Vermont Real Estate Cheat Sheet.
The night-before summary, built like the exam.

The numbers to remember

• National Salesperson exam: 100 scored questions, plus up to 5 unscored pretest questions mixed in on screen.
• Time limit: 2.5 hours for the National Salesperson exam.
• National exam fee: $110, paid to PSI, the exam vendor.
• State exam: administered by the Vermont Office of Professional Regulation as part of the online application — not by PSI.
• All applicants must take the state exam. No exceptions, even with an out-of-state license.
• Minimum age: 18.
• Pre-licensing course: 40 hours, Commission-approved.
• Initial application fee: $100. Renewal fee: $220, due May 31 of even years.
• Must pass both the national and state exams within the two years immediately preceding your application.
• Since December 3, 2025, PSI has offered the Vermont exams online in addition to in-person test centers.

Content domains and weights

• Agency Relationships and Contracts — 28 questions (the largest domain).
• Real Property — 14 questions.
• Finance — 14 questions.
• Real Property Ownership/Interest — 13 questions.
• Real Estate Calculations — 13 questions.
• Marketing Regulations (purchase and rental) — 10 questions.
• Property Management — 8 questions.
• Within the blueprint, Agency is separately weighted at 13% of the exam, Contracts at 19%, and Practice of Real Estate at 12%.

High-yield review areas

• Agency and contracts first — together they're the biggest share of the test, so a weak spot here costs you the most points on exam day.
• Real estate calculations reward repetition. Work problems by hand until formulas feel automatic rather than looked-up under time pressure.
• Study real property, ownership interests, and finance as a connected cluster — scenario questions often blend all three concepts into one item.
• Don't skip property management and marketing regulations just because they're smaller domains; a clean final pass through both still protects real points on the scored total.
• Rehearse the licensing sequence itself — course, national exam, state exam, broker affiliation — so nothing stalls your application once you've passed.

Top traps

• Don't try to guess which questions are the unscored pretest items — they're indistinguishable from scored ones, so answer every question with equal care.
• Passing the national exam does not mean you're done — Vermont's state exam is a separate, mandatory hurdle administered outside PSI, not a formality.
• Don't let your national and state exam passes sit unused — both must fall within the two-year window before your license application, or you may need to retest.
• Pace yourself against the 2.5-hour clock from the start rather than discovering your pace is off with little time left to adjust.
• An out-of-state license does not exempt you from Vermont's state exam requirement.