All states · Filled 2026-09-17
North Dakota mortgage advertising rules
Reference only
Adline flags phrases that match cited rules. It does not certify that North Dakota marketing is compliant. We flag and cite. We never certify. This is not legal advice. Whether a rule reaches you depends on your license type. Federal Reg Z and Reg N still apply.
Reference only. North Dakota rules are written down here. The engine does not scan for them yet. The engine cites Washington, Arizona, and Idaho only.
Regulating agency
North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions (DFI).
North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions (DFI). The statute refers to "the commissioner" and directs civil money penalties to be "deposited in the financial institutions regulatory fund."
NMLS and license display: Conjunctive and disjunctive elements.
Governing statute and administrative code
- STATUTE. N.D.C.C. Chapter 13-04.1, "Money Brokers." This is North Dakota's entity-licensing act and it covers residential mortgage lending/brokering. (The license is administratively styled "Money Broker/Residential Mortgage Lender.")
- STATUTE. N.D.C.C. Chapter 13-10, North Dakota's SAFE Act for individual mortgage loan originators.
- REGULATION. N.D. Admin. Code Article 13-05 (Money Brokers), chapter 13-05-01; Article 13-08 (Mortgage Loan Originators); Article 13-04 (Consumer Finance).
Two regimes? Yes. and note the naming. North Dakota's mortgage entity regime is the Money Broker act (13-04.1), a term that also captures non-mortgage loan and lease brokering: "'Money brokering' means the act of arranging or providing loans or leases as a form of financing, or advertising or soliciting ... the right to find lenders or provide loans or leases." A separate Consumer Finance regime exists at N.D. Admin. Code Article 13-04. not examined here.
License and NMLS ID display
VerifiedSTATUTE. N.D.C.C. § 13-10-21, "Unique identifier shown":
"shall be clearly shown on all residential mortgage loan application forms, solicitations, or advertisements, including business cards or websites, and any other documents as established by rule"
The subject is "The unique identifier of any person originating a residential mortgage loan."
Conjunctive or disjunctive: Conjunctive as to media (all enumerated media), but only one data element is mandated. the unique identifier. No company name, license number, or NMLS Consumer Access link is required by statute. This is the plain SAFE Act model text, unmodified.
Important limitation: § 13-10-21 sits in Chapter 13-10, the MLO chapter. A parallel entity-level advertising identifier requirement in Chapter 13-04.1 (Money Brokers) was searched for and not found. the full text of Chapter 13-04.1 was retrieved and contains no "unique identifier shown" provision and no advertising-display section.
Prohibited claims
VerifiedFrom the retrieved Chapter 13-04.1 prohibited-acts list:
- "Engage in any unfair or deceptive practice toward any person."
- "Directly or indirectly, make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they are made, not misleading."
- Bait and switch, expressly: prohibited to "Make, in any manner, any false or deceptive statement or representation, including, with regard to the rates, points, or other financing terms or conditions for a loan or engage in bait and switch advertising."
No express North Dakota ban on "lowest," "best," "cheapest," "guaranteed," "pre-approved," "free," "no cost," or "government" was found, and no superlative prohibition. General misleading/deceptive standard plus an express bait-and-switch prohibition.
Rate advertising
Verified"Solicit, advertise, or enter into a contract for specific interest rates, points, or other financing terms unless the terms are actually available at the time of soliciting, advertising, or contracting."
*Attaches to: specific interest rates, points, and other financing terms.* Note the test is actual availability at the time of advertising. stricter in form than North Carolina's "reasonable number of qualified applicants" and with no express safe harbor.
No North Dakota-specific APR-disclosure, rate-lock, or "rates subject to change" advertising requirement beyond federal Reg Z was located.
Ad filing, prior approval, retention
None foundNone found. no filing, no prior approval, and no advertising retention requirement.
This was verified affirmatively, not just by absence of search results: every section of N.D. Admin. Code ch. 13-05-01 was enumerated (13-05-01-01 No advance fee; -02 Contracts to be in writing; -03 Full disclosure required; -04 Contents of loan disclosure statement; -05 Restrictions on chargeable costs and expenses; -06 Filing of annual reports [Repealed]; -07 Availability of records; -08 Statements to borrowers; -09 Notice to borrower regarding regulation by the department of financial institutions; -10 Copy of written contracts to the potential borrower; -11 Unprofessional conduct and grounds for revocation of license). None addresses advertising, and a text search of the chapter PDF for "advertis" returned zero hits. Same result for Article 13-08 ch. 13-08-01 and Article 13-04 ch. 13-04-01.
Caveat: the PDFs for 13-05-01, 13-08-01 and 13-04-01 converted to unexpectedly short text (8.3k / 1.2k / 0.4k characters), so the zero-hit result for those PDFs is weaker evidence than the section-title enumeration, which is solid. N.D. Admin. Code ch. 13-08-02 could not be retrieved (the URL returned a non-PDF). ND admin-code advertising content for Article 13-08: NOT FULLY VERIFIED.
Social media and character-limited media
Not yet verifiedNOT VERIFIED. "Websites" is named in § 13-10-21. No North Dakota guidance on social media, texting, or abbreviated disclosures for character-limited media was located.
Anything unusual
- North Dakota carries the harshest penalty exposure in this batch by a wide margin (see §9): a class C felony, plus civil money penalties up to $100,000 per occurrence and $1,000 per day of continuation. Most states in this batch cap at $10,000–$25,000 per violation with no felony hook.
- The felony applies to violations of "any provision of this chapter or any rule or order". it is not limited to fraud. On its face this reaches an advertising violation.
- Terminology trap: a compliance officer searching North Dakota law for "mortgage broker" or "mortgage lender" licensing will miss the operative chapter, which is titled "Money Brokers."
- Entity-level advertising ID gap: the unique-identifier advertising mandate is in the MLO chapter only. Company-level ads are governed by the general deceptive-practice and availability provisions of 13-04.1, not by an express identifier mandate.
Penalties
VerifiedSTATUTE. N.D.C.C. § 13-04.1-13, "Penalty":
"is guilty of a class C felony. The commissioner may impose a civil money penalty not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars for each occurrence and one thousand dollars per day"
The full provision applies to "Any person violating any of the provisions of this chapter or any rule or order of the department of financial institutions made pursuant to the provisions of this chapter," and the per-day amount runs "for each day the violation continues after issuance of the order." Penalties are appealable under N.D.C.C. ch. 28-32 within twenty days.
Sources
- https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t13c04-1.pdfofficial N.D.C.C. Chapter 13-04.1 (Money Brokers), official PDF (OFFICIAL — ND Legislative Branch):
- https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t13c10.pdfofficial N.D.C.C. Chapter 13-10 (Mortgage Loan Originators), official PDF:
- https://ndlegis.gov/information/acdata/html/Title13.htmlofficial N.D. Admin. Code Title 13 article index (OFFICIAL):
- https://ndlegis.gov/information/acdata/pdf/13-05-01.pdfofficial N.D. Admin. Code ch. 13-05-01 PDF (OFFICIAL):
- https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/north-dakota/title-13/article-13-05/chapter-13-05-01reproduction N.D. Admin. Code ch. 13-05-01 section list (**SECONDARY**, Cornell LII — used to enumerate section titles):