Checking a guard or a security company in South Dakota

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

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

Check the guard

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

How to check it

Understand that no South Dakota agency licenses guards or guard companies, so "state licensed" cannot be true of either here. There is no state office to call.
Find out which city the guard will work in, because any requirement at all is municipal.
For Rapid City, check the licence-holder lists published by the City Finance Office at rcgov.org/departments/finance/license-holders-262.html, which includes a "Security" PDF, or call 605-394-4143.
Everywhere else in the state, call that city’s finance office or clerk and ask whether they license security guards or firms at all — many do not.
Because there is usually nothing to verify, shift the check onto the company: ask for a current certificate of liability insurance, a written background-check policy, and firearms qualification records for any armed post.

Why there is no link to click

South Dakota licenses neither security guards nor security companies at state level, so there is no state record to check. The Department of Labor & Regulation’s A–Z list of every licensing board and form runs from abstracters to trust companies with no private security, security guard or private investigator programme anywhere in it. Regulation is purely municipal — Rapid City issues a "Security" licence and publishes its licence holders as a PDF through the Finance Office, though whether that list names individual guards or only companies is unconfirmed.

There is no state agency to call. Check the Department of Labor and Regulation’s boards list at dlr.sd.gov/bop/ yourself, then contact the city clerk where the guard will work — Rapid City, for example, licenses both guards and security businesses — and require the employer to produce its own background-check and training file.

Check the company

South Dakota 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.

South Dakota has no state security regulator — the state's list of every occupational licensing agency contains no security, guard or investigation board. Rapid City and Pierre license guard businesses municipally; Sioux Falls has no ordinance at all.

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 South Dakota 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

South Dakota 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.

Hiring guards in South Dakota?

Send one staffing request and it reaches licensed companies covering your state. No account needed.

Request security staffing