How we verify

Licensed Locksmith Check is compiled from public records, not from who paid to be listed.

Sources

• DCA public license data: Bureau of Security and Investigative Services file — The Department of Consumer Affairs' monthly public license file for BSIS: license type, number, name, address, county, original issue date, expiry and status.
• DCA License Search (Bureau of Security and Investigative Services) — California's own lookup, including disciplinary actions.
• IDFPR Professional Licensing dataset (pzzh-kp68) — Every license IDFPR issues, with status, dates, city, county and disciplinary actions.
• IDFPR License Look-Up — Illinois' own lookup.
• California Locksmith Act (Bus. & Prof. Code 6980 et seq.) — Licensing, employee registration, branch offices and discipline.
• Illinois Private Detective, Private Alarm, Private Security, Fingerprint Vendor, and Locksmith Act of 2004 (225 ILCS 447) — Locksmith and agency licenses, insurance, training, advertising and discipline.

California: the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) publishes the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS) license file once a month. Every week we look up the current file in DCA's public data folder and keep Locksmith Company and Locksmith Company Branch licenses with status Current, a California address and an expiry date that had not passed. Locksmith employee registrations (individuals) are not listed.

Illinois: every week we query IDFPR's public licensing dataset for Licensed Locksmith Agency and branch office licenses with status Active, an unexpired date and an Illinois address. Individually licensed locksmiths are not listed. Disciplinary entries are shown exactly as IDFPR records them; we don't rank or interpret them, and they don't change the order.

Where a California license is held in a person's own name, we show only the city and ZIP code; PO boxes are not shown as street addresses. Branch offices are linked to the main license with the same name. Order within a city: longest-licensed first, then alphabetical.

Neither file has phone numbers; California's has no disciplinary data (the DCA License Search does). We never call anyone a scam and never mark a company as unlicensed: one missing here may be licensed under another name, after our last refresh, or in another state. Check the state's lookup for anyone.

Featured locksmiths appear in a separate, labelled box and never change the order of the list.

What a badge means

State-licensed: the company's locksmith license appears in the state's public licensing file with a current status and an expiry date that had not passed: California's Bureau of Security and Investigative Services file (status Current) or Illinois IDFPR's file (status Active). We only publish positive matches. A listing without a badge is not an accusation — most gaps are name variations between registries.

Freshness

Data was last refreshed on 2026-10-16. DCA publishes California's BSIS file once a month and IDFPR updates Illinois' file daily; we re-pull both every week.

Corrections

Email sabrsystemssoftware@gmail.com or claim your listing on the for-business page. We fix verified errors within two business days.