How to Connect Your Website to Your MLS as a Real Estate Agent

Last updated: August 26, 2026

You don’t connect your website to the MLS yourself, and software isn’t the holdup. Paperwork is. For a vendor-fed data feed, the sequence:

1. You apply to your MLS for an IDX data license.
2. Your broker, the participant of record, signs it.
3. The MLS approves a vendor to receive the feed and issues the credentials.
4. The vendor’s software pulls the feed and publishes the listings on your site.

Everything after step one waits on the MLS. Your board sets the forms, the fees and the timeline, so the fastest way to connect your website to your MLS is to apply before you buy anything.

Who is eligible for an MLS data feed?

Eligibility is settled before any form is filled in, and at the brokerage level, not the agent level.

NAR’s policy page Qualification for MLS Participation and IDX, live as of August 26, 2026, states the entitlement plainly: “Once it has been determined that a participant satisfies the requirements for eligibility in an MLS, the participant is entitled to receive an IDX, VOW, or other data feed to the same extent as all other participants, and is entitled to receive all other services and benefits attendant to being a participant in the MLS.”

Read “participant” carefully. The same page defines participants as REALTORS who are “a principal, partner, corporate officer, or branch office manager acting on behalf of a principal,” and who “must hold a current, valid real estate broker’s license.”

That is narrower than every licensed agent at the firm. If you hold a salesperson’s license and work under a broker, you are almost certainly not the participant; your access runs through the firm’s participation. That is why the vendor-mediated data feed route carries a broker approval step.

Eligibility is the entitlement, not the approval. Broker consent and your board’s rules still decide what you receive and what you may display. Before anything else, find your MLS and read that board’s IDX page. No national rule answers how you get MLS access for your website; one board does.

The MLS issues your credentials, not RESO

Agents email RESO asking for API keys. RESO answers in the title of its own FAQ entry, “Can I get MLS data, property records, Web API access or credentials from RESO?”, published June 23, 2024:

“RESO does not provide MLS real estate data, property records or access to the APIs of other organizations… Access to data from a Web API service comes from the MLS or other data provider organization. Data consumers work directly with that organization’s API provider or technical staff to receive credentials…”

RESO’s 2022 End-of-Year Update, published December 1, 2022, puts it plainly: “RESO does not distribute MLS property records.” If you are asking who issues MLS API credentials, it is your board.

Four things get blurred into one everywhere else. Keep them apart:

1. The licence: the IDX agreement your broker signs with the MLS.
2. The transport: the RESO Web API, the standard your data travels over. Here is what RESO Web API access is.
3. The credential issuer: the MLS or its technology provider, never RESO.
4. The publisher: the website software that displays the listings once credentials exist.

The credential issuer role activates only once the MLS approves the licence, the last step before you can connect your website to your MLS.

What should you ask your MLS?

Every board read here scatters it across an application form, a fee page, a vendor list and a technical page. None hands you one message to send. Here it is. Send it to your MLS’s data licensing contact.

1. What is the IDX application, and how do I start it?
2. Do you keep an approved vendor list, and what happens if my vendor is not on it?
3. Who at my brokerage has to sign, and in what order?
4. What are the setup fees and the recurring fees, and who bills them?
5. What display rules and disclaimers apply to my site?
6. Do you offer a RESO Web API feed, or only an older transport?
7. What are the rules for sold, pending, open house and photo data?
8. Do you review the site before it goes live, and what do you look for?

Question two matters most. CRMLS publishes the clearest answer of any board read here: “If you work with a developer or a new IDX vendor, CRMLS will treat the request as a general IDX Vendor Request,” billed at its standard rates. At CRMLS, being off the list is a price, not a refusal. Canopy MLS doesn’t say what happens off list, so ask rather than assume your board matches.

Question eight isn’t hypothetical. Canopy MLS states that “the Canopy MLS data licensing administrator will review the website for appropriate display of firm brokerage branding and approve the data license or request changes.” If your board reviews, a staging URL with brokerage identification already in place shortens it.

What the IDX application asks for

No two boards run the MLS IDX application the same way. Here is what four named boards publish.

MLS Now (Ohio), in its IDX Setup article updated April 23, 2026, describes two paths. Matrix IDX Link is self-service and needs no vendor. The Trestle IDX Data Feed path “is started by your IDX vendor, not by you directly.” The vendor registers through Trestle, the broker approves by email through Authentisign, and the request routes to MLS Now for final approval.

BAREIS asks the member to send a written request to its IDX address first, naming the vendor and the intended use. BAREIS then sends the vendor a formal application carrying a non-refundable $50 vendor application fee. If the vendor is approved, a data license agreement follows, and credentials arrive once payment and signature are both in.

Canopy MLS routes vendors through MLS Grid: the vendor signs the MLS Grid Master Data License Agreement, then the Member Participant and Subscriber sign digitally, then Canopy’s licensing administrator reviews the site.

CRMLS asks different things per route. A self-service frameable link needs “Only your Matrix ID and Office ID.” A CRMLS-licensed vendor needs the Matrix ID, Office ID and a completed CRMLS IDX Request Form. A direct feed through Trestle needs a signed data licensing agreement plus “a description detailing your use of the MLS data.”

On the vendor-mediated routes, different forms want the same three things: identify the member and office, name the vendor, and sign as someone who can bind the brokerage.

The four routes to get listings on your site

Once the licence exists, you choose how the data reaches the page.

IDX Broker, Showcase IDX and iHomefinder are examples of the hosted route. Widgets suit a site you do not want to rebuild, native import suits anyone who wants listings indexed on their own domain, and a custom build is a budget question. This is a router, not a verdict: here are the four routes compared in full.

What does an MLS IDX feed cost?

There’s no national number. What you can plan for is the shape of the bill: an application or setup fee, a monthly data feed fee (billed through a platform such as Trestle, as at MLS Now and CRMLS), and sometimes a per-website charge when the feed serves more than one site.

Two named boards publish real figures. BAREIS charges “a non-refundable application fee of $50” on a vendor data license application. CRMLS publishes more: brokers get two Trestle data feeds at no charge, after which Trestle’s “service fee is $85 per month for an IDX data feed and $25 for a Broker feed,” and CRMLS’s own standard IDX monthly fee is “$7 per website URL serviced (first 2 URLs included at no charge).”

Those are two boards’ own published numbers, not typical ones. Your board is the only reliable source for your number. For the wider picture, here is what MLS access costs.

How long does MLS approval take?

NAR sets a response floor, not a go-live date. Policy Statement 7.58 in the Handbook on Multiple Listing Policy, current edition dated January 1, 2026, provision amended 05/2017, says: “Requests for IDX feeds/downloads must be acted on by the MLS within five (5) business days from receipt, barring extenuating circumstances… in which case an estimated time of approval or denial must be issued.”

Acted on. That means approved, denied, or given an estimated date within five business days. It doesn’t mean your listings are live that week.

One board publishes an end-to-end figure. BAREIS says its vendor application process “can take 3-6 weeks.” That is BAREIS’s vendor application window specifically, not a national average and not an agent’s membership timeline. MLS Now and Canopy MLS publish no turnaround figure at all. So the honest answer for most boards is: it varies.

What slows it down is predictable: incomplete paperwork, a vendor-initiated path where your vendor must register first (as at MLS Now), and a manual site review (as at Canopy MLS).

What starts the day your feed goes live

Approval starts an obligation; it does not end one. From day one:

1. Notify the MLS before you display the feed.
2. Let the MLS monitor your display for compliance.
3. Show brokerage identification on the listings.
4. Refresh an automatically fed display at least every 12 hours.
5. Honor a seller’s opt-out from internet display.
6. Check whether your board prohibits displaying expired or withdrawn listings, which NAR 7.58 lets it do.

The 12-hour figure is not a suggestion. NAR Policy Statement 7.58, current handbook edition dated January 1, 2026, provision amended 11/2014: “Participants must refresh all MLS downloads and displays automatically fed by those downloads not less frequently than every 12 hours.”

That is a floor. But your board can require faster, not slower. Keep your software’s update cadence configurable, and if your MLS publishes a pull frequency ceiling, that ceiling wins.

There is far more to it, and the detail has its own page. Read the display rules your MLS attaches to the feed before you sign.

What not to do when connecting your MLS feed

1. Do not share your MLS password with a developer. Treat your login as personal to your membership and its conduct rules. A developer needs feed credentials, issued to connect your website to your MLS, not your login.
2. Do not put API credentials in browser-side JavaScript. Anything the browser can read, anyone can read. Feed credentials belong on the server.
3. Do not reuse a feed licensed for another website. NAR Policy Statement 8.6 scopes a feed to “a participant’s licensed authorized uses,” and says a designee “may use the single data feed only to facilitate that participant’s licensed uses on behalf of that participant.” CRMLS puts a price on the same idea by metering each additional website URL. Go back to your board before you add a second site.
4. Do not scrape a portal instead of getting a feed. Assume scraped listings carry no licence and no refresh guarantee.

Where MLS Import fits, and where it does not

Disclosure: MLS Import is our own product.

It’s a WordPress plugin that connects your website to your MLS and imports approved listings through the RESO Web API, which we’ve supported for years. Not a hosted iframe layout system: imported listings become property content on your own domain. It runs on any theme in Standalone mode, which brings its own property templates, search and design. WpResidence, WpEstate, Houzez and Real Homes integrate more deeply; none is required.

One MLS connection per site. Two feeds mean two separate WordPress installs.

The limit: MLS Import can’t request credentials for you and doesn’t replace MLS approval. Until your board approves the licence, there’s nothing to import. Apply first.

Pricing is $49 per month or $504 per year, with a 30-day free trial, no setup fee and cancel anytime. Read the requirements before you buy, check MLS Import pricing, and once the credentials arrive, install it on WordPress. Software is the last step when you connect your website to your MLS, not the first.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I connect my website to my MLS as a real estate agent?

For a vendor-fed data feed, you apply to your MLS for an IDX data license and your broker, the participant of record, signs it. The MLS then approves a vendor and issues the credentials. Your website software, MLS Import or similar, publishes the listings last. The application sets the timeline.

Do I need my broker’s approval to get an IDX feed?

Generally yes. NAR’s Qualification for MLS Participation and IDX page defines a participant as a REALTOR who is a principal, partner, corporate officer or branch office manager acting on behalf of a principal, holding a valid broker’s license. A salesperson’s access runs through the firm’s participation, so the broker signs. MLS Import imports nothing until that approval is in place.

Can I get RESO Web API credentials from RESO?

No. RESO writes the data standard. Its own FAQ says RESO “does not provide MLS real estate data, property records or access to the APIs of other organizations.” Your MLS or its technology provider issues them after approving your data license. MLS Import connects through that same Web API once those credentials exist.

How long does MLS IDX approval take?

It varies by board. NAR Policy Statement 7.58 requires the MLS to act on a feed request within five business days: approve it, deny it, or issue an estimated date. That is a response deadline, not a go-live date. MLS Import has nothing to import until approval lands. BAREIS publishes 3 to 6 weeks for its vendor application process.

What does an MLS charge for an IDX data feed?

There’s no national figure. BAREIS charges a non-refundable $50 vendor application fee. CRMLS bills $7 monthly per website URL serviced with the first two free, and $85 per month through Trestle for an IDX data feed beyond a broker’s two free feeds. What MLS Import charges is separate from that.

Can I use one IDX feed on two websites?

No board page read for this article states an outright ban. NAR Policy Statement 8.6 scopes a feed to a participant’s licensed authorized uses, and CRMLS charges $7 monthly per website URL after the first two. Separately, a product fact: MLS Import uses one MLS connection per site.