H.R. 3495: Direct Seller and Real Estate Agent Harmonization Act

H.R. 3495 — the Direct Seller and Real Estate Agent Harmonization Act — is one of the shortest bills moving through Congress. It does exactly one thing: amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to say that direct sellers and qualified real estate agents are not 'employees' under federal wage-and-hour law.

The bill borrows definitions already on the books in the tax code. Under longstanding IRS rules, real estate agents working on commission and direct sellers who earn from their own sales (rather than a salary) are treated as 'statutory nonemployees' for tax purposes. The bill imports those same categories into labor law.

The practical effect: federal minimum wage and overtime requirements would not apply to these workers. Most already operate on commission, so the immediate paycheck change for the average agent or seller is minimal. The bigger shift is legal. Brokerages and direct-selling companies have faced repeated misclassification lawsuits arguing that their agents and sellers should be paid like employees under the FLSA. This bill would foreclose those suits at the federal level.

Industry groups — the National Association of Realtors and the Direct Selling Association among them — have lobbied for this clarification for years, arguing it protects flexible commission-based work and prevents costly litigation. Worker advocates counter that codifying the exclusion removes a federal backstop, with no minimum-wage floor and no overtime protection for sellers and agents who put in long hours during slow stretches.

The bill cleared the House Education and Workforce Committee 19-16 on September 17, 2025, and was placed on the Union Calendar in February 2026. It picked up 31 cosponsors, including 11 Democrats — a notable bipartisan footprint for a labor-law bill.