How to verify a pest control license in Texas

Published November 4, 2026

Texas licenses structural pest control through the Department of Agriculture. Ask for the business license number and the technician's license, check them against TDA's current license lists, and make sure the license includes the pest control category, which covers rats and mice.

Why check

Rodent work puts a stranger in your attic, under your floor and sometimes near your kids and pets with traps or bait. In Texas, anyone doing structural pest control for hire has to be licensed by the Department of Agriculture. Checking takes a few minutes and tells you whether the company is who it says it is.

Waco Rodent Control connects callers with independent providers. It doesn’t license or employ them. Checking the license is part of hiring any provider, and this guide shows how.

Who needs a license

TDA’s Structural Pest Control Licensing page says the law “requires licensing of businesses and individuals that perform structural pest control for hire.” It also covers people doing pest control at certain kinds of places even if they don’t work for a pest control company: apartment buildings, day-care centers, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, motels, lodges, warehouses, schools and most food-processing sites. The same page says restaurants and retail food service establishments are excluded from that list.

If you manage an apartment complex in Waco and your maintenance staff set out bait, that staff needs a license. The tenant and landlord guide covers that in more detail.

License types

TDA issues several kinds of licenses:

• Business license, for companies that offer pest control for hire
• Certified applicator, for licensed individuals who can be responsible for a business’s work
• Technician, for licensed individuals who apply pesticides under a business
• Apprentice, a registered trainee working toward a technician license
• Noncommercial applicator, for people doing pest control at the kinds of places listed above without working for a pest company

Ask the company for its business license number and ask the person who comes to your house for their own license number.

The category that matters

TDA licenses applicators by category. Its licensing page lists pest control, termite control, lawn and ornamental, structural fumigation, commodity fumigation, weed control and wood preservation.

The pest control category is the one for rodents. TDA describes it as inspecting and controlling pests in and around homes, businesses and industries, including pests that invade buildings, and its list includes rats and mice. A lawn-only or termite-only license isn’t the right fit for trapping rats in an attic.

How to look up a license

TDA’s Structural Pest Control Reports page offers five current license lists in CSV format: commercial businesses, noncommercial businesses, applicators, technicians and apprentices.

1. Download the commercial business list.
2. Open it in a spreadsheet program and search for the company name or the license number the company gave you.
3. Download the applicator or technician list and search for the person coming to your house.
4. If you can’t find a match, ask the company to explain. TDA’s page says requests for more information go to pub.info@TexasAgriculture.gov.

Insurance

The Texas rule on license types and requirements, 4 Tex. Admin. Code Section 7.121, includes insurance requirements for licensed pest control businesses. Ask for a certificate of insurance before work starts, especially for roof work or a commercial job.

Texas rodenticide rules

TDA’s rodenticide page summarizes the EPA’s rodenticide decision from May 28, 2008:

• Second-generation anticoagulants are not sold to retail consumers.
• First-generation anticoagulants and non-anticoagulant products for consumers come in packages of 1 pound of bait or less and must be sold in or with a bait station.
• Pellet bait isn’t sold to the general public.

For professionals:

• Second-generation anticoagulants are sold in cases of 16 pounds or more.
• All outdoor, above-ground placements require bait stations, and those stations must be tamper resistant where children or non-target animals could reach them.
• Outdoor placements must be within 100 feet of a building.

What this means for you: ask your provider which products they plan to use and where. If you’d rather avoid poison inside the house, say so. Many rodent jobs can be done with traps and sealing, and the CDC recommends snap traps for reducing rodents around the home, with bait reserved for infestations that persist. Poison indoors can leave a dead rodent in a wall.

What a good first visit looks like

A thorough technician asks what you’ve seen and heard before touching anything, then goes into the attic, checks the garage and kitchen, looks under the house if it’s pier-and-beam and walks the outside from the slab to the roofline. They point out entry points as they find them, and many take photos.

At the end you should get a plain explanation of what you have, how they’d handle it and a written price. A technician who stays on the driveway and quotes a bait plan without looking in the attic hasn’t done an inspection.

Questions to ask before hiring

• What is your TDA business license number, and what’s the license number of the person coming out?
• Does your license include the pest control category?
• Will you seal entry points, or only set traps and bait?
• What products will you use, and where will they go?
• How many return visits are included?
• Can I get the plan and the price in writing?
• Can you send a certificate of insurance?

If you rent or manage property

Tenants can ask a landlord which company handles pest control and look that company up the same way. Landlords and property managers should keep the provider’s license number on file with the service records. If on-site maintenance staff will set traps or bait at an apartment building, TDA’s licensing page says they need a license too.

If you run a food business

TDA’s on-site licensing rule lists warehouses and most food-processing sites and excludes restaurants and retail food service. Even so, a licensed provider with good records is the usual choice for restaurants, because inspectors from the health district may ask what you’re doing about pests. The restaurant rules guide covers inspections.

Red flags

A price over the phone before anyone has seen the house. Loose poison in the attic or living space. Pressure to sign today. A company that can’t or won’t give a license number. Any of those is a reason to call someone else.

Prices vary from house to house. The cost guide shows published ranges and what pushes a Waco job up or down, and a rodent inspection is the usual first step.