Seller of travel registration in the US: which states and who it applies to
Four states register sellers of travel, and the rules follow your client rather than your address. Here is what each one requires and the trap that catches agents in other states.
There is no general travel agent licence in the United States. There is something narrower that catches far more agents than they expect: seller of travel registration, which applies in four states and follows where your clients live rather than where you work.
The four states
California, Florida, Hawaii and Washington register sellers of travel. Each has its own registration, its own fee and its own financial requirement, and they differ enough that complying with one tells you nothing about the others.
Older industry sources also list Iowa and Nevada. Those laws have changed over the years and the current position is not consistent across sources, so if you sell into either, check the state's own site rather than any article, including this one.
The part that catches people
The requirement attaches to doing business with residents of those states, not to having an office there.
An agent in Texas who sells a cruise to a client in California is, on the face of it, selling travel to a California resident. An agent in London with a US client base can be in the same position. This is the single most common surprise, because the natural assumption is that a state law applies to businesses in the state.
If you market nationally, or your clients find you online, assume this reaches you and check properly.
What each state wants, roughly
California is the most involved. Registration, plus participation in the Travel Consumer Restitution Fund, plus either a trust account or a bond. Registration is not an endorsement, and California requires sellers to say so in their advertising.
Florida uses a bond that scales with how you are certified and whether you sell vacation certificates, running from around $25,000 to $300,000. The bond can be waived after several consecutive years with a clean compliance record.
Hawaii requires client funds paid in advance to be held in trust rather than in your operating account, with a separate application for businesses with a physical presence in the state.
Washington also requires prepaid client money to be held in trust, with exemptions available for businesses meeting certain conditions about how long they hold funds.
The common thread in three of the four is client money: the state wants prepayments kept separate from your working capital, so a traveller who paid in March still has a holiday in August if the agency fails in May.
Does a host agency cover you?
Sometimes, and you must ask rather than assume.
Some hosts register at state level in a way that covers their independent contractors, and some do not. Some states have specific exemptions for independent contractors selling under a registered seller, and the conditions differ from state to state. This is one of the questions to put in writing to a prospective host before signing, alongside who owns the client list.
What this is not
It is not a qualification, a competence test or an endorsement. Nobody checks whether you are good at the job. It is consumer financial protection: it exists so that money handed over months before a trip is still there when the trip happens.
That is the same purpose as the financial guarantees and insolvency protection that European agencies have to hold, arrived at by a different route. If you operate on both sides of the Atlantic you need both, and neither counts as the other.
Quick answers
Which states require seller of travel registration?
California, Florida, Hawaii and Washington. Iowa and Nevada appear in older sources with varying current status, so check those two directly if they apply to you.
Do I need to register if I do not live in those states?
Possibly. The requirement follows the residence of your clients, not your own address, so selling to someone in California can bring you into its rules from anywhere.
Does my host agency's registration cover me?
Sometimes. Some hosts register in a way that covers their independent contractors and some do not, and the exemptions differ by state. Ask in writing before signing.
Is this the same as a travel agent licence?
No. There is no general travel agent licence in the US. Seller of travel registration is narrower and is about protecting client money, not about competence.