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Checking a guard or a security company in Hawaii

This page is for whoever is doing the checking — a client, a property manager, a company vetting a subcontractor. It tells you what a guard and a guard company are supposed to hold in Hawaii, and walks you to Hawaii Board of Private Detectives and Guards (DCCA)’s own records to confirm it.

tessura is not a Hawaii agency and issues nothing. Every link below goes to the regulator, and the regulator’s answer is the one that counts.

Getting licensed yourself instead? The Hawaii requirements, training hours, and application steps →

Check the guard

Hawaii issues a credential to the guard, so you can check the person in front of you.

What they should hold

Every guard working a postSecurity Guard Registration (Guard Card)8 hrs of training · state exam · 4 more hrs within 1 months of being issued · renews every 3 years

Armed work: Hawaii's firearms laws make armed guard work rare; firearm carry requires separate county-level permitting outside the guard registration.

Ask for the number

A 'GDE' prefix followed by a number, written as GDE #### in DCCA's own instructions. The search page's worked example for another profession uses a hyphen (ACU-12345), so if GDE 1234 returns nothing, try GDE-1234.

DCCA Board of Private Detectives and Guards official renewal FAQ PDF (cca.hawaii.gov, '2024 GDE Renewal Requirements and FAQs'), which tells licensees to 'Enter your license number (GDE ####)'. The hyphen caveat comes from the example text on the live MyPVL search page.

How to check it

  1. Ask the guard for the name on their licence and their Guard Employee registration number, which starts with GDE. Ask the security company separately for its Guard Agency (GDA) or Guard (GD) licence number.
  2. Open mypvl.dcca.hawaii.gov/public-license-search/ in a normal browser. Leave the 'State agency staff' email box blank — that field is only for state employees.
  3. Search by the guard's name, or paste the GDE number into the license-number search. You can paste several numbers separated by commas if you are checking a whole crew at once.
  4. Click through from the results list (Name / License / License Type / Location) into the individual record — the list itself does not show status or dates.
  5. On the record, confirm the licence status is active, confirm the expiration date is in the future, and read the disciplinary-action section; DCCA states this site shows original licence date, expiration date, status and disciplinary action, and that it counts as official licence information.
  6. Watch the renewal calendar: Guard Employee registrations renew every three years by 30 June (2027, 2030, 2033) and DCCA states that anyone not renewed by the expiration date is unlicensed and may not practise.
Open the MyPVL Public License Search →

Shows licence status · shows the expiry date.

If the lookup finds nothing: DCCA PVL Licensing Branch: (808) 586-3000; Board of Private Detectives and Guards email detective@dcca.hawaii.gov; 335 Merchant Street, Room 301, Honolulu HI 96813. Complaints go to RICO on (808) 587-4272 option 3.

Check the company

Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Board of Private Detectives and Guards licenses the firm itself here. This is the check most people skip, and it is usually the more important of the two.

What the firm must holdGuard Agency (GDA)Issued by Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Board of Private Detectives and Guards

How to check it

  1. Ask the company for the exact legal name on its licence and its Guard Agency (GDA) number. A company that cannot produce a number for a licence it claims to hold has told you something.
  2. Open the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Board of Private Detectives and Guards lookup and search for that name.
  3. Search the legal name, not the name on the uniform or the invoice. Brand names, DBAs, and the name on the truck are often not the licensed entity.
  4. Read the status and the expiry date, not just the presence of a record. An expired or suspended licence still returns a result.
  5. If nothing comes up, ask which entity holds the licence and in which state, then check that name. If the answer does not resolve, treat the licence as unconfirmed and call Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Board of Private Detectives and Guards before signing.
Open the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Board of Private Detectives and Guards lookup →

Ask for insurance properly

A licence says the state let them operate. Insurance is what stands between you and a claim, and it is the easier of the two to fake — a certificate is only true on the day it was printed.

Hawaii does not require it

Hawaii requires no liability insurance whatsoever for a guard agency. Chapter 463 imposes only a bond, so a Hawaii licence says nothing about whether the company is insured.

What that means for you: the licence tells you nothing about whether this company is insured, so the certificate is a purely commercial document with no regulator standing behind it. Everything below matters more here than almost anywhere else.

Bond: A bond of at least $5,000 filed with the Board on Form PDG-05, conditioned on honest conduct of the business, with a direct right of action for anyone injured by a wilful, malicious or wrongful act of the licensee.

There is no insurance to file. The bond is filed with the Board on its own form and must be notarised by the surety, so the Board holds a direct documentary relationship with the surety.

If it lapses: Failure to maintain the bond results in immediate and concurrent suspension of the licence until a successor bond is filed — but that protects against a bond lapse, not an insurance lapse.

So the licence check above is worth repeating. Because a lapse here suspends the licence by operation of law rather than merely breaching a contract, a company that quietly dropped its cover after signing with you should eventually stop reading as currently licensed at the regulator. That is not instant, and a bad status has other causes, so it tells you to ask — not what happened. Re-checking costs you nothing.

HRS Chapter 463 (no insurance provision) — https://files.hawaii.gov/dcca/pvl/pvl/hrs/hrs_pvl_463.pdf

A certificate of insurance (COI) that names your business as an additional insured, not just the certificate holderCertificate holder means you were mailed a copy. Additional insured means their policy actually answers for you if you are pulled into a claim.
General liability, and workers’ compensation at your state’s statutory limitsIf a guard is hurt on your property and the company carries no workers’ comp, the claim tends to land on you. Ask for commercial auto too if they run patrol vehicles.
The policy number and the effective and expiry dates, on a certificate dated within the last monthAn undated or months-old certificate is the single most common tell. The dates let you ask the insurer about the right policy.
The name, agency, and direct phone number of the broker who issued it — then call themThe broker can confirm the policy is in force today. The certificate PDF cannot, and a forged or stale one looks identical to a real one.
A contract term requiring written notice to you before the policy is cancelled or non-renewedStandard certificates promise notice to the insured, not to you. Putting the duty on the company in the contract is what makes a mid-term cancellation a breach.
A fresh certificate part-way through the term, not only at signingRe-asking at 60 or 90 days costs you an email and defeats the whole get-the-COI-then-drop-it pattern.

tessura does not verify anyone’s insurance and has no access to insurers’ records. This is guidance for doing it yourself, not a statement about any company on this site. It is also not legal advice — for a contract of any size, have your own counsel or broker set the limits.

Where this comes from

Hawaii requirements last reviewed August 28, 2026. Some details on this state are still pending a second check against the primary source. Rules change — the regulator’s page is authoritative if it disagrees with ours.

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