What is my book of business worth when I retire?

You are handing over your relationships with past clients and your sphere, and your introduction of a successor to them. Clients still choose their own agent, so what a successor gets is a chance at each client's next move.

Your current listings and buyer agreements are a separate matter. NAR's Code of Ethics treats exclusive agreements as contracts between the client and the firm: REALTORS® may not induce their current firm's clients to cancel them, before or after leaving that firm, and principals may set agreements with their agents on whether those agreements can be assigned (Standard of Practice 16-20, NAR Code of Ethics, January 2026). Talk to your broker before you promise a successor anything that's under contract.

Your client list is also personal information. In Canada, federal privacy law lets the parties to a business transaction share personal information without consent only if it's necessary to the deal and they have entered into an agreement that limits its use and protects it, and after closing one of them must notify the people whose information was shared (PIPEDA section 7.2, Justice Laws Website, last amended March 2025). If what changes hands is mainly your client list, that exception may not apply. Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have their own private-sector privacy laws (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, May 2020). In either country, ask a lawyer before you share the list.

Start from your own records: how many past-client households you have, and how many of them bought or sold with you in each of the last few years. Then weigh those counts against these facts and terms.

Here is the arithmetic with made-up numbers. Run it for each year of the agreement and add the years up.

If someone offers you a lump sum instead, that total is what they're pricing. Expect an offer below it, since the money is uncertain and arrives later.

In the US, RESPA's ban on kickbacks has an exception for payments under cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements between real estate agents and real estate brokers (CFPB, Regulation X section 1024.14, version effective April 2023).

Whether you still count as an agent or broker for that exception once your license is inactive is a state licensing question. Ask your state's real estate commission whether you need an active license to be paid, including for referrals you made while active, and whether the payment has to go through a broker.

If you're a REALTOR®, NAR's Code of Ethics requires you to disclose fees you get for recommending products or services such as mortgages or title insurance, and Article 6 leaves real estate referral fees out of that duty (NAR Code of Ethics, January 2026). Your state may have its own disclosure rules; ask your commission.

In Canada, CREA's REALTOR® Code requires REALTORS® to disclose to their clients any benefit they or their firm may receive from recommending real estate products or services, and it names other brokerage firms that may pay a referral fee among those (CREA REALTOR® Code, Article 8 and Interpretation 8.1, May 2023). Your province sets who may be paid a referral fee; ask your provincial regulator before you let your registration lapse.

In the US, referral fees are income: the IRS says you generally include in gross income everything you're paid for personal services, including commissions and fees (IRS Publication 525, April 2026).

If you sell the book for a price instead, you're selling business assets. Where goodwill could attach to what you sell, you and the buyer each attach Form 8594 to your returns to report how the price was split (IRS Instructions for Form 8594, November 2021). If at least one payment comes after the year of the sale, the installment method may let you report the gain as you're paid (IRS Publication 537, April 2026).

In Canada, the CRA treats goodwill and customer lists as property that gives you a lasting economic benefit, and for 2017 and later tax years it puts that property in capital cost allowance Class 14.1 (CRA guide T4037, January 2026). If you are paid over time, a capital gains reserve can generally spread a capital gain over up to five years (CRA guide T4037, January 2026).

For retirement accounts and other assets beyond the commission check, see Own. For selling a whole brokerage, see how selling a brokerage works.