Checking a guard or a security company in Pennsylvania

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 Pennsylvania, and walks you to Pennsylvania State Police (Act 235) / County Courts (Private Detective Act)’s own records to confirm it.

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

Check the guard

Pennsylvania licenses security companies but not individual guards, so there is no officer record to check.

What they should hold

If they carry a firearmAct 235 Lethal Weapons Certification40 hrs of training · state exam · renews every 5 years

Armed work: Armed guards must obtain Act 235 certification: pre-approval by the State Police, training at a certified school (classroom + range), and renewal every 5 years.

How to check it

Work out first whether the guard will be armed. Pennsylvania has no statewide licence for an unarmed guard, so for unarmed work there is no individual state credential to check — but for anyone carrying a lethal weapon there is, and it is checkable.
Ask the armed officer for their surname as it appears on their Act 235 card and their Act 235 certification number.
Open tacs.pa.gov/tacs/siteminder and find the 'Lethal Weapon Verification' panel. Do not sign in — that panel sits on the sign-in page and works without an account.
Enter the Last Name and Certification Number and press Search. The page returns a 'Current Certification Status' for that person.
Confirm the status reads as current. Act 235 certification runs five years, and TACS shows status rather than an expiry date, so also read the expiry printed on the physical card.
Do not treat Act 235 as permission to carry a gun. The Superior Court held in Commonwealth v. Anderson (2017) that it is not a substitute for a licence to carry, and the regulations at 37 Pa. Code § 21.26(d) say the card does not grant any right to carry or own a firearm. Ask for the officer's separate firearm authority as well.
Check the company separately: Pennsylvania licenses security firms county by county through the Court of Common Pleas, not through a statewide registry, so ask which county issued the company's licence and confirm it with that county's clerk.

Open the PA State Police TACS — Lethal Weapon Verification →

Shows licence status · does not show an expiry date.

If the lookup finds nothing: PA State Police Lethal Weapons Certification Unit, 8002 Bretz Drive, Harrisburg PA 17112-9748: (717) 346-4087, mpolethalweapcert@pa.gov.

Check the company

Pennsylvania 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.

A licence is required statewide but Pennsylvania has no state security regulator and no state registry. The Private Detective Act of 1953 assigns licensing to a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the county where the firm's principal office sits, so any roster would have to be assembled from 67 county clerks.

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 Pennsylvania 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

Pennsylvania requirements last reviewed September 14, 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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