A man walked into a Memphis security company’s office last week and asked how quickly he could get licensed to carry a firearm on the job. He’d been laid off from a warehouse position in November and wanted to get into armed security work. “I figured a couple weeks, maybe a month,” he told the office manager. She had to explain that the real answer was closer to three or four months, assuming everything went smoothly. He looked like she’d told him Christmas was canceled.
That conversation plays out across Tennessee every week. The demand for armed security guards has surged over the past year, driven by rising crime, business owners who want visible deterrence, and a job market where security work is one of the few sectors actively hiring. The problem: getting licensed takes time, money, and patience with a state bureaucracy that COVID has slowed to a crawl.
Here’s how the process actually works in 2021, step by step, with the delays and headaches nobody puts in the brochure.
Who Runs This: TDCI and the Private Protective Services Division
The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) regulates the private security industry through its Private Protective Services division, operating under Tennessee Code Annotated Section 62-35-101 and the statutes that follow it. Every security guard working in Tennessee, whether armed or unarmed, must be registered through TDCI. Every contract security company must hold a company license.
This isn’t optional, and it isn’t a formality. Working security without proper TDCI registration is a Class B misdemeanor. Employing unregistered guards can cost a company its license. TDCI compliance officers do check, and they do issue citations.
The Private Protective Services division handles registrations for security guards, private investigators, polygraph examiners, and alarm system contractors. For our purposes, we’re focused on security guard registration, both unarmed and armed.
Step One: Unarmed Registration (Everyone Starts Here)
You can’t skip to the armed license. Tennessee requires every security guard to complete the unarmed registration process first, whether you plan to carry a firearm or not. Think of it as the foundation.
Training requirement: 16 hours of classroom instruction covering Tennessee security law, report writing, ethics, observation techniques, emergency procedures, and the limits of a security officer’s authority. This training must be provided by a TDCI-approved training school or a licensed security company with an approved training program.
In Memphis, several companies and independent academies offer the 16-hour course. Expect to pay between $150 and $300 for tuition, depending on the provider. Some security companies will cover the training cost for new hires, recouping it through a payroll agreement during your first few months of employment.
Background check and fingerprinting: You’ll need to submit fingerprints through IdentoGO, the state’s approved electronic fingerprinting vendor. IdentoGO operates several locations in the Memphis area (there’s one on Germantown Parkway and another near the airport). The fingerprinting appointment costs around $40-50, and you’ll need a valid government-issued photo ID.
Your fingerprints go to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI for a criminal background check. Certain convictions will disqualify you from registration, including any felony conviction and certain misdemeanors involving violence, theft, or dishonesty. TDCI has discretion on some offenses, particularly older misdemeanors, and you can request a review if your situation is borderline.
Application and fee: The registration application goes to TDCI along with your training certificate, fingerprint receipt, and a fee of approximately $50. Your employer (the licensed security company) typically submits this on your behalf, since individual guards register under a company’s license.
Processing time: Here’s where 2021 gets tricky. Before COVID, TDCI processed unarmed registrations in two to four weeks. Right now, the division is running behind. Staff reductions, remote work transitions, and a backlog of applications from 2020 have pushed processing times to six weeks or longer in some cases. I’ve heard from company owners who waited eight weeks for a straightforward unarmed registration with no complications.
While your application is pending, you cannot legally work a security post. Some companies will assign new hires to administrative or training duties during the wait, while others simply tell you to sit tight until the registration comes through. Either way, it’s dead time if you’re trying to earn a paycheck.
Step Two: Armed Guard Registration (The Upgrade)
Once you hold an active unarmed registration, you can pursue the armed endorsement. This is where the time and cost increase significantly.
Firearms training requirement: 40 hours of additional classroom and range instruction. This covers Tennessee firearms law, use-of-force doctrine, weapon retention, tactical decision-making, and extensive live-fire practice. The 40-hour course is separate from any personal firearms training you may have. Even if you’re a military veteran or a recreational shooter with decades of experience, you still complete the full 40 hours through a TDCI-approved program.
The training must be conducted by a TDCI-certified firearms instructor. Several Memphis-area training academies offer the course, and a handful of larger security companies run their own in-house programs. Tuition for the 40-hour armed course typically runs $400 to $700.
Range qualification: At the end of your firearms training, you must pass a live-fire qualification course. Tennessee uses a silhouette-based course of fire with a minimum passing score of 70%. You’ll shoot at multiple distances, and you must demonstrate proficiency with the specific type of firearm you’ll carry on duty (typically a semi-automatic pistol, though some guards qualify with revolvers).
Seventy percent might sound easy if you’ve spent time at the range recreationally. It’s a different experience when you’re shooting a qualification course with a instructor scoring every round and your job riding on the result. Nerves get people. Instructors I’ve spoken with estimate that 10 to 15 percent of candidates fail their first attempt at qualification. You can retake the test, typically after additional range practice, and most people pass on the second try.
Application: Once you’ve completed the training and passed qualification, your training school submits the armed endorsement application to TDCI along with your qualification scores and training documentation. The fee is included in the original registration cost structure, though some training schools bundle their own administrative fees on top.
Processing time: Same bottleneck as the unarmed registration. TDCI is backed up, and armed endorsements sit in the same queue. Plan for six to eight weeks of processing time, possibly longer.
The Total Timeline (Be Realistic)
Let’s add it up for someone starting from scratch in February 2021:
- Find and complete 16-hour unarmed training: 1-2 weeks
- Schedule IdentoGO fingerprinting: 1 week (appointments aren’t always immediately available)
- Submit unarmed application and wait for TDCI processing: 6-8 weeks
- Complete 40-hour armed training: 1-2 weeks (some programs run Monday through Friday for one week; others spread it across two weekends)
- Pass range qualification: same week as training completion
- Submit armed endorsement and wait for TDCI processing: 6-8 weeks
Total from start to armed registration card in hand: roughly 4 to 5 months. That’s assuming no hiccups with your background check, no scheduling delays with training courses, and no TDCI complications.
Compare that timeline to the current demand. Security companies across Memphis are fielding more contract inquiries than they can staff. The MPD staffing shortage has pushed property managers toward private security, and many of those clients specifically want armed guards. The pipeline of qualified, licensed armed guards simply isn’t keeping up.
Company Licensing: The Other Side
Individual guards register under a company’s license. If you want to operate a contract security firm in Tennessee (sending guards to work at client sites), you need a separate company license from TDCI.
The company licensing process involves its own background checks, proof of insurance (general liability and workers’ compensation), a qualifying agent who meets TDCI experience and training requirements, and a fee structure that runs into the hundreds of dollars. Renewal is every two years.
For someone who wants to start their own security company, the barrier to entry is real. It’s not just paperwork. You need sufficient insurance coverage, which means premiums that reflect the risk profile of armed guard work. You need a qualifying agent with verifiable experience. And you need the capital to operate while you build a client base.
Still, new security companies open in Tennessee every year. TDCI’s public database shows a steady stream of new company licenses alongside the inevitable closures and revocations. The market supports it, particularly in Memphis where the need is constant.
Renewal: Don’t Let It Lapse
Security guard registrations in Tennessee expire every two years. Renewal requires:
- Unarmed guards: 4 hours of refresher training covering legal updates, procedural changes, and a review of core competencies.
- Armed guards: 4 hours of refresher training plus a new range requalification. Same silhouette course, same 70% minimum. You must requalify with the same type of firearm you carry on duty.
The renewal fee is similar to the initial registration cost. Submit early. If you let your registration expire, you cannot legally work until the renewal processes through TDCI, and processing times right now are unpredictable.
I’ve talked to guards who procrastinated on renewal, let their registration lapse by a week or two, and ended up off the schedule for a month while TDCI caught up. That’s a month without income because you didn’t fill out a form on time.
The COVID Factor
TDCI’s processing delays aren’t the agency’s fault, exactly. The pandemic forced state government offices to reduce in-person staffing, transition to remote work for tasks that weren’t designed for it, and manage their own employee absences due to illness and quarantine. The Private Protective Services division is small to begin with, and losing even a couple of staff members to COVID-related absences creates a bottleneck that takes weeks to clear.
Training schools also dealt with disruptions. Some suspended operations entirely during the spring 2020 shutdown. Others reduced class sizes to accommodate social distancing, which means fewer graduates per training cycle. The armed training courses, which include extensive range time, faced additional complications around shared equipment, indoor ventilation, and close-quarters instruction.
The result is a training pipeline that’s running at reduced capacity precisely when demand is at its highest. Companies need armed guards now. The system can produce them eventually.
Advice for People Entering the Field
If you’re considering armed security work in Tennessee, start the process today. Don’t wait until you have a job offer, because companies prefer to hire candidates who are already registered or at least well into the pipeline.
Get your unarmed registration first and start working. You can earn income on unarmed posts while completing your armed training and waiting for the endorsement to process. Most security companies have both armed and unarmed contracts, and they’ll move you to armed posts once your endorsement comes through.
Choose your training school carefully. Ask how long they’ve been TDCI-approved, what their first-time qualification pass rate looks like, and whether they help with the TDCI paperwork. A good training school will walk you through the administrative side, not just the classroom material.
Keep copies of everything: your training certificates, fingerprint receipts, application confirmations, and correspondence with TDCI. If something gets lost in the bureaucratic shuffle (and in 2021, things do get lost), you’ll want documentation to straighten it out.
The security industry in Memphis is hiring. The pay for armed work ranges from $14 to $22 per hour depending on the contract, the client, and the company. That’s not wealth, and the hours can be brutal: twelve-hour overnight shifts at a warehouse, weekend posts at construction sites, holiday coverage when everyone else is home. You earn that paycheck.
For those willing to put in the work and the wait, armed security in Tennessee offers steady employment in a market that isn’t slowing down anytime soon.