MLS Reciprocity
The BrokerFold Team — Product + Engineering
Last reviewed
MLS Reciprocity is the program under which BC Lower Mainland brokerages display one another’s listings on their own websites. It is the region’s equivalent of IDX: each participating member’s listings become available to every other participant’s site, and in return each member’s site gets to carry the whole shared inventory. The name is literal — you show mine, I show yours.
How it works in Canada
The program belongs to the tri-board system: Greater Vancouver REALTORS® (formerly REBGV), the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, and the Chilliwack & District Real Estate Board operate one shared MLS® under one set of Rules of Cooperation. Those rules define Reciprocity display in detail. The MLS® Reciprocity logo must appear with program listings; prescribed disclaimer wording must render on the pages that carry them; the listing brokerage must be identified; and the rulebook licenses some data at the field level — certain fields serve signed-in VOW visitors only, even on active listings. It is a stricter, more specified regime than most boards run, and it is enforced — board review of a new website happens before launch, against the actual rules, page by page.
What it means for your website
For a Vancouver-area agent, Reciprocity is what puts the tri-board active market on your own domain — from Vancouver proper out through the Fraser Valley to Chilliwack, one feed. The catch is that compliance is structural: logo placement, disclaimers, attribution, and field gating have to be built into how pages render, not patched on afterwards. BrokerFold’s data plane speaks the tri-board feed natively with that display layer built in; the product-side view is on MLS Reciprocity websites, and the broader board picture is on GVR IDX websites.
Common confusions
Reciprocity is not a VOW — it governs public display of active inventory, while sold and off-market data sits behind the registered VOW relationship with its own 30-day password cycle. It is also not national: the program’s footprint is the tri-board region, full stop. And the logo is not branding garnish. Its presence tells a consumer — and a board auditor — that the listing came through the cooperative program lawfully. Treat it the way the rules do: part of the listing display itself, as fixed as the price or the address.
Frequently asked questions
Is MLS Reciprocity the same as IDX?
Same job, different rulebook. Both let members display the board's active inventory on their own sites. But Reciprocity is defined by the BC tri-board Rules of Cooperation, with the logo, disclaimer wording, and attribution requirements those rules prescribe — a tool that only knows generic 'IDX' will miss all of it.
Do I have to show the Reciprocity logo on my website?
Yes, wherever program listings display — the rules put it at search results and on listing detail alongside member attribution. It marks the data as cooperative inventory, and its placement is a compliance requirement your platform should handle automatically, not a design choice.
Keep reading
- MLS Reciprocity website MLS Reciprocity is the BC boards' shared-display program. What the logo, the verbatim disclaimer and brokerage attribution require of a member's website.
- GVR IDX website A GVR IDX website serves tri-board actives on your domain under Reciprocity rules: per-record licensing, own-CDN photos, and the display chrome built in.
- IDX IDX is the framework that lets a realtor display their board's active MLS listings on their own website. How it works in Canada, board by board.
- VOW VOW stands for Virtual Office Website: a registered-visitor experience that shows sold prices and off-market listings on a realtor's own site.