How To Start A Security Company in North Dakota (2026 Guide)

Most states ask whether your company qualifies for a licence. North Dakota asks whether you do — and then asks how many hours you have logged.

The Private Investigation and Security Board licenses agencies, but it stacks that licence on a four-rung ladder for individuals: apprentice security officer, security officer, commissioned security officer, and only then an individual licence to provide private security services. An agency needs a qualifying agent holding that individual licence. Work backwards and 4,000 hours of registered service and 124 classroom hours stand between an outsider and a company of their own.

Everything else — the $600 of agency fees, the entity filing, the insurance certificate — takes a few weeks. The rank takes years, unless the board waives it.

The whole path, in order

The two blocking steps both sit on the individual, not the company. Neither can be shortened with money.

1. 1

   Settle how your qualifying agent gets commissioned rank

   6 weeks to several years

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   Rule 93-02-02.1-10 lets the board credit licensure in another state, law enforcement in any jurisdiction, military security or proprietary security against the hour requirements. Petition for that waiver first, in writing, with service records attached. If it is refused you are looking at 1,000 apprentice hours and 3,000 more as a registered security officer.

2. 2

   Complete the classroom hours the rank demands

   Alongside the hours

   Twelve hours to register as an apprentice, then 32 more for security officer and 80 more for commissioned. Only the apprentice requirement may be met online through a board-certified trainer, or by 12 hours of field training instead. The 32 and 80 must be in-person or live remote.

3. 3

   Sit the board examination

   Scheduled by the board

   Blocks everything downstream — start it early

   The pass must be dated within the twelve months before your licence application, so timing matters in both directions — too early and it lapses. Fail and you wait 30 days to retake; fail a third time and the wait becomes a year.

4. 4

   Register the entity with the Secretary of State

   2–5 days

   Articles of organization are $135 for a domestic LLC, $100 for a corporation. Every non-licensed officer and anyone holding 10% or more of the company will be named on the board application and must independently meet the qualification standard, so decide the cap table before you file.

5. 5

   Bind the $300,000 GL and E&O certificate

   1–2 weeks

   The board wants one certificate carrying both covers, executed by you and by the insurer, conditioned on the honest conduct of the business. Brokers who write plain guard liability often have to go back for the errors and omissions endorsement, which is where a fortnight goes.

6. 6

   Open a Workforce Safety & Insurance account

   1 week

   North Dakota is a monopolistic fund state. Workers' compensation can only be bought from WSI, coverage attaches to every employee including seasonal and occasional ones, and it must be in place before anyone starts work. An out-of-state policy does not travel with you.

7. 7

   File the individual and agency licence applications

   About 30 business days

   $150 plus $225 for your own licence, $150 plus $450 for the agency, and they may be filed at the same time. Both carry a state and nationwide criminal history check under N.D.C.C. 43-30-06 at $40 a head, payable by you. The board publishes roughly 30 business days once a complete file is in its hands.

8. 8

   Register every officer, then go live

   Ongoing

   $45 per employee or independent contractor plus the $40 record check, renewed annually. The agency may not put an unregistered person on a post, and registered staff may only work under the supervision of a licensed individual — which for a new company means you. A provisional card on a clear ND BCI record lets a hire start while the federal search runs.

Step 1: Get Your Qualifying Agent to Commissioned Rank

North Dakota's ranks are not job titles a company hands out. They are registrations the board issues, each with its own hour count and its own classroom requirement.

The ladder, in numbers

An apprentice security officer registers first and completes 12 hours of instruction within 30 days. After 1,000 hours of service in that role plus another 32 classroom hours, they can be registered as a security officer. After a further 3,000 hours at that rank and 80 more classroom hours, they become a commissioned security officer. Only then can they apply for an individual licence — and only a licensee can be an agency's qualifying agent.

Why the equivalency rule is the real application

For anyone who did not come up through a North Dakota agency, 93-02-02.1-10 is the door. It lets the board waive part or all of the training and experience where the applicant has been licensed in a state with similar requirements, has served in law enforcement anywhere, or has done military or proprietary security to an equivalent standard. Guards moving up from South Dakota — which licenses nothing at state level — have nothing to convert and should expect to start at apprentice.

Step 2: Form Your Legal Business Entity

Nothing in ch. 43-30 dictates a legal form, so this is a liability and tax decision. Most North Dakota guard companies land on an LLC taxed as an S corporation.

Decide ownership before the board sees it

The application names the qualifying agent, all non-licensed officers and every owner of at least a 10% interest, and each of them must meet the qualification standard in 93-02-02.1-01 — age, education, criminal history, fitness. A silent investor with a felony is not a private matter here; they are a disqualification on your application. An agency licence is also non-transferable, so a change of ownership means a fresh application rather than an amendment.

Step 3: Insurance, E&O and the WSI Account

Two obligations sit here and they come from completely different places.

The board's requirement is modest in size and specific in form: $300,000 of general liability with errors and omissions, filed before issuance, with the insurer bound to give 30 days' written notice before cancelling. Treat it as a floor. A hospital in Bismarck or an oilfield operator out of Williston will specify several times that number.

Workers' compensation is neither negotiable nor shoppable. WSI is the sole lawful provider in North Dakota, cover is required for every employee before they begin working, and operators crossing from Minnesota or Montana cannot extend an existing policy over the state line.

Step 4: Apply for the Agency Licence

With the individual licence in hand, the agency application is the short part: $150 to apply, $450 on issuance, criminal history checks for everyone named.

Key tips for your application

• File the insurance certificate as the board words it, not as your broker words it.
• Name every 10% owner. Omissions read as concealment rather than oversight.
• Time the filing against your exam window and against 30 September.
• Have your officers' registrations ready to submit the day the agency licence issues, because they cannot work before then.

What it actually costs

North Dakota is cheap to be licensed in and expensive to become licensable in. The fees below are set by statute, not by the board's discretion, and the legislature raised them by roughly half in 2025.

Step 5: Register, Arm and Uniform Your Officers

Registration is the agency's job, not the officer's. You may not employ or contract with an unregistered person, and registered staff may only work under a licensee's supervision.

Arming anyone is a separate gate. An armed officer must comply with all state and federal firearms law, must have completed the same firearms training North Dakota requires of peace officers, and must already hold at least security officer rank plus a $45 armed certificate. An apprentice cannot be armed, and neither a concealed weapons permit nor constitutional carry authorises carrying on a security post.

The peace-officer standard the rule points at is N.D. Admin. Code 109-02-03, and it recurs: every armed officer requalifies with their duty weapon each year at a minimum 70%, and the board wants that range score before 30 September with the renewal.

Uniforms need no patch approval. The rule is blunter: if a uniform is worn, the employing agency's name must be prominently displayed, and nothing about the badge, patch or insignia may suggest police powers or a government connection.

Step 6: Go Live Across North Dakota's Markets

Four markets, and they buy differently.

• Fargo and West Fargo are the volume — healthcare, retail, distribution and university work, sharing a labour pool with Moorhead across the Red River in Minnesota.
• Bismarck-Mandan is state government, hospitals and utilities, with procurement that wants documents.
• Grand Forks adds the university and air base economy, with sharp event peaks.
• Williston, Watford City and the wider Bakken are the outlier: wellsite and midstream posts, long rotations, and safety requirements written by oilfield contracts rather than by the board.

Step 7: Build Smart, Not Fast

Because the ladder is slow, registered officers are the scarcest thing you own. One with 1,000 logged hours is years from running their own shop and immediately valuable to a competitor. Retention, not recruitment, is the North Dakota constraint.

Get the employment mechanics right while you are small — offer letters, overtime classification, honest time records. Our security guard labor law guide is written to California's stricter standard, but the wage-and-hour logic transfers, and accurate hour records are also how you prove service time when an officer applies for promotion.

Your launch checklist

Work through in order. Ticks are saved in this browser, so you can leave and come back.

Bonus: Use Technology to Stay Compliant and Professional

In a state that measures officers in logged hours, the record of who worked which post and for how long is a compliance document — the evidence behind every promotion application your officers file with the board. A platform such as Safetrac timestamps each check-in, turns shift notes into daily activity reports a facility manager will actually open, and keeps that service history retrievable when somebody needs to prove 1,000 hours three years later. The product page shows how it works.

Final Thoughts

North Dakota's fees are among the lowest in the country and its entry barrier among the highest. That combination shapes the market: fewer agencies, slower churn, and clients in Fargo and the Bakken served by the same handful of companies for years.

So the honest first question here is not "how do I apply" but "how do I reach commissioned rank, or find someone who already has." Answer that and the rest is a fortnight of forms, thirty business days of review and about $1,300.

Resources & Links:

• ND Private Investigation and Security Board — licensing and application forms
• N.D.C.C. ch. 43-30 — private investigative and security services
• N.D. Admin. Code ch. 93-02-02.1 — private security services
• N.D. Admin. Code ch. 93-01-01 — the board
• North Dakota Secretary of State — business structures and fees
• Workforce Safety & Insurance — coverage requirements