additional filters include meeting approved and year approved.

If you choose a particular state or local association you can also see statistics such as number and number by association.

The display list includes the member ID, member name, association, year approved, etc., and you can also download that list as a CSV file.

A great use of the list if for you to extract the list by your association before dues billing so you know which of your active REALTOR® members have had their national dues waived. Please note the NAR dues waiver begins the year after approval so for members approved in 2023 for example would start their NAR dues waiver for billing year 2024.

Unfortunately, NAR has limited access to individual member records. NAR has digitized membership rosters dating back to 1962 however, they only recorded *principal/managing brokers* until the late 1980s. We often have to look for other ways to prove membership for agents in those earlier years if they were not the principal broker.

Additional sources that may help provide proof of membership include:

• First date of the applicant’s licensure;
• Name of the applicant’s first broker;
• Newspaper article, plaque;
• If the applicant’s first managing broker belonged to the local association say in 1979, then it’s safe to assume that the applicant also would have belonged to that association when they first became licensed. An affidavit would be helpful if no other proof is found;
• We also go by what’s listed as the join year in a member’s M1 record. This entry can only be updated by the current local association of REALTORS®.