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

Florida runs security licensing through an alphabet. Not a metaphor — an actual set of class letters, and you will hold at least three of them before a single guard works a shift.

The company licence is a Class "B". The person who runs it holds a Class "MB". Every unarmed officer holds a Class "D", and every armed officer holds a Class "G" on top of their Class "D". Each has its own fee, its own training requirement and its own expiry date — and Florida deliberately runs agency licences on a three-year cycle while individual licences run on two.

That mismatch is not trivia. Since October 2024 a late renewal costs you 100 percent of the licence fee on top of the fee itself, and a company juggling triennial and biennial calendars has several independent ways to trigger it.

The whole path, in order

Florida's sequence is unusually parallel. The background check runs long and gates almost everything, so the useful strategy is to start it early and do the rest of the work while it processes.

1. 1

   Form the entity with Sunbiz

   1–3 days

   A Florida LLC is $125 minimum — a $100 filing fee plus a $25 registered agent designation, both mandatory. Sunbiz also advertises a $160 total, but that bundles an optional certified copy and certificate of status you do not need.

2. 2

   Identify your Class MB manager

   1–2 weeks

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   The agency cannot operate without one. Two years of lawfully gained, verifiable, full-time security experience — or a permitted blend, such as one year of security work plus one year of criminal justice coursework, or one year plus a year in a supervisory capacity. Prior employers have to be contactable.

3. 3

   Bind the $300,000 combined single limit policy

   1–2 weeks

   Florida bars issuance of the Class B until a conforming certificate is on file. The policy must insure all departmentally licensed employees acting in the course of employment, and must name the Department as an additional insured.

4. 4

   File the Class B application and get fingerprinted

   8–14 weeks

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   Fingerprints run through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI — a two-agency check whose turnaround you cannot control. The department has 90 days to approve or deny a completed application and 30 days to flag omissions, so a defective filing converts into multi-week round trips.

5. 5

   Send unarmed hires to Class D school

   40 hours per officer

   Forty hours at a school or training facility licensed by the department. Certificates from unlicensed or out-of-state providers are not accepted. Training may be in person or delivered live online through a secure website, with the instructor verifying identity and attendance.

6. 6

   Add Class G for armed posts

   28 hours per officer

   A second licence, not an endorsement. Twenty-eight hours of range and classroom training, of which no more than twenty may be online and at least eight must be in-person range work. Then four hours of requalification every single year, taught by a Class K instructor.

7. 7

   Build the renewal calendar before you need it

   Ongoing

   Agency and branch licences renew every three years; managers, officers and firearm licences every two. Miss any of them and the late fee equals the licence fee. Past three months the licence is gone and you re-apply.

Step 1: Understand the Class Letters Before You Apply

Florida's scheme is more granular than almost any neighbouring state's, and applicants routinely buy the wrong thing.

Company level

• Class "B" — Security Agency. This is the company licence, and it is valid for only one location.
• Class "BB" — Branch office. Every additional location needs its own, at $125 plus a $50 application fee.
• Class "AB" — For a firm holding both private investigative and security agency licences.

Individual level

• Class "MB" — Agency manager
• Class "D" — Security officer, unarmed
• Class "G" — Statewide firearm licence, held in addition to the Class "D"
• Class "K" — Firearms instructor
• Class "DS" and "DI" — Security officer school and instructor

Why the one-location rule matters

The one-location rule is the constraint people underestimate. Expansion in Florida is a licensing event every time, not a matter of opening an office.

Step 2: Line Up Your Class "MB" Manager

A Class "B" agency cannot operate without someone qualified running it — but Florida gives you three ways to satisfy that, and only one of them is a Class "MB".

The statute permits a Class "M" licensee, or a Class "D" licensee who has held that licence for at least two years, to be designated as the manager, in which case no Class "MB" is required at all. For a new operator with a long-serving guard on the payroll, that route is worth checking before paying for another licence.

If you do go for the Class "MB", the requirement is two years of lawfully gained, verifiable, full-time experience in security work or a related field providing equivalent experience. Florida also allows blending:

• One year of security work plus one year of college coursework in criminal justice, criminology or law enforcement administration (capped at one year), or
• One year of security work plus one year in a managerial or supervisory capacity

There is no examination for a Class "MB" — a genuine simplification compared with Texas or New York, both of which make the qualifying person sit a test. Nothing restricts the manager to a non-owner either, so in a new company the owner normally holds it.

The words that matter are lawfully gained, verifiable, full-time. Prior employers must be contactable and the work must have been genuinely full-time security work. Self-attested or informal experience is the common failure point.

Step 3: Get the Insurance Exactly Right

Florida sets a combined single limit of $300,000 covering death, bodily injury, property damage and personal injury. This is worth pausing on, because it is not how most states express it: there is no separate per-occurrence figure and no separate aggregate. One number, covering everything.

The conditions that get applications rejected

The statutory conditions attached to it are where applications fail:

• The policy must insure the liability of all employees licensed by the department while acting in the course of their employment
• The Department must be named as an additional insured
• The agency must report claims against the insurance
• On cancellation, the agency licence is automatically suspended unless proof of replacement coverage is filed before the cancellation takes effect

Bear in mind, as everywhere, that $300,000 is a licensing threshold rather than a commercial one. Theme parks, hospital systems, ports and municipal contracts routinely require $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate before you can bid.

Step 4: File the Class "B" Application

The Class "B" costs $450 for a three-year term, plus a separate $50 application fee — Florida charges both, and the application fee applies to every licence type except Class "D" and Class "G".

Add $42 fingerprint processing per individual screened, plus a fingerprint retention fee that varies by term and filing type: $16.75 on an initial triennial filing, $22.75 on a triennial renewal.

Key tips for your application

• Everyone gets screened. The fingerprint-based state and national check under the licensing statute covers the agency applicant, the manager and every individual officer. Illegible prints get rejected and effectively restart the clock.
• Disclose fully. The department may deny on undisclosed or mischaracterised criminal history, and for Class "G" and "K" specifically on a history of mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse.
• A complete application starts the clock. The 90-day approval window only begins on a completed filing, and the department has 30 days to notify you of errors. Omissions are expensive in calendar time.
• Only use department-licensed schools. Class "D" certificates from unlicensed or out-of-state providers are not accepted, and this is a common and entirely avoidable rejection.

What it actually costs

Step 5: Train and License Your Officers

Unarmed — Class "D"

Forty hours of professional training at a department-licensed school, completed before applying for the registration. Delivery may be in person or live online through a secure website, with the instructor verifying identity, attendance and completion.

There is no continuing education for Class "D" renewal. The only repeat-training trigger is lapse: a licensee whose Class "D" has been expired for a year or more must retake the full forty hours.

Armed — Class "G"

This is a second licence, not an endorsement on the guard card, and Florida is explicit that a licensee who bears a firearm must also hold a Class "G".

• 28 hours of range and classroom training initially, of which no more than 20 may be in an online classroom and at least 8 must be in-person range training
• 4 hours of requalification every year, taught by a Class "K" licensee
• Two-year term at $112, with no application fee

Do not confuse that annual four-hour requalification with continuing education. It applies only to the armed licence, and missing it costs you the officer's ability to work armed posts.

Step 6: Go Live — and Use the Hurricane Rule

No Florida city or county may impose its own security guard licence on top of the state class licence — licensure is statewide. What survives locally is the ordinary local business tax receipt, per agency location. Budget for it, but do not go looking for a municipal guard permit that does not exist.

Where the work is:

• Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach — by far the largest market
• Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater — port, healthcare and stadium demand
• Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford — theme parks, conventions and hospitality dominate
• Jacksonville — port and logistics driven

And then there is a Florida-specific revenue mechanism worth understanding before hurricane season rather than during it.

Florida rules grant temporary authority to out-of-state security personnel during a declared state of emergency, for the duration of the declaration and any extensions. The conditions are commercially significant: those out-of-state personnel must be sponsored by a Class "B" agency licensed in Florida, must carry home-state identification and proof of licensure, and may not carry rifles or shotguns. Utility security personnel working on infrastructure repair are exempt from the sponsorship requirement.

If you hold the Class "B", you are the sponsor. That is a surge-capacity model no neighbouring state offers, and it is worth having the paperwork and the out-of-state relationships in place before a storm is named.

Step 7: Build Smart, Not Fast

One statutory change in 2026 is worth knowing about because it narrows your addressable market slightly. Chapter 2026-46, effective 1 July 2026, added an exemption for any person who, on a voluntary basis and without compensation, provides armed security services on the premises of a church, mosque, synagogue or other place of worship.

Houses of worship may now staff armed security with unpaid volunteers holding no Class "D" and no Class "G". Note the exemption is conjunctive — it requires both a voluntary basis and no compensation — so a paid guard at a place of worship still needs full licensure. It changes no fee, no insurance minimum and no training hour requirement.

The bigger operational risk is the renewal calendar. A company with an agency licence, one branch, a manager and a roster of Class "D" and Class "G" officers is running triennial and biennial cycles simultaneously, each with its own expiry date and each carrying a 100 percent surcharge if missed. There is a mandatory waiver, but it is narrow: the division will waive the late fee only where the delay was in reasonable reliance on erroneous written information from the department.

Your launch checklist

Bonus: Use Technology to Stay Compliant and Professional

Florida's compliance risk is almost entirely a date problem. Agency licence on three years, manager and officers on two, Class "G" requalification every twelve months, Sunbiz annual report every 1 May, insurance on its own renewal cycle — and a 100 percent surcharge waiting behind any one of them.

A guard management platform that tracks licence and certification expiry per officer, rather than a spreadsheet somebody maintains, is not an efficiency purchase in this state. It is the thing that stops an expired Class "G" putting an armed officer on a post they are no longer licensed to work. See how Safetrac handles it.

Final Thoughts

Florida is a large, competitive market with a licensing scheme that is precise rather than difficult. Nothing about the Class "B" is hard to satisfy: two years of experience, a $300,000 policy written the right way, a clean background and $500. There is no exam and no bond.

What Florida punishes is inattention. The one-location rule makes growth a licensing event. The mismatched renewal cycles make the calendar genuinely complex. And the automatic suspension on insurance cancellation means a missed premium payment can take your agency offline without anyone deciding to do it.

If you are weighing states, note how differently this is structured elsewhere: Texas sets no hour minimum for unarmed training and lets you deliver it in-house, while New York makes the qualifying principal sit a state-run walk-in exam before they may even file.

Official Florida resources:

• FDACS Division of Licensing — Private Security Licences
• Florida Statutes Chapter 493
• s.493.6301 — Security agency licence requirements
• s.493.6110 — Insurance requirements
• Sunbiz fee schedule