# The table most brokerages cite on unlicensed assistants is dated 2017

> NAR's state-by-state PDF is still the document handed to new coordinators. State regulators have published a great deal since it was written.

**Section:** Compliance  
**Published:** June 30, 2026  
**Byline:** TC Bulletin Staff  
**Canonical URL:** https://tcbulletin.com/compliance/nar-unlicensed-assistants-table-is-dated-2017  
**Publisher:** TC Bulletin (tcbulletin.com)

## Key points

- NAR maintains a state-by-state Unlicensed Assistants Table as a PDF dated 2017.
- It sits alongside NAR's Field Guide to Personal Assistants.
- State commissions including the California DRE and Texas TREC have published guidance since.
- Use the table for orientation and the state regulator for authority.

---

Ask a brokerage compliance officer where the line sits on unlicensed assistance and there is a good chance the answer arrives as a PDF attachment. It is usually the same PDF: the National Association of REALTORS state-by-state table on unlicensed assistants, which carries a 2017 date.

The table is not wrong so much as old. It was assembled to give a national overview of a question that is decided fifty times over, and it does that job well. But nine years is a long time in licensing guidance, and the state commissions have not stopped publishing. The California DRE maintains both a live page and a detailed PDF guide. TREC has published its own conditional guidance pointing at TRELA and Rules 535.4 and 535.5.

## Where it still earns its place

For a coordinator taking on a file in a state they have not worked before, the table answers the first question quickly: is this a state that treats the activity permissively, or one that does not. That is a useful triage step. It is not a defence.

NAR's Field Guide to Personal Assistants is the companion document and is maintained on the association's site. Both are membership-oriented material written with brokerage assistants in mind, which is a different working relationship from an independent coordinator contracting with several agents at once.

### Primary sources for this story

- [NAR Field Guide to Personal Assistants](https://www.nar.realtor/field-guides/field-guide-to-personal-assistants)
- [California DRE, unlicensed assistants](https://dre.ca.gov/Licensees/UnlicensedAssistants.html)
- [Texas Real Estate Commission](https://www.trec.texas.gov)

---

## Sources cited

- NAR: https://www.nar.realtor/field-guides/field-guide-to-personal-assistants

Topics: unlicensed-assistants

TC Bulletin publishes independent trade coverage of the transaction coordination profession. Reuse is permitted with attribution and a link to the canonical URL above. See https://tcbulletin.com/syndication.