Two state agencies license this work in Texas, and most building owners only know about one of them.
The Texas Department of Public Safety licenses burglar alarm, access control, and camera work. The Texas Department of Insurance licenses fire alarm work. They have separate rules, separate license types, and separate lookup tools. A company that installs both your cameras and your fire alarm needs a license from each.
There is also a third layer most people miss, and it is not on your vendor at all. It is on you. A commercial building in Houston can owe the city two separate annual permits, and neither one belongs to the alarm company.
Here is how the pieces fit, and how to check your own provider in about ten minutes.
Two state agencies split the work.
The Private Security Bureau at the Texas Department of Public Safety covers alarm installers and monitors, electronic access control installers, security guards, locksmiths, private investigators, armored car companies, and courier companies. The rules come from Chapter 1702 of the Texas Occupations Code.
The State Fire Marshal's Office at the Texas Department of Insurance covers fire alarm and fire detection work. Those rules come from Chapter 6002 of the Texas Insurance Code.
The line between them is the purpose of the system, not the wire. A device that detects a break-in falls under DPS. A device that detects fire falls under the State Fire Marshal. Most commercial buildings have both. So most buildings are served either by a company that holds both licenses, or by two companies.
DPS issues several license classes. Three of them cover company operations:
One detail worth knowing: a Class B license is not a blanket authorization. DPS lists on the license which specific services the company may perform. Electronic access control is its own line, and a company approved for alarm work is not automatically approved for access control. That is a fair question to ask when a proposal covers both.
People hold licenses separately from the company. DPS issues individual licenses including Alarm Installer, Electronic Access Control Device Installer, Alarm System Monitor, and Locksmith. Those two installer licenses are not interchangeable either. Someone licensed to install access control may not install alarm systems without also holding the alarm installer license.
A quick note on wording. These used to be called registrations. Senate Bill 616 changed them to individual licenses effective September 1, 2019, so anything you read using the older term predates that change.
So a properly licensed job has two parts: a licensed company, and licensed people doing the work.
In most commercial cases, yes. This one surprises people.
Chapter 1702 defines an alarm system to include a television or still camera system that records or archives images of property or people in a public or private area of a residence or business, or that is monitored by security personnel or services. That definition does not depend on whether the cameras are networked. A system that records is covered.
DPS has also published guidance that network video systems count as alarm systems, stating that a company which sells and installs cameras transmitting or storing images over a computer network fits the Chapter 1702 definition, and that the installer therefore meets the definition of an alarm systems company.
Between the statute and that guidance, almost every commercial video surveillance install is licensed work. If a camera vendor holds no DPS license, ask about it before you sign.
There are real exceptions, and they are in the statute rather than the guidance. A company that only sells equipment — over the counter, by mail order, or online — without installing it is exempt. So is an owner who installs a system on their own property. So are a business's own employees working in-house for that business. What is not exempt is hiring an outside company to come install cameras that record.
Fire alarm work runs through the State Fire Marshal's Office. The company credential is a certificate of registration, which the agency calls an Alarm Certificate of Registration.
Technicians hold their own licenses on top of it. For a commercial system, the work is done or directly supervised by someone holding a Fire Alarm Technician (FAL) or Fire Alarm Planning Superintendent (APS) license. Residential license types do not cover commercial buildings.
This is not an installation-only rule. The Insurance Code defines "service" to include inspection, maintenance, repair, and testing. So the company doing your annual fire alarm inspection needs the registration just as much as the company that installed the system. We covered what that yearly inspection has to include in How Often Does a Commercial Fire Alarm Have to Be Inspected in Texas?
Both agencies publish a free public search. Neither takes long.
For security, access control, and camera work, use the Texas Online Private Security search, known as TOPS. You can search businesses, individuals, or training schools, and filter by license type.
For fire alarm work, use the State Fire Marshal's company and licensee search. Use that full address. The bare domain redirects somewhere else.
One quirk on the fire side is worth knowing. That page says a search will not return results if the company's insurance is expired or not on file. It applies to both the company search and the individual search. So a blank result is not proof that a firm is unlicensed. It does mean something is out of date, and it is worth a phone call.
Your alarm company's state license does not cover your building's alarm permits. Those belong to the alarm site — the property owner or operator. Inside Houston, a commercial building with both a monitored burglar alarm and a fire alarm owes the city two separate annual permits, issued by two different departments.
Required for any alarm site inside Houston city limits, or in an area that receives Houston Police response. The current application and fee sheet, revised December 2025, sets the non-residential fee at $134.28 plus a $33.56 administrative fee for a burglar-only system, or $268.56 plus the same administrative fee for a system carrying both burglar and panic or holdup signals. Permits run for 12 months.
Running without one is expensive. A non-residential burglar alarm costs $233.50 per police response, and a panic alarm costs $490.34.
False alarms are billed on two very different schedules. Burglar false alarms are free for the first three in a 12-month period, then climb from $50 to $100 each. Panic and holdup false alarms are free once, then jump to $280.20 for the second, $560.39 for the third, and $700.50 for the fourth and each one after. If your building has holdup buttons at a reception desk or a cash office, that second schedule is the one to pay attention to.
These fees are re-indexed by the city, so confirm current amounts before you budget.
Separate permit, separate department, same annual cycle. The Houston Fire Department issues an annual fire alarm permit that applies to every occupancy with a fire alarm system except single-family homes. It has been in place since July 1, 2002, and a lot of owners do not realize it renews.
Permits are grouped by how many alarm-actuating devices the system has. Group A is 10 or fewer, Group B is 11 to 100, and Group C is 101 or more. False fire alarm responses cost $402.55 each beyond the allowance for your group — five responses for Group A, fifteen for Group B.
This is different from the construction permit you pull to install or modify a fire alarm system. That one is a one-time approval. The annual permit keeps running as long as the system does.
Where the Harris County Sheriff's Office is the responding agency, the county runs its own alarm permit program. One application covers a security permit, a fire permit, or both — a simpler arrangement than Houston's two-department split. A business alarm site costs $100 and the permit runs 12 months.
The county's false alarm math is harsher for businesses than Houston's. There is no free allowance. Every false alarm at a business costs $420, whether or not the site holds a permit.
Other cities in the area run their own programs with their own fees. If your buildings sit in more than one jurisdiction, the permits do not travel with them.
One last point on the local layer. Houston does not license alarm companies — that is the state's job — but the ordinance does put duties on them, including verifying a burglar alarm before requesting police dispatch and telling customers about the permit requirement. So your vendor has obligations here even though the permit is yours.
A short list that takes one phone call:
None of these are gotcha questions. A good contractor answers all seven without pausing.
One adjacent item that catches people on larger projects: low-voltage signaling and communications circuits are exempt from Texas electrician licensing, but line-voltage work is not. If a job includes new 120-volt circuits or panel work to power equipment, a licensed electrician has to do that part.
A single-tenant office with a burglar alarm and a few cameras has one licensing question to answer.
A school district is a different picture. Access control on every exterior door, cameras across several campuses, and a fire alarm system in each building means two state agencies, several license types, and a different set of local permits in every city those campuses sit in.
Medical facilities carry the same split, plus surveys that ask to see the records. Warehouses and multi-building campuses tend to find the gap when a city line runs through the property. Multi-tenant office buildings find it when three vendors each assume someone else pulled the permit.
DSC designs, installs, inspects, and services fire alarm and life safety systems — along with access control, video surveillance, intercom, and bi-directional amplifier systems — for schools, medical facilities, office buildings, warehouses, and multi-building campuses across Houston and Texas.
Look up your current provider in both state searches above. It takes about ten minutes, and it tells you whether the company handling your building's systems is licensed for the work it is doing. Then check your permit renewal dates — both of them, if you are inside Houston.
Licensing rules, permit programs, and fees vary from city to city and change over time. This article is general information, not legal advice. Your attorney or your insurance carrier should weigh in on anything in a contract.
If you want help sorting out which licenses your project needs, or you are not sure who holds your building's permits, get in touch with our team. You can also call (713) 464-8407 or email info@thinkdsc.com.