How To Start A Security Company in Delaware (2026 Guide)

Delaware is the smallest state you can build a real guard company in, and that cuts both ways. The market is one county deep along I-95 and thins out heading south — but the regulator is the Delaware State Police Professional Licensing Section, a small team in Dover who answer the phone.

The governing law is 24 Del. C. Ch. 13, and it puts a Board of Examiners of Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies between you and a licence. Your company needs a Class B agency licence; every guard you post needs a separate card. Both come from the same office.

Here is the order it happens in, and the two places Delaware differs sharply from its neighbours.

The whole path, in order

One step below is blocking for a structural reason and one for a calendar reason. Both are worth starting earlier than feels sensible.

1. 1

   Confirm who your licence holder will be

   Immediate, or years

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   Delaware regulation 1300-9.1 requires the licence holder to be an owner, partner or corporate officer — you cannot contract one in. If nobody on your cap table has four years managing a licensed security agency or five years as a police officer or investigator, that person has to be brought in as an owner before anything else moves.

2. 2

   Gather experience evidence on letterhead

   2–4 weeks

   A letter from a current official at the former agency, on official letterhead, with exact employment dates and confirmation you left in good standing. The Class B procedure sheet states that resumes and biographies are not accepted, and that corrections officers, auxiliary police and fire police do not count as police.

3. 3

   Form the entity and get a Delaware business licence

   1–2 weeks

   Certificate of Formation with the Division of Corporations, then a separate $75 business licence from the Division of Revenue — two different agencies that people routinely conflate. Delaware charges gross receipts tax instead of sales tax, so you register for that at the same time.

4. 4

   Post the bond and bind the insurance

   1–2 weeks

   A $10,000 surety bond in the agency's name from a surety authorised in Delaware, and $1,000,000 general liability per occurrence. The certificate has to be addressed to Professional Licensing at the Dover PO box, which is the detail insurers get wrong on the first attempt.

5. 5

   Fingerprint the licence holder and officers

   1 week

   IdentoGO service code 27S48X, $105 in state. Every corporate officer goes through it, not just the licence holder, and out-of-state officers pay their own state's rate through an FBI card instead.

6. 6

   File the Class B packet ahead of a Board meeting

   30 days before

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   The Board of Examiners sits four times a year — January/February, April/May, July/August, October/November — and applications are generally due thirty days ahead. No new agency licence can be issued between meetings, so filing on day 29 costs you three months.

7. 7

   Get uniforms, patches and vehicles approved

   With the application

   Images of every patch, badge, uniform, vehicle marking, business card and advert go in with the packet for Board approval before use. Patches cannot be generic and must carry the agency name; 'patrol' and 'officer' must be preceded by 'security'.

8. 8

   Card your guards and start the monthly roster

   Ongoing

   Guards train, sit the state exam at Delaware Tech, then apply — and the application is denied if they are not already employed by a licensed agency. From licensure onward you file a personnel roster and job-site list by the tenth of every month.

Step 1: Qualify Your Licence Holder

Delaware's answer to California's Qualified Manager is the licence holder — stricter in one way, looser in another.

The experience Delaware will accept

Under 24 Del. C. §1318, the licence holder must be at least 25 and meet one of: four years managing a licensed security agency, here or elsewhere; five years as a licensed private investigator; five years with an accredited US government investigative agency; five years as a police officer with any local, state or federal agency; or graduation from a certified law-enforcement academy. Felony convictions disqualify outright.

Why you cannot hire a qualifier

Regulation 1300-9.1 says the licence holder "must be an owner/partner/corporate officer of the agency requesting licensure." That one line removes the contracted-qualifier route operators lean on in Pennsylvania. If your qualifying person is a partner, they hold equity and your licence — paper that relationship before you rely on it.

The good news: no agency exam

There is no written examination for the licence holder. Delaware gates the agency licence on documented experience and a Board vote; the exam here belongs to the guards.

Step 2: Form Your Legal Business Entity

Delaware is the country's favourite state of incorporation, and that fact is irrelevant here — a Delaware entity headquartered in Philadelphia still pays the $500 out-of-state agency fee and still needs everything below.

Two agencies, two filings

Forming the company is the Division of Corporations: $110 for an LLC Certificate of Formation, $109 for a Certificate of Incorporation. Operating in the state is the Division of Revenue: a $75 business licence per location, renewed every 31 December regardless of when you started. Missing that second filing is common.

An LLC then owes a $400 annual tax due 1 June, with a $200 late penalty; a corporation pays a $50 annual report fee plus $175 minimum franchise tax. Delaware also charges gross receipts tax instead of sales tax — 0.3983% for general services, with the first $100,000 of monthly receipts excluded, so most new guard companies file and owe nothing for a while.

Step 3: Post the Bond and Bind Insurance

Both figures are set by regulation, not by your client's contract.

The bond is $10,000 in the agency's name, minimum one-year term, from a surety authorised in Delaware, on the DSP bond form. Class C agencies post $15,000.

The insurance is $1,000,000 commercial general liability per occurrence, with no aggregate specified — worth knowing when a client's contract assumes a $2M aggregate the way New Jersey and Maryland buyers often do. The certificate must be addressed to Delaware State Police, Professional Licensing, PO Box 430, Dover, DE 19903.

Step 4: Apply for Your Class B Agency Licence

The packet is the agency application, the licence holder application with experience letters, the bond, the insurance certificate, your uniform and advertising images, and the fee. Send it to Professional Licensing in Dover — and pay by company check, certified check or money order made payable to Delaware State Police, or by card. A personal cheque is not on the list.

Key tips for your application

• Work backwards from the Board meeting date, not forwards from today. Call (302) 739-5991 and ask which meeting you are aiming at.
• Book IdentoGO early; the file does not start processing until prints land.
• With no Delaware office, name an Agency Compliance Agent who can produce records within 48 hours.
• Report any change of officers, directors or business address in writing within 14 days of licensure onward.

What it actually costs

Licensing is cheap here by East Coast standards. The Class B licence covers two years, and there is no application-fee-plus-issue-fee split to catch you out.

Step 5: Uniforms, Vehicles and the Monthly Roster

Delaware pre-approves your visual identity. Uniforms, patches, badges, seals, vehicle markings, letterhead, business cards and advertising all need Board approval before use. Patches must carry the agency name and cannot be generic. "Patrol" and "officer" must be preceded by "security". No state seals. Vehicles cannot be mistakable for police cars, auxiliary lights must be amber or clear only, and sirens are prohibited outright.

Then the obligation nobody warns you about: Class B and C agencies file a personnel roster and a job-site list by the tenth of every month, where investigative and armored car agencies file quarterly. Rosters carry each person's name, DOB, race, sex, card expiry and position code; job-site lists carry site name, address and hours of coverage. It applies regardless of headcount, so a one-guard agency files the same report as a fifty-guard one.

Step 6: Go Live — and Start Building Your Reputation

Delaware's whole population is barely over a million, which changes how you sell.

• Wilmington, about 73,500 people, holds the corporate, port and commercial security money along the I-95 corridor in New Castle County.
• Dover is the capital, home of Professional Licensing itself, and a government-building, casino and Air Force Base contracting environment.
• Newark is a University of Delaware town — campus and student housing.
• Sussex County's beach towns are seasonal: Rehoboth, Lewes and Bethany spike for four months and go quiet.

No Delaware city or county runs its own guard-licensing scheme on top of the state one, so the Class B licence is the whole regulatory picture. In a market this small, referrals between property managers travel faster than advertising.

Step 7: Build Smart, Not Fast

Hiring is the constraint, and reciprocity is why. Delaware State Police state flatly that Delaware has no reciprocity with any state, so a guard already carded in Maryland or New Jersey must take a Delaware-approved course, pass the Delaware Tech exam at 75%, and apply here from scratch. Near the Pennsylvania line your recruiting pool is smaller than the map suggests, and onboarding runs weeks, not days.

Armed work adds its own rhythm: 40 hours of initial training, then three qualifying shoots a calendar year on at least two separate days, 90 days apart, one low-light, at 80% to pass, with agency compliance documentation due by 15 January. Wage-and-hour exposure is the other quiet risk, and our labor law and onboarding guide covers the payroll practices that keep it manageable.

Your launch checklist

Tick these off as you go — progress saves in your browser, so you can come back after the next Board meeting and pick up where you stopped.

Bonus: Use Technology to Stay Compliant and Professional

Delaware's monthly roster and job-site filing is exactly the obligation that gets missed when it lives in someone's memory. If your scheduling system already knows who is carded, when each card expires and which site each person covered, the tenth of the month becomes a five-minute export instead of an evening of spreadsheet archaeology — and the same records answer a Board question about a specific shift years later. That is the argument for running patrol tracking, daily activity reports and card-expiry alerts from one platform from your first contract rather than your fiftieth.

Final Thoughts

Delaware rewards operators who plan around a calendar instead of a queue. The fees are modest, the code is short, and no exam stands between you and the agency licence. What does stand there is a Board that meets four times a year and a rule that your licence holder must own part of the company.

The reachability of the office is a real asset. Professional Licensing is a small team in Dover with a phone number a human answers — if you are unsure whether an employment history qualifies, ask before you spend money assembling a packet around a guess. Very few states let you do that.

Resources & Links:

• DSP Security Guards and Agencies
• Class B Agency Licensure Procedures (PDF)
• DSP IdentoGO Fee Schedule (PDF)
• 24 Del. C. Chapter 13
• Delaware Division of Revenue — Business Licences