Registering a security business with PSiRA

Which registration you actually need

PSiRA's online system (ePSiRA) offers two paths and they are not interchangeable. Choose Security Business if you will provide a security service to somebody else for money: guarding a client's premises, armed response, cash in transit, event security. That is the ordinary security company.

Choose In-house Security Business only if you are protecting your own people or property and will never contract the service out. A factory that employs its own guards to watch its own gate is in-house. The moment you guard somebody else's site for a fee, you are a security business and the in-house registration is the wrong one.

The distinction is worth getting right first time because the fees differ substantially. In-house registration is R6 500 against R9 100 for a security business, and in-house annual fees are R125 rather than several thousand.

The people come before the company

This is the step that surprises most applicants. Under section 20(2) of the Act, a security business can only be registered if every person performing an executive or managing function, and every director, member, partner or trustee, is already registered with PSiRA as a security service provider in their own name.

PSiRA's own guidance goes further: all directors and members must be listed on ePSiRA when applying, must be registered with PSiRA, and must hold at least a Grade B qualification. So if you and a business partner want to open a security company and neither of you has ever worked in the industry, both of you must first complete Grades E, D, C and B and register individually. Only then can the company apply.

Directors must also meet everything in section 23(1), which is covered in the officer registration guide, and must not be unrehabilitated insolvents.

What it costs

These are PSiRA's 2026/27 administration fees, which took effect on 1 April 2026. The Authority reviews them every year on 1 April, so check the current schedule before you budget.

Two things to plan for. The registration fee only comes back through a refund application, and PSiRA charges an administration fee of 10 percent of the amount to process one, so do not pay it until you are certain you will finish the application. And your first annual fee is charged pro rata from the date you are registered to the following April, then again in full each 1 April, so registering in February means paying twice within two months.

The ten documents

Everything is uploaded on the ePSiRA portal. Documents must be PDF and under 3 MB each; the uniform is the exception and must be JPEG. Your company logo is uploaded separately, also as a JPEG.

1. CIPC documents. Company, close corporation, co-operative, partnership, trust or foundation papers. Enterprise status must read “in business”.
2. SARS tax clearance. Not the compliance PIN. PSiRA cannot use the PIN and asks for a screen print from the SARS site showing the business as compliant.
3. Proof of address. A municipal or water and lights account if you own the premises, or a lease. Sub-leasing means also supplying the head tenant's lease confirming they may sub-let. The address must match the address you entered on the Address tab exactly.
4. A business plan with financial projections, covering the nature, scope and geographical area of the intended activities for at least the first year. Regulation 5(1)(a) requires it and PSiRA assesses it rather than simply filing it, so a generic template comes back rejected.
5. A curriculum vitae for each director, with a certified copy of the identity document. Regulation 5 requires the business to be managed by appropriately experienced, trained or skilled people, and the CV is how that is shown.
6. The PSiRA specimen resolution on your formal letterhead, downloaded from the Documents tab of the application.
7. A second resolution, worded differently from the pro forma, stating that the business is likely to begin rendering a security service within twelve months of registration. Also on letterhead.
8. The uniform and insignia. A design, sketch or photograph showing the full uniform with logos visible and colours clear or written on the sketch.
9. Infrastructure detail on form PSiRA 24a. Downloaded, completed, signed and uploaded.
10. A completed suretyship (a personal guarantee). Signed by all directors or members and witnessed.
11. Proof of a phone number. A landline or a cellphone registered in the name of the business or one of its directors.

The four traps

PSiRA publishes which mistakes it sees most, and they are all avoidable.

The suretyship. The Authority states plainly that the majority of applications are provisionally rejected because of errors on this one form. Every director must sign it. Every page must be initialled by every director and by both witnesses. No deletions, no scribbling, no correction fluid anywhere on any page. A single struck out word means starting the form again.

The uniform. No shades of blue and no camouflage will be accepted, because a security uniform may not be confusable with the police or the defence force. Exemptions exist but are not the default. Get the design approved before you place a stock order, not after.

The SARS document. Sending the tax compliance PIN instead of the screen print is a guaranteed round trip.

The phone number. It must be registered to the business or to a director. A number belonging to somebody else does not qualify, and an affidavit from that person is expressly not accepted. Tenants using a building switchboard need written proof from the landlord that they may use it.

One more detail that catches people: the PSiRA 24a appears twice in the application. One copy is completed by hand and uploaded as a document; the other is completed digitally on the Infrastructure tab. Both must be done. On the form, mark items “yes” where you will be able to comply in future even if they do not apply yet; every “no” must carry a reason explaining why it will never apply, and that reason is assessed on its merits.

The infrastructure inspection

Registration is not a paper exercise. A Law Enforcement inspector visits your premises to confirm that what is there matches what you claimed on the application, and that the infrastructure meets the legislative requirements. This is what the R2 300 assessment fee pays for.

If your application says you have an operations room, secure document storage and a working phone line, the inspector expects to find them. The assessment is also the longest stage of the process, and how long it takes depends heavily on where you are.

How long it takes

Applications pass through four checkpoints, and PSiRA publishes an indicative time for each.

Those times assume your documents are correct. Anything missing or wrong and the consultant marks the application provisionally rejected, which is not fatal: you open your profile, read the comment on each tab, fix the problem, save, and it resubmits automatically. The clock effectively restarts, which is why the four traps above are worth the hour it takes to avoid them.

Your reference is the application number in the form APP-123456, and it is what you quote in every email. A PSiRA registration number is only allocated once you are approved. The certificate is then downloadable from your ePSiRA profile.

After you are registered

Registration is a state you maintain, not a milestone you pass. Annual fees fall due every 1 April and increase most years. The certificate is renewed yearly at R440. Every officer you employ must be registered in their own name and kept current. If you hold firearms, those licences run on a separate five year clock at the South African Police Service, which the firearms for a security business guide covers.

Letting any of it lapse is not a filing problem. An unregistered security business rendering a service for reward is committing an offence, and a client who discovers it has a clean reason to cancel the contract.

What a security business needs in place

• A registered company at CIPC, with annual returns current. A company in deregistration cannot hold a security business registration.
• Every director registered as a security service provider in their own right, and every one of them a citizen or permanent resident. One unregistered director blocks the whole application.
• Clear criminal records for all directors, with fingerprints.
• Premises and infrastructure appropriate to the services offered, which are inspected.
• Tax compliance, and the employer registrations that follow from having staff: UIF, and the Compensation Fund with a current letter of good standing.
• Every deployed officer individually registered and correctly graded for the work.

The registrations interlock, which is what makes this sector unforgiving. A lapsed Compensation Fund letter stops you at a client’s gate; a lapsed officer registration makes that deployment unlawful; a lapsed CIPC annual return eventually takes the company itself away. They have to be held together or not at all.

Frequently asked questions