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Checking a guard or a security company in South Carolina

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 South Carolina, and walks you to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED)’s own records to confirm it.

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

Check the guard

South Carolina 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 Officer Registration (Unarmed)4 hrs of training · renews yearly
If they carry a firearmArmed Security Officer Registration4 hrs of training · renews yearly

Armed work: Armed officers (21+) complete SLED-approved firearms training covering use-of-force law and liability, and must qualify with, and carry, the exact firearm used in qualification.

How to check it

  1. Ask the guard to show their SLED registration card and note the name exactly as printed, the registration number, and the company named on the card.
  2. Establish which registration type applies: a guard supplied by a contractor holds a Contract Security Employee registration, while an in-house guard holds a Proprietary one. The card is tied to a single employer.
  3. Call SLED Regulatory Services on 803-737-9000 and ask them to confirm the registration is current and still associated with that company — there is no public online search for individuals.
  4. Separately check SLED’s published "Ineligibility List", linked from its Security Companies page, to make sure the person is not listed as ineligible for registration.
  5. Confirm in the same call that the registration is active and unexpired, and that firearms training is current if the guard will work armed.
Why there is no link to click

SLED registers individual security officers but publishes no licensee search. Its Security Companies page carries only application forms, training records, statutes, regulations and an Ineligibility List — there is no lookup for companies or individuals, so verification must go through SLED directly.

SLED Regulatory Services, 803-737-9000, 4400 Broad River Road, Columbia SC 29210.

Check the company

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services 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 holdContract Security Business LicenseIssued by South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services

How to check it

  1. Ask the company for the exact legal name on its licence. South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services does not publish licence numbers here, so the name is what you can actually match.
  2. South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services publishes no public per-company lookup, so this cannot be done online.
  3. Contact South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services directly and ask them to confirm the licence status for that exact legal name. Ask for the answer in writing if the contract is significant.
  4. Meanwhile, ask the company for a copy of the licence itself and check that the name on it matches the entity that will sign your contract.

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Office of Regulatory Services names the firms it licenses but publishes no licence number, so a number a company gives you cannot be matched against the state list. Match on the legal name instead.

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.

South Carolina does not require it

South Carolina sets no liability insurance minimum for a contract security business. Neither Title 40 Chapter 18 nor SLED’s checklists impose a limit — a $10,000 bond is the entire financial-responsibility regime. Any insurance a South Carolina guard company carries is contractual, not regulatory.

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: $10,000 surety bond posted with SLED in favour of the State, on a form approved by the Attorney General, from a surety licensed in South Carolina, re-posted at each annual renewal.

The duty sits squarely on the SURETY: it may cancel only on thirty days’ notice to SLED, and its own relief from liability depends on having given that notice. One of the cleanest regulator-facing paper trails anywhere, even though the instrument is a bond.

If it lapses: The sharpest automatic consequence found in any state. Regulation 73-410: cancellation of the bond results in immediate designation as CONDITIONALLY LICENSED; the company has ten days to file a replacement certificate; failure "will render the company license invalid and the company must immediately cease the activities for which it is licensed." No hearing required.

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.

S.C. Code §40-18-50; S.C. Code Regs. §73-410 — https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/south-carolina/R-73-410

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

South Carolina 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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