You're still on W-2. JLL will pay your S Corporation instead.
Converting to QREA/IC status changes how you're paid, how you're taxed, how you're insured, and how you save for retirement — all on the same day. Handled deliberately, it's worth real money every year you keep producing. Handled casually, it's cleanup at filing time.
What QREA and QREA/IC actually mean
JLL's conversion materials move between these terms quickly. They are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where the money is.
Qualified Real Estate Agent (QREA)
A federal tax status defined in Internal Revenue Code Section 3508 — not something JLL invented. It applies when you hold a real estate license, substantially all of your pay is tied to sales rather than hours worked, and you have a written contract stating you won't be treated as an employee.
Meet those tests and you're an independent contractor for tax purposes, without the twenty-factor common-law analysis every other contractor has to survive.
QREA/IC at JLL
JLL's internal label for a broker who has converted. Your external title doesn't change — Senior Director stays Senior Director. Inside JLL's systems your employee type changes, your commissions move from payroll to Accounts Payable, and nothing is withheld.
The platform, tools, and support stay the same. What changes is the tax treatment.
The part JLL leaves to you
Converting makes you an independent contractor. It does not decide who gets paid. JLL can pay you personally, or it can pay a company you own.
That second decision is the one that moves your tax bill, and JLL doesn't make it for you.
You already carry the risk. W-2 status taxes you as though you don't.
If your income is commission and your production is yours, you are already running a business. Converting lines the tax treatment up with the reality, and three things open up:
Deductions you've been absorbing
As an employee, unreimbursed business costs give you nothing on your return. As a contractor they come off the top — every year, for as long as you produce.
A much higher retirement ceiling
The JLL 401(k) closes to you at conversion. What replaces it, built correctly, holds several times what you could put away as an employee.
Control of the structure
How your income is paid, when tax is remitted, what entity receives it, what plan you run — those become your decisions instead of defaults inside someone else's system.
Five things change the day you convert.
- Nothing is withheld any more. Your bi-weekly commissions come through Accounts Payable rather than payroll, and there are no paystubs. Paying the IRS on schedule becomes your job — quarterly, in the right amounts, or the underpayment interest and penalties start.
- You pick up both halves of the payroll tax. Social Security and Medicare, employer share and employee share. This is the number everyone fixates on, and it is the one an S Corporation manages most efficiently.
- The JLL 401(k) closes to you. Conversion is treated as a distributable event. The balance you built as an employee can stay where it is or roll into another qualified plan, but you can't contribute to it again, and the 401(k) match is gone. You replace it with a plan of your own — and the ceiling goes up, not down.
- Benefits stay available, at a very different price. Medical, dental, and vision continue through JLL, but you carry a much larger share of the premium, you're billed monthly by direct debit instead of payroll deduction, and the portion JLL pays becomes taxable income to you. JLL-paid basic life and long-term disability end. Short-term disability ends outright.
- Your expenses finally count. Association dues, license fees, mileage, marketing, technology, and administrative support stop being personal costs and become deductible business expenses. JLL stops reimbursing dues, license fees, and mobile device purchases when you convert — which is precisely the category that turns deductible.
Two ways to be a QREA/IC. They are not equal.
JLL pays you personally
The default, and the simplest to start. Also the most expensive to keep: every dollar of net commission income runs through self-employment tax, and your planning options stay thin.
JLL pays a company you own
An LLC taxed as an S Corporation. Your income splits between wages and distributions, which typically lowers payroll tax, and the entity gives your retirement plan, your books, and your cash flow an actual framework to sit in.
JLL's materials point you at a SEP IRA. There's usually a better answer.
A SEP is easy, and it's the option most conversion guides name first. But a SEP is funded entirely from the employer side — there is no employee deferral — so it takes a great deal of income to reach a meaningful contribution.
SEP IRA as a sole proprietor
Capped at roughly 20% of net earnings after half of self-employment tax. No deferral. Reaching the 2026 maximum of $72,000 takes something on the order of $376,000 of net profit.
401(k) inside your S Corporation
You defer up to $24,500 of your wages first, then the company adds up to 25% of those wages on top. The same $72,000 total is reachable at roughly $190,000 of wages — about half the income.
There's a queue in front of the signature.
The conversion itself takes an afternoon. What has to be standing before it takes weeks, and most of it can't be compressed.
- Form the entity and get it approved. State processing times vary widely, and the approval is exactly what JLL's vendor setup asks you to produce.
- Obtain the EIN and make the S Corporation election. The election has its own deadline rules. Missing them costs you a year of the benefit.
- Get set up as a vendor. Updated W-9, vendor form, and state confirmation to Corporate Accounts Payable. Your address and banking details don't carry over from Workday.
- Stand up payroll and a retirement plan. Both have to exist before the first dollar you want them to shelter arrives.
- Watch the enrollment windows. Benefits elections run in the fall, and the election to defer commissions into the Deferred Compensation Plan is made in late November. Those windows don't wait for your entity.
One package. Properly structured from day one.
Everything a converting JLL broker needs to stand the entity up correctly, in one flat fee.
- LLC formation and S Corporation election
- Payroll setup and compensation design
- Banking, cash flow, and estimated tax framework
- Vendor-setup documents JLL will ask you for
- Deduction identification for real estate professionals
- Retirement and benefit plan options
- Structured onboarding session — you'll understand your responsibilities
The setup is a moment. The management is the value.
An S Corporation is an ongoing responsibility — payroll, books, planning, and a return, every year. Our S Corp Management service runs all four as one system: a tax and cash flow plan updated five times a year, monthly bookkeeping, payroll run and managed, and 1120S tax return preparation — $800/month, everything included, month-to-month. Full detail on S Corp Management →
Built for exactly this transition
JLL brokers aren't the first to face this decision, and we've sat on the other side of the table for it many times.
Fifteen years of this exact move
Hundreds of commission-income brokers, across dozens of states and firms — including W-2-to-independent-contractor conversions.
Commission-based real estate pros
It's all we do. Your income pattern, your deductions, your entity questions — we've seen your situation before.
Education first
You'll understand your options and your obligations before you commit to anything — in plain language, with the trade-offs stated.
Advice, not products
Business consulting and tax services. No commissions, no product sales — nothing to steer the recommendation.
Convert once. Convert correctly.
Done right, this transition pays you back for as long as you produce. Done casually, it's cleanup. One Fit Call tells you whether the timing and the math work for you — and what it would take to be ready.
