How to bid security guard services work in Texas

1. Before you can bid at all

The entry ticket: the registrations buyers check, the licence the law requires for this trade, the certifications that change who can win, and the wage floors that set your labour line.

Registrations

• Form the entity with the Texas Secretary of State (a Certificate of Formation for an LLC is $300) and get a federal EIN; then register with the Comptroller for a sales and use tax permit (free) and the annual franchise tax report, due May 15, which owes nothing under the no-tax-due revenue threshold.Source: www.sos.state.tx.us/corp/forms_option.shtml
• Register on the Comptroller's Centralized Master Bidders List (CMBL), $70 a year. State agencies and most Texas SmartBuy members find and notify vendors from it by class code and highway district, and a CMBL vendor ID is asked for on state solicitations.Source: www.comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/cmbl
• Watch the Electronic State Business Daily (ESBD): state agencies must post there, and around 400 local members (school districts, counties, cities, colleges, authorities) post there too. New postings from it appear here within a day.Source: www.txsmartbuy.gov/esbd
• Keep a W-9, a certificate of insurance and your CMBL vendor ID ready. Local buyers add their own vendor registration on their portal (Bonfire, IonWave, Public Purchase, CivicEngage), and most send bid notices only to registered vendors.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/help/vendor/register.php

The licence the law requires for security guard services

• A guard company needs a Class B Security Services Contractor licence from the Texas Department of Public Safety Private Security Program; the company representative must be at least 21 with three years of security-field experience including a year in a supervisory role, and pass the DPS examination.Source: www.dps.texas.gov/section/private-security/types-company-...
• Every officer holds an individual DPS registration: Level II training and test for non-commissioned (unarmed) officers; Level III (at least 45 hours with a course of fire and a psychological evaluation) for commissioned (armed) officers, on top of Level II.Source: www.dps.texas.gov/section/private-security/training-and-c...
• Specifications state armed or unarmed per post; armed posts price the Level III officer, the firearm and the higher insurance.Source: www.dps.texas.gov/section/private-security/company-repres...

Certifications that change who can win

• Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) through the Comptroller: at least 51% owned by Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American or Native American individuals, women, or service-disabled veterans, with a principal place of business in Texas; free, good for up to four years. State agencies and many local buyers carry HUB subcontracting goals and ask for a HUB subcontracting plan on larger contracts.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/hub/
• Texas has no separate state MBE or small-business reserve programme; HUB is the certification buyers ask for. Federal certifications (8(a), WOSB, SDVOSB) matter where a district or city is spending federal money.Source: comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/hub/

Wage floors

• Texas has no state living wage for contractors, and the state minimum wage follows the federal $7.25. State law bars cities and counties from setting a higher minimum wage, so on most Texas public contracts the floor is the market rate for the trade, not a statute.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LA/htm/LA.62.htm
• Individual buyers can still write a wage into their own contracts. The City of Austin's Living Wage Program sets $22.05 an hour for the 2026 fiscal year on formally solicited non-construction service contracts performed on city property or vehicles. Read each solicitation for its own clause.Source: www.austintexas.gov/financial-services/living-wage-program
• Prevailing wage under Government Code 2258 applies to public works construction, not to service contracts like cleaning, grounds, pest or guard work; an HVAC replacement job is construction and carries it.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2258.htm

2. How buying works in Texas

• Thresholds by buyer type: cities must competitively bid or propose above $100,000 (raised from $50,000 on September 1, 2025); counties above $50,000; school districts must use one of the statutory methods for purchases of $50,000 or more in a twelve-month period. Below those lines buyers take quotes, and that is where a new firm gets its first work.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._local_gov't_code_section_252.021
• Counties buy under Local Government Code 262 through the county purchasing agent; the $50,000 line and the required notice period are in the statute, and the commissioners court makes the award in open session.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._local_gov't_code_section_262.023
• School districts choose the method that gives 'best value': competitive bidding, competitive sealed proposals, a request for proposals, or a cooperative contract; read which one you are answering, because a proposal is scored on more than price.Source: texas.public.law/statutes/tex._educ._code_section_44.031
• Reciprocity: a Texas buyer may not award to an out-of-state bidder unless it underbids the lowest Texas bidder by the margin that bidder's home state would impose on a Texan. Texas-based firms get that edge automatically.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2252.htm
• Prompt payment: the Texas Prompt Payment Act makes a government payment overdue on the 31st day after the later of delivery, completion or invoice (the 46th day for bodies that meet monthly or less), with interest after that.Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.2251.htm
• Bid openings are public and the tabulation is a public record; most Texas counties and districts post it as a PDF under the bid, and the state board's detail page names the awardee and the value.Source: www.txsmartbuy.gov/esbd

3. What Texas buyers actually ask for in security guard services

Counted from the bids we have read in full. Thin where the count is low; it grows as we read more.

4. How to price it

The craft, then the evidence: what this work actually went for at Texas bid openings, and who has been winning.

• Priced per post-hour by class (unarmed, armed, supervisor), with the schedule of posts and hours in the specification; the wage you set plus burden, uniforms, training, supervision ratio, insurance and margin.
• No statutory wage floor outside a buyer's own clause (Austin's $22.05), so the largest line in the price is a judgment about what keeps officers on post.
• The tabulations below show accepted post-hour rates where buyers published them; the debrief shows your gap.

No bid openings collected yet in this trade for Texas.

5. Starting from zero: the first 90 days

For someone who wants to start a security guard services business and sell only to government. The order matters: the licence and the registrations gate everything else.

1. Weeks 1 to 4: the Class B licence (the company representative's experience is the long pole), general liability with assault-and-battery coverage, workers' compensation, auto.
2. Weeks 2 to 6: Level II registrations for the first crew, Level III for any armed posts; CMBL registration with security service class codes; HUB application if eligible.
3. Weeks 4 to 8: quotes under the threshold: event coverage for a small city, after-hours coverage for a library or a housing authority.
4. Weeks 8 to 12: the first formal bid; post schedules are the whole price, so confirm hours at the pre-bid.