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Checking a guard or a security company in Missouri

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

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

Check the guard

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

How to check it

  1. Work out which city the post is in. In St. Louis City and in Kansas City the guard must hold an individual licence from that city's police department; elsewhere in Missouri no licence exists.
  2. For a St. Louis City post, ask to see the badge/identification card issued by the SLMPD Private Security Section — city rules require it to be worn conspicuously in uniform, or carried on the person when working uniform-exempt. Check the name, photo and expiry.
  3. For a Kansas City post, ask for the KCPD Private Officers Licensing Unit licence, and remember 17 CSR 10-2.010(5)(C): any DIRECT SUPERVISOR of a security officer must be licensed too, so ask for the supervisor's licence as well.
  4. Do not accept a Missouri private detective licence or a POST peace officer certificate as a substitute in St. Louis City — the city board licenses security officers separately, and out-of-jurisdiction police officers working security in St. Louis City must be licensed by the Private Security Section like anyone else.
  5. Because neither city publishes a search, phone the issuing unit with the guard's name and licence number to confirm it is current before they start.
  6. For a post outside both cities, accept there is no licence and vet on the employer's own background check and training records.
Why there is no link to click

Missouri has no statewide security guard licence and no state database of guards. Licensing is municipal and is run by two police departments under separate statutes, and neither publishes a public licence search — verification is by phone. WRONG-DATABASE TRAP: Missouri's Division of Professional Registration licenses private investigators statewide and has a public search; 17 CSR 20-2.015 states in terms that 'Private detectives are licensed by the state of Missouri, not by the board of police commissioners.' A St. Louis security officer will never appear in the state PI search, and a state PI licence does not authorise security work in St. Louis City. Also note the geography: the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners covers the City of St. Louis only, not St. Louis County.

SLMPD Private Security Section: 314-615-5317. KCPD Private Officers Licensing Unit, 635 Woodland Suite 2104, Kansas City MO 64106: 816-889-6600, polu@kcpd.org (new applicants 7:30am–2:30pm, office to 3:30pm).

Check the company

Missouri 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.

Missouri has no statewide security company licence. State law instead delegates private-security licensing to city police boards — Kansas City and St. Louis each run their own scheme, and Springfield, St. Joseph and Joplin license locally. Neither major city publishes a machine-readable roster.

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 Missouri 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

Missouri 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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