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

Georgia is one of the cheapest states in the South to get a security company licensed, and one of the easiest to get wrong. The requirements are light. The order they happen in is not what anyone expects.

The Georgia Board of Private Detective and Security Agencies — a Secretary of State licensing board, run from an office in Macon rather than Atlanta — issues the Private Security Business License. Two years of supervisory security work, two years in law enforcement, or a four-year criminal justice degree gets you through the door. Any one of the three.

What follows is the sequence as the Board actually runs it, with the traps that turn up in its own enforcement record.

The whole path, in order

Two steps gate everything behind them. Neither can be rushed with money.

1. 1

   Settle who holds the licence

   1–2 weeks

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   Georgia attaches the company licence to a named owner, partner or corporate officer. Rule 509-2-.02 counts full-time as 30 hours a week sustained across two years, so pull payroll records and reachable supervisor contacts now. If nobody in the business has that, a four-year criminal justice degree satisfies the requirement outright.

2. 2

   Register the entity in Georgia

   About a week

   $100 online with the Corporations Division for Articles of Organization or Incorporation, then your first annual registration within 90 days. Georgia levies no minimum franchise tax, so an idle entity costs $50 a year to hold rather than California's $800.

3. 3

   File the company and designee applications together

   20 business days

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   Two separate GOALS filings — company first, designee immediately after quoting the company application number. Neither is processed until both arrive, and nothing gets rejected in the meantime. They simply sit there while you assume you are in the queue.

4. 4

   Sit the PSI examination

   2–4 weeks

   You cannot book this in advance. The Board grants eligibility once it has reviewed your filing, and PSI Services then invites you to schedule. Three failures, or three consecutively missed appointments, and you start the whole application again.

5. 5

   File your bond, policy or net-worth statement

   1–2 weeks

   Only now does the $500 licence fee fall due, submitted with a $25,000 surety bond, a $1,000,000 general liability certificate, or a certified audited statement showing net worth over $50,000. Pick the one you can produce fastest — the Board treats them identically.

6. 6

   Collect your local occupational tax certificate

   1–2 weeks

   Georgia law bars any city or county from issuing you a business licence until the Board has acted on your application. Fulton, DeKalb, Chatham and Richmond counties each run their own certificate and each will check the state licence before granting it.

7. 7

   Train and register your officers

   2–4 weeks

   Twenty-four classroom hours for every security officer before a first shift. Armed officers add 15 hours of handgun instruction, 80% on both the written test and the range, a $70 registration and a Board-issued weapons permit.

8. 8

   Go live and build the operation

   Ongoing

   Contracts, scheduling, post orders, training records and client reporting. In Georgia the training records matter more than most places, because the State never checks them and you are the only one holding proof they exist.

Step 1: Qualify Your Licence Holder

Every Georgia company licence carries a named individual behind it — an owner, partner or corporate officer who personally meets the qualification. In most cases that should be you. Handing it to someone else hands them leverage over your licence.

Two years, or a degree — not both

This is the most commonly misunderstood point in Georgia, and the confusion comes from the Board's own website. Its FAQ page describes the requirement as two years of experience plus a four-year degree. The application form and Rule 509-2-.02 both describe three independent alternatives: two years of full-time supervisory or administrative work in in-house security or with a licensed agency, two years of law enforcement service, or a four-year degree in criminal justice or a related field.

The rule and the form govern. So a career-changer with a criminal justice degree and no guard-industry history can hold a Georgia licence outright — a route Alabama and Florida do not offer in the same form.

What "full-time" actually means

On the experience route, 30 hours a week is the floor and two years is the span. Law enforcement service has to match the definition in O.C.G.A. § 35-8-2(8). The Board wants documentation a third party can confirm, not a self-attestation.

Step 2: Form Your Legal Business Entity

Register with the Corporations Division before you file anything with the Board — the licence attaches to the entity, and the application asks for your Georgia corporate documents.

LLC or corporation in Georgia

Either is $100 filed online, $110 on paper, with annual registration at $50 between 1 January and 1 April and a $25 penalty for missing it. The first one is due within 90 days of formation, which catches people who form in November.

Georgia levies no minimum franchise tax, so the standing cost of an entity here is genuinely $50 a year — which makes holding a separate entity per market far cheaper than it is in California. Use a registered agent rather than your home address; guard companies attract litigation and the filing is public.

Step 3: Choose Your Bond, Insurance or Net Worth Proof

Most states compel insurance. Georgia compels a demonstration of financial responsibility and lets you make it three ways: an original $25,000 surety bond, a $1,000,000 general liability certificate of insurance, or a certified audited financial statement showing net worth in excess of $50,000.

You satisfy exactly one, and you file it after the exam rather than with the application.

Step 4: Apply for Your Private Security Business Licence

Everything goes through the GOALS portal. The Board stopped accepting paper applications and returns them to sender, so the $5 online processing fee applies rather than the $10 paper fee still printed on the schedule.

Key Tips for Your Application

• The $100 application fee buys a review, not a licence. The $500 licence fee is not charged until you pass the exam.
• Do not plan around an exam date. Eligibility is granted by the Board and PSI notifies you afterwards; nothing gets you in the chair earlier.
• Treat every scheduled PSI appointment as a live attempt. Three missed appointments resets you to a fresh application just as three failures does.
• Answer deficiency letters the week they arrive. Each restarts the 20-day clock, and 60 days of silence withdraws the application.

What it actually costs

The fees arrive in two waves, and the second only lands if you pass the exam.

Step 5: Train and Register Your Officers

Every security officer needs 24 hours of classroom instruction before a first shift, covering the role of private security, legal aspects including Title 43-38 itself, patrol and observation, incident response, security resources, customer service and first aid. Registered employees then owe 8 hours of continuing education per two-year cycle.

Here is what surprises operators arriving from Tennessee or Florida: Georgia does not register unarmed guards at all, and there is no unarmed guard card. The 24 hours still bind, but nothing external verifies them — so your training file is the only evidence, and it is the first thing a plaintiff's lawyer asks for.

Armed officers are different. They register at $70, hold a Board-issued weapons permit, complete 15 hours of handgun instruction and score at least 80% on both the written exam and the range. Shotguns need a further 2-hour module plus your written request and Board approval. Calibre is capped at .357 for revolvers and .45 for semi-automatics.

Step 6: Go Live — and Start Building Your Reputation

Atlanta is the market at roughly 6.4 million people — Hartsfield-Jackson, corporate campuses, film production, a permanent multifamily construction pipeline. The specialised money sits elsewhere: Augusta runs on Fort Eisenhower and cyber contracting, Savannah on the largest single-terminal container port in North America, Columbus on Fort Benning.

• Set up your Google Business Profile and collect reviews from day one
• Target the segment, not the state — "warehouse security Savannah" beats "security guards Georgia"
• Answer the phone. Responsiveness wins Georgia contracts more often than price does

Step 7: Build Smart, Not Fast

Georgia requires workers' compensation from three or more employees, and the counting rule catches people: regularly-working part-timers count, and corporate officers and LLC members count toward the three even where officers have waived their own coverage. A two-guard company with a working owner-officer is already there.

Wage-and-hour exposure is the other thing that quietly ends young guard companies. Our guide to labor law compliance for security guard companies is written against California rules, but the habits travel.

Your launch checklist

Tick these off as you go. Progress saves in your browser, so you can leave and come back mid-application.

Bonus: Use Technology to Stay Compliant and Professional

Because Georgia never registers your unarmed guards, your internal records are the only proof that anyone on your roster completed their 24 hours, worked the post they were billed for, or responded when something happened. Guard management software like Safetrac makes that evidence a by-product of running shifts rather than a filing exercise — GPS-verified check-ins, automatic daily activity reports, timestamped incident logs, client-ready PDFs. See how it works on our product page.

Final Thoughts

Georgia rewards operators who read the sequence carefully and punishes the ones who improvise it. The requirements are genuinely light — $600 to the Board, three ways to prove you are solvent, no compulsory insurance and no franchise tax. What Georgia will not forgive is filing half a pair of applications, chasing an exam you are not yet eligible for, or opening for business while the Board is still reading your file.

Get the licence holder's paperwork right, file both applications the same day, and answer every letter the week it arrives.

Resources & Links:

• Georgia Board of Private Detective and Security Agencies
• Board fee schedule
• Company licence application and requirements
• Board rules, Chapter 509
• Corporations Division filing fees