The envelope lands in your mailbox in Abilene with an expiration date printed on it, and suddenly the question is not whether you are going to renew but whether the hours you need are still available to you. Most officers discover the rule at exactly this moment.

What the Notice Doesn’t Spell Out

A renewal notice tells you a date. It does not tell you that under §35.161(a) your renewal application may not even be submitted until the required minimum continuing education hours have already been earned. The paperwork is downstream of the training, not the other way around, and officers who read the notice as a to‑do list with the class at the bottom of it are the ones who end up scrambling.

The requirement itself lives in §35.161(g) of the Texas Administrative Code: commissioned security officers and personal protection officers complete six hours of continuing education, and they satisfy that obligation by completing the renewal portions of the Level III or Level IV training course, as applicable. The same subsection requires that the continuing education be taught by department-approved training schools and instructors, and it requires a commissioned security officer to submit a firearms proficiency certificate with the renewal application.

Hours Taken Too Early Simply Don’t Count

This is the part that bites people who are organised. §35.161(n) says continuing education is only valid if it was completed within the two-year period preceding the license’s current expiration date. That is a validity window, not a slogan about renewing on a two-year cycle. A class you sat through well before that window opened was not a waste of your time, but it will not satisfy this requirement, and the only way to fix it is to take the hours again inside the window.

Where the hours come from is fenced off just as firmly. §35.162(d) confirms that the in-house continuing education exemption available to companies with ten or more licensed employees does not apply to commissioned security officers or personal protection officers, and §35.162(f) states that credits earned through outside entities may not be used to meet their requirement. If you are armed, your six hours come from a department-approved school. You can read the chapter for yourself in 37 TAC Chapter 35.

Two Credentials Sharing One Renewal Route

Level 3 is the commissioned security officer credential. Level 4 is the personal protection officer credential — the close protection side of the industry. They are two different licenses, not two rungs of the same ladder, and a lot of job postings and older web copy muddle that. What they share is a renewal pathway, because §35.161(g) covers both and sends each one to the renewal portion of its own course.

If you work unarmed on a Level 2 non-commissioned license, none of this reaches you: §35.161(b) specifically exempts noncommissioned security officers from continuing education. That comes as a genuine surprise to officers who assume every credential in Texas private security carries a recurring training burden.

Fitting Six Hours Around a West Texas Rotation

Abilene sits far enough out on the high plains that a classroom obligation in a metro market is a real logistical problem rather than an inconvenience — the drive alone can eat a rest day. Armed posts here tend to cluster around the regional hospitals and medical campuses, the university and college properties, the distribution and freight operations along the interstate, and the energy and wind-service outfits working the country north and west of town, and many of those posts run twelve-hour rotations that do not bend for a weekday class.

That is the practical case for taking the classroom half 100% online. Note carefully what the online enrollment covers: the online training only. The in-person firearms qualification is not included and is scheduled separately once you have finished the online portion. The complete list of classes we run shows how the pieces fit together.

The Certificate Is Your Responsibility Too

• The certificate issued for the renewal course is referred to on our site as PSP 31.
• §35.161(m) puts the burden on the attendee: you keep certificates of completion for two years and furnish copies to the department on request.
• §35.161(a) also requires your employer to maintain proof in your personnel file, and requires you to indicate completion on the renewal application.
• Under §35.162(b)(3), the school’s certificate of attendance carries your name and license number, the date of attendance, the number of hours and the courses attended, signed and dated by the school director — and the school keeps its records for two years.

Before You Buy the Wrong Class

If your commission has been inactive or expired and you have not been employed in the industry for three years or more, §35.141(d) requires you to submit current training certificates to the department. In that situation the renewal course may not be your starting point at all — the full Level 3 commissioned officer course often is. Ask first; the wrong enrollment costs you weeks.

Licensing itself is handled by the Texas DPS Private Security Bureau, and our FAQ page works through the situations that come up most often when a notice arrives and the dates are tight.