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Checking a guard or a security company in Mississippi

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 Mississippi, and walks you to the regulator’s own records to confirm it.

tessura is not a Mississippi 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 Mississippi requirements, training hours, and application steps →

Check the guard

Mississippi has no statewide guard licence, so what a guard needs depends on the city or county.

What they should hold

If they carry a firearmSecurity Guard Firearm Permitrenews every 4 years

Armed work: Armed guards need the MDPS firearm permit ($132) with notarized application and fingerprints; unarmed guards face employer and local requirements only.

How to check it

  1. Decide first whether the guard will be armed. For unarmed work anywhere in Mississippi there is no state credential to ask for, so vet on the employer's own background check, training file and insurance.
  2. For an armed guard, ask to see the Mississippi Security Guard Permit issued by the Department of Public Safety, and check the expiry — it runs four years, and § 97-37-7 says it cannot be renewed six months or more after expiry, at which point the holder must start again as an original applicant.
  3. Do not accept an ordinary Mississippi concealed-carry or enhanced firearm permit in its place. The Security Guard Permit is the specific authority that lets a company guard, watchman or employee of a patrol or guard service carry while actually engaged in their duties.
  4. Check the permit names a category that matches the work — the DPS application asks the applicant to tick Company Guard, Watchman, Bank Guard, Railroad Special Agent, Agent or Employee of a Patrol Service, Agent or Employee of a Guard Service, or armoured transport.
  5. Because there is no public search, take the permit to, or phone, a DPS Firearm Permit location and ask them to confirm it is live before the guard starts armed work.
  6. Check for a city rule too — some Mississippi cities, Biloxi among them, require every person employed as a security guard inside city limits to be licensed by the city police department.
Why there is no link to click

Mississippi does not license unarmed security guards or security companies at all. The only state credential touching guards is a FIREARMS permit issued by the driver-services side of DPS, and there is no public register of permit holders. WRONG-DATABASE TRAP: because the credential lives with the Driver Service Bureau's firearm section rather than any security regulator, employers often assume Mississippi has no guard credential whatsoever and skip the check for armed guards, or conversely accept a plain concealed-carry permit — § 97-37-7 treats these as different things. Practical vetting of unarmed guards is municipal.

Mississippi DPS Firearm Permit Division, 430 State Street, Jackson MS 39216: (601) 487-7028 (Firearm Permits and Security Guard Permits, daily 8:00am–3:00pm). Highway Patrol troop offices also process these permits.

Check the company

Mississippi does not license security companies at the state level, so there is no company licence to check. That is a fact about the state, not a mark against any firm.

Mississippi does not license security companies — Title 73 enumerates 48 licensed professions and private security is not among them. The only state credential touching guard work is an individual firearm permit, which is not published. Company licensing is municipal.

With no licence to check, lean harder on the things that do exist: the guard credentials above, insurance, workers’ compensation, and a business registration in good standing with the Mississippi Secretary of State.

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.

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

Mississippi 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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