The gap between the two answers is not subtle. One path is six hours. The other is the full commissioned officer course over again. Plano officers are usually trying to work out which clock they are on: and supervisors with a roster to keep current are asking the same thing about half a dozen people at once.
The short path, in full
§35.161(g) puts six hours of continuing education on commissioned security officers and personal protection officers, and specifies that they are satisfied by completing the renewal portions of the Level III or Level IV training course, as applicable. The rule adds two conditions that matter operationally: the continuing education must be taught by department-approved training schools and instructors, and a commissioned security officer must submit a firearms proficiency certificate with the renewal application. That is the whole obligation when renewal is the right route.
Six hours is small enough that officers assume it is theirs by default. It is not automatic, and the provision that can take it away is worth reading before you plan around it.
The long path, and what sends you down it
§35.141(d) provides that a person inactive or expired who has not been employed in the industry for three years or more must submit current training certificates to the department. The measure is absence from the work, not the state of the license, and that catches people out in both directions. Someone with a long-expired commission who never actually stopped working armed posts is not necessarily in the three-year category. Someone whose paperwork looks tidier but who spent four years in a different field may well be.
If you land in that category, the six-hour renewal is not the class to buy; the full Level 3 commissioned security officer course is the likelier requirement. We will say plainly that this is a situation-specific call. Before you enroll in anything, confirm where you stand, with us, or directly with the bureau. That conversation costs nothing and a duplicated course costs both money and a few evenings you will not get back.
The timing rule nobody expects
Even on the short path there is a way to waste the hours: take them at the wrong time. §35.161(n) makes continuing education valid only if completed within the two-year period preceding the license’s current expiration date. That is a validity window tied to your expiration, not a rule that you renew every two years, and the difference is real. Getting ahead of schedule by too much means the hours do not apply. In the other direction, §35.161(a) states that a renewal application may not be submitted until the required minimum hours have been earned, with proof maintained by the employer in the employee’s personnel file and completion indicated on the application.
For the person managing a roster
- Your in-house program does not cover commissioned officers. §35.162(d) excludes commissioned security officers and personal protection officers from the exemption otherwise available to companies with ten or more licensed employees.
- Nor do outside credits. §35.162(f) says credits earned through outside entities may not be used to satisfy their continuing education requirement.
- Unarmed staff are a different case entirely. §35.161(b) exempts noncommissioned security officers, so a Level 2 officer carries no continuing education requirement.
- Level 3 and Level 4 are separate credentials, not two grades of one license. Level 3 is the commissioned security officer; Level 4 is the personal protection officer, the bodyguard credential, with its own course and its own renewal portion.
- Service members get more room: §35.182 allows two additional years to complete a continuing education or other renewal-related requirement, and §35.181 waives late-renewal penalty fees for them.
Why online suits Plano posts
Armed work in Plano skews corporate: office-park lobbies and garages, data center perimeters, campus-style headquarters sites, hospital and retail contracts across the northern DFW suburbs. Those posts run on fixed coverage, which means pulling an officer for a classroom day is a scheduling problem for somebody. Doing the six hours 100% online removes that problem. It can happen around shifts instead of instead of them. The price covers the online training only; the in-person firearms qualification is not included and is scheduled separately once the online portion is complete.
Afterwards you hold a certificate of completion, PSP 31, and the retention duty is personal as well as corporate: §35.161(m) has attendees keep certificates for two years and furnish copies to the department on request. §35.162(b)(3) governs what the certificate shows, including your name and license number, the date, the hours and the courses attended, signed by the school director.
Read the rules for yourself in 37 TAC Chapter 35, or take a licensing question to the Texas DPS Private Security Bureau. Our FAQ page handles most of the borderline cases, and if you are still unsure which course applies, ask us first.
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