How long is a piece of string?

The Queensland Office of Fair Trading (OFT) currently advises that a complete security licence application will usually take around four to six weeks to process, although it can take longer where further information is required, fees are outstanding or additional checks are necessary. BARS' experience is that students can sometimes significantly reduce the overall time between commencing training and becoming licensed by starting the application process early rather than waiting until their course has finished. BARS students are shown the licence application process by our facilitators during training, including the online process where available.

We recommend that students consider commencing their online application from the beginning of their course and, where the system permits, uploading their BARS course confirmation/enrolment email while their training is underway. The qualification and required training evidence can then be provided when available. This approach does not guarantee faster OFT processing, but in our experience some students have become licensed in considerably less time than the published processing timeframe because parts of the licensing process were already underway while they completed their training. If something does go wrong with your initial licence application,

BARS Training Australia also provides advocacy and practical support to our students at no additional cost. We regularly assist students with understanding OFT requests, providing training information and resolving licensing issues where we can. Our objective is simple: help you move from training to licensing and employment as efficiently as possible.