Seven courses
Three courses carry the state’s training requirement. Four are FDNY certificates of fitness — exam-only credentials, where what we offer is preparation, not a required course. We have kept those two things visibly separate, because conflating them is how people end up paying for training they never needed.
General Business Law Article 7-A requires these. They must be taken at a school approved by DCJS — the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which is not the same body as the Department of State that registers you.
The course you complete before you apply for a security guard registration card.
Taken after you are employed, and tailored to the site you actually work at.
Keeps an active registration current. A two-year registration needs two of these.
These are four separate certificates issued by the New York City Fire Department, each obtained by sitting an FDNY exam. They are not required by New York State to obtain a security guard registration card — DCJS says so directly, and warns that schools telling you otherwise are upselling you. What we sell below is optional exam preparation.
Citywide
For the fire watch kept when a sprinkler, standpipe or alarm system is out of service. FDNY: after four hours of an outage, patrols may be conducted only by holders of a certificate of fitness.
Citywide
Required in buildings occupied or operated as homeless or emergency shelters — the credential held by shelter fire-watch staff. FDNY notes F-02 holders need no separate F-01 for shelter work.
Specific to one location
For the person maintaining fire safety at an approved place of assembly, or a temporary one, at a specific venue. Venue-related, so it follows the building rather than the holder.
Citywide — travels with you
For temporary events at different locations — concerts, fairs, pop-ups. The portable one of the pair, and the reason event-security staff carry it.
Pass the F-03 exam and FDNY allows you to obtain an F-04 by paying the additional fee without sitting the F-04 exam. If you expect to need both, that is the cheaper route, and it is worth doing before you buy two prep courses from anyone.
Every one of these is sat at FDNY, on FDNY’s terms. We prepare you; we cannot sit it for you, expedite it, or influence the result. Each certificate carries its own exam fee payable to FDNY, and its own renewal cycle.
Certificate titles and descriptions read from FDNY’s own pages on 27 September 2026. Requirements are set by FDNY and can change — confirm on the FDNY page linked above each certificate before you rely on it.
Most people start with the 8-hour pre-assignment course and nothing else. If you are being told you need more than that before you can even apply, ask us before you pay anybody.