Security guard licensing rules by province: an employer’s guide

Licensing is provincial, and so is your liability

There is no Canada-wide security guard licence. Each province sets its own rules for who can work as a guard, what training they need and how long a licence lasts, and a guard must be licensed in the province where they work. The firm employing them usually needs its own agency or business licence too.

Most published guides are written for people who want to become guards. This one is for the people who employ them: what to check before a guard’s first shift, where to check it, and how to avoid the expiry date that turns a valid guard into an unlicensed one at midnight.

Province-by-province comparison

The figures below are for an individual security guard licence, checked against each province’s official pages on October 14, 2026. Where a province doesn’t state a figure officially, the table says so.

Fees are for a new individual licence and may change. Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut set their own rules. Links to every official page are at the end of this guide.

British Columbia and the Prairies

• British Columbia has the highest minimum age in Western Canada, 19, and requires fingerprints on every first application. A full licence requires Basic Security Training: the Justice Institute of British Columbia describes it as a 40-hour course with a 70% exam pass mark. Since December 15, 2025, JIBC issues a statement of training completion rather than a BST certificate, so check which document a new hire is showing you. BC also offers an “under supervision” licence that needs no training. An expired BC licence means a new application, so renew early.
• Alberta has the highest exam pass mark of the provinces that publish one: 80%. Standard licences last two years and are portable between employers, and a 60-day temporary licence is issued once an application is approved. Alberta also has a separate 30-day training licence, which the employer applies for and which is not portable: a guard arriving from another firm on a training licence needs a new application from you.
• Saskatchewan issues one-year licences that are valid only for the business named on them. When a guard joins you from another Saskatchewan firm, their existing licence does not cover work for you.
• Manitoba licences last one year. A guard has 30 days after expiry to renew without starting over, but working on a lapsed licence is still an offence, so those 30 days are not working days.

Ontario and Québec

Ontario licences expire on the guard’s second birthday after the licence is issued, so a first licence can last less than two years; renewals then run two years. Renewal opens 90 days before expiry. Since February 2024, new and renewal applications need a criminal record and judicial matters check issued within six months of applying, so ordering it too early is as much of a problem as ordering it too late. Anyone can check a licence on the ministry’s public registry.

Québec is regulated by the Bureau de la sécurité privée. A guarding licence requires at least 70 hours of training and is valid for five years, much longer than elsewhere, but annual fees are due during that period, and a renewal must be filed at least 45 days before expiry. A five-year term makes expiry dates easy to forget; diarize both the annual fee and the 45-day renewal deadline. The BSP’s register of licence holders is public by law and searchable online.

See also: Ontario public registry · BSP public register

Atlantic Canada

• Nova Scotia licences expire every March 31, whatever the date they were issued, and the guard must be employed by a licensed company. Plan renewals for the whole team in February.
• New Brunswick requires guards to be employed by a licensed agency. Since April 2024, training is required for guards who carry batons or handcuffs.
• Newfoundland and Labrador states that there is no licensing requirement for a security guard. The agency is licensed, and it may not employ a guard without a clear letter of conduct and training that meets the province’s criteria. (The province also publishes a list of valid agent licences, so check which category applies if you hire someone who already holds one.) Keep those files current; they are what an inspector will ask for.
• Prince Edward Island licenses guards under its Private Investigators and Security Guards Act, and the employer certifies each application.

Guards moving between provinces

No province accepts another province’s licence for work on its territory. A guard licensed in Alberta who takes a shift in British Columbia needs a BC licence. What provinces do offer is credit for training already done:

• British Columbia waives its training requirement for licences from Alberta (the certified kind, with training and exam completed), Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.
• Alberta accepts another province’s licence in place of its training.
• Ontario waives its training and test for a valid licence from another province. If the ministry hasn’t decided within 10 business days, the guard is deemed certified and can work for six months while the review continues.

How to verify a licence before the first shift

1. 1Get the licence number, class and expiry date from the guard, in writing, and a copy of the licence.
2. 2Check it with the regulator. Ontario and Québec have public registries and British Columbia has a status verification tool. In other provinces, contact the program; in employer-bound provinces, make sure the licence names your company.
3. 3Keep proof of the check: a dated screenshot or the regulator’s reply in the guard’s file.
4. 4Record every expiry date for the licence and for any other certificate the guard needs, such as first aid or baton training.
5. 5Check again at every renewal and whenever a guard tells you their status has changed.

The expiry trap

Ontario is explicit that there is no grace period, and we found no province that lets a guard work on an expired licence. A licence that expires today means the guard can’t work today, and a firm that keeps them on post is deploying an unlicensed guard. The classic failure is the overnight shift that starts at 22:00 the day before a birthday and ends at 06:00 the morning after.

Track expiry dates with alerts at 90, 60 and 30 days, and block scheduling from the day a licence expires until the renewal is verified. Use this tracker if you are still on a spreadsheet:

LICENCE TRACKER (one row per guard)

Guard | Province | Licence no. | Class / category | Issued | Expires | Verified on (registry) | Other certificates (first aid, baton, handcuffs) + expiry | Next action

ALERT RULES
90 days before expiry  -> remind guard; in Ontario, renewal opens now
60 days before expiry  -> confirm renewal started; order any criminal record check needed
                          (Ontario: the check must be less than 6 months old when you apply)
30 days before expiry  -> escalate to manager; plan cover for this guard's shifts
On expiry date         -> no shifts from 00:00 that day until the new licence is verified

CHECK BEFORE EVERY NEW ASSIGNMENT
[ ] Licence valid for the whole shift (not just the start)
[ ] Licence valid in the province of the site
[ ] In employer-bound provinces (SK, NS, NB): licence linked to your company

Download the licence tracker

What getting it wrong can cost

Penalties vary by province. In Ontario, the maximum penalty for an offence under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act is a fine of up to $25,000 or a year in jail, or both, for an individual, and up to $250,000 for a business. Those are maximums for offences under the Act in general, not a fixed fine for one unlicensed shift.

The commercial risk is often bigger. Most security contracts require licensed guards, so an unlicensed guard on post can be a breach of contract, and an incident on that shift is harder to defend with your insurer and in court. Check whether your liability policy says anything about licensing.

How GuardDesk handles licences

GuardDesk Pro keeps each guard’s licence and certificates with their expiry dates, and checks them before a shift is assigned: a dispatcher can’t give a shift to a guard whose licence won’t be valid on that date. When a licence nears expiry, the affected shifts show up as exceptions before they become a problem.

See also: GuardDesk plans · Scheduling and dispatch

Questions owners ask

Sources

General information for security firm owners and managers, not legal advice. Rules change: confirm with the regulator or your lawyer before relying on them. Checked October 14, 2026.

• British Columbia: security worker licence application
• British Columbia: training requirements
• JIBC: Basic Security Training
• British Columbia: licence status verification
• Alberta: security service worker licence
• Saskatchewan: private investigators and security guards program
• Manitoba: individual licence FAQ
• Ontario: get a security guard or private investigator licence
• Ontario: security guard study guide (test format)
• Ontario: 2023–2024 annual report of the Private Security and Investigative Services Branch
• Québec: Loi sur la sécurité privée
• Québec: BSP public register
• Nova Scotia: security guard licence
• New Brunswick: investigation and security licensing
• Newfoundland and Labrador: security