Who Pays for the Bed Bugs

Structural pest control licensing

Is your exterminator licensed in Texas?

The governing law is the Structural Pest Control Act, ch. 1951 of the Occupations Code, which requires licensing of both businesses and individuals performing structural pest control for hire — and extends it specifically to anyone doing pest control at an apartment building, hotel, motel, day-care centre, hospital, nursing home or school. So a landlord's own maintenance worker treating an apartment for bed bugs must be licensed too. TDA publishes a current-licenses report, linked here. Structural and agricultural licensing are administered separately by TDA even though both sit in the same department. Exams for both run through PSI, which is why search results often surface the testing vendor instead of the license register — go to TDA's own structural pest control pages.

Who regulates it
TDA
Verification
Online
Check before paying
The business license

The regulator

Texas Department of Agriculture, Structural Pest Control Service

The credential to look for

Structural pest control business license, with a certified applicator or technician in the Pest Control category

Open the official Texas search →

What to verify, in order

  1. The business license, not just the technician

    Most states license the company and certify the individual separately. A certified technician working for an unlicensed business is still an unlicensed job.

  2. The category or phase covers structural work

    Licenses are issued by category. An applicator certified for turf and ornamental has no business in your bedroom.

  3. Status is active, not lapsed

    Some state databases exclude cancelled licenses from results entirely, so a revoked company returns the same empty result as a typo. If you get nothing, phone the agency before assuming you mistyped.

  4. Complaint and enforcement history

    Where a state publishes disciplinary actions they are usually on the board site rather than inside the license search.

Link last confirmed: . State license portals migrate often and licenses lapse daily — treat anything older than a few months as a starting point, not an answer.

Always confirm on the state's own site. This page points at the official database; it does not mirror or cache license records. Status changes daily and only the issuing agency is authoritative.

Check another state