Getting an SIA door supervisor licence in 2026 takes three things: a valid emergency first aid certificate, a six-day licence-linked course, and a £204 application paid straight to the Security Industry Authority. Budget £550 to £600 start to finish. From your first training day to the badge arriving, allow eight weeks.
Most people get the order wrong. They book the security course first, then find out they can’t sit it.
What the licence actually costs in 2026
The SIA application fee is £204, it is non-refundable, and it buys a licence valid for three years. That number caught a lot of people out this spring, because a £20 rebate funded from the regulator’s historical reserves had held the effective price at £184 for years, and once those reserves ran dry the rebate ended on 31 March 2026. The statutory fee never went up. The discount simply stopped.
Course prices sit between £250 and £400, depending on the provider and where you train. My Badge charges £375 for its Southampton door supervisor course, run over six consecutive days at Mount Pleasant Road. Add first aid if you don’t already hold a certificate and the honest all-in figure lands near £580.
Two smaller costs are worth knowing about. A replacement card after loss or damage costs £36. A second licence in a different sector, CCTV operator being the common one, drops to £102 while your first badge still has more than four months left on it.
First aid comes before everything else
You cannot start licence-linked training without a valid Emergency First Aid at Work certificate already in your hand. This has been a hard prerequisite since April 2021, and training providers are barred from registering you for the exams without seeing the evidence.
Your certificate has to clear four checks:
- Meets the EFAW content set out in the HSE’s guide for employers
- Carries at least 12 months of validity from day one of your SIA course
- Covers life-threatening bleeding and airway management, mandatory since October 2024
- Teaches and assesses the practical elements face to face, not online
EFAW runs one day. Most training centres will let you bolt it onto your enrolment, which saves chasing two bookings across two diaries. My Badge takes this approach because roughly half of new starters walk in with either no certificate or one with under a year left, and turning them away at the door helps nobody.
What the six training days cover
The course delivers the Level 2 Award for Working as a Door Supervisor in the Private Security Industry. Four units make it up: the private security industry itself, conflict management, physical intervention skills, and the door supervision role.
Physical intervention is the unit that surprises people. It is assessed on your feet, with a partner, and it involves disengagement techniques and escorting holds practised until an assessor signs them off. Nobody passes that unit by reading about it.
Written exams sit at the end of the theory units. Pass marks vary by awarding body, though a resit fee of £30 to £60 applies at most centres, so ask about resit policy before you hand over a deposit. Providers that build revision time into the six days tend to see fewer resits than those cramming the syllabus into shorter blocks.
How long the SIA takes to issue the badge
The SIA quotes 25 working days to process a door supervisor application. Applications pulled for extra checks stretch to around six weeks, and the usual trigger is time spent living outside the UK, which can add £20 to £40 in overseas criminality check fees on top of the £204.
Every application runs through identity verification and a DBS check. A criminal record does not automatically stop you working the door. The SIA weighs the offence type, how long ago it happened, and whether it relates to the role, so speak to the regulator directly before paying if you have something on file that concerns you.
Working without a licence, meanwhile, is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to £5,000.
Five things that hold applications up
- Name mismatches between your training certificate and your passport
- Proof of address documents older than three months
- Photos that fail the SIA’s standards, usually shadows or a side angle
- Gaps in the five-year address history section
- Applying before your training results reach the awarding body
Number five accounts for more delays than the rest combined. Results take a few working days to reach the SIA’s system after your course finishes, and submitting early means your application sits in a holding state rather than moving forward.
Where to start
Book your first aid, then your licence-linked course, then apply. That order costs you nothing extra and removes the most common reason applications stall.
If you are training on the south coast, My Badge runs its SIA Door Supervisor Course over six consecutive days with EFAW available at enrolment, so learners without an in-date first aid certificate can sort both in one booking.