The Structural Pest Control Act (Chapter 1951 of the Occupations Code) requires licensing of businesses and individuals that perform structural pest control for hire. Additionally, employees of units of state government who apply pesticides as part of their job duties, and persons performing pest control at an apartment building, day-care center, hospital, nursing home, hotel, motel, or lodge, warehouse, food-processing establishment (other than a restaurant, retail food, or food service establishment), or school must be licensed. Structural pest control includes but is not limited to pests that may infest parks, buildings or structures and adjacent areas, industrial plants, streets, docks, railroad cars, trucks, ships or airplanes. Structural pest control includes the following activities for compensation:

• identifying infestations,
• making inspection reports,
• providing recommendations,
• submitting estimates or bids,
• contracting,
• performing services to prevent, control or eliminate infestations, or
• advertising such services.

 

License Categories

• Pest control - Inspection and/or control of pests in and around homes, businesses and industries. This includes insect pests or pest animals which may invade homes, restaurants, stores and other buildings, attacking their contents or furnishings or being a general nuisance, but do not normally attack the building itself, as for example, roaches, silverfish, ants, flies, mosquitoes, rats, mice, etc.
• Termite control - Inspection and/or control of termites, beetles or other wood destroying organisms by means other than fumigation in buildings, including homes, wood fences warehouses, stores, docks or other structures.
• Lawn and ornamental - Inspection and/or control of pests of ornamental plants, trees and lawns. in a park or adjacent to a residence, business establishment, industrial plant, institutional building or street.
• Structural fumigation - Inspection and/or control of pests through fumigation of structures not primarily intended to contain food, feed or grains.
• Commodity fumigation - Inspection and/or control through fumigation of commodities and/or structures normally used to contain them. 
• Weed Control - Inspection and/or control of weeds around homes, buildings, parks, roadways, and industrial environments or other infrastructure.
• Wood Preservation - Pest control that involves the addition of preservatives to wood to extend the life of wood products by protecting them from damage caused by insects, fungi and marine borers. Such wood products will include, but not be limited to, crossties, poles, and posts. This includes the retreatment of power-line poles with wood pesticides including fumigants or preservative chemicals.

Commercial vs. Noncommercial
A commercial applicator operates a business or is an employee of a business that offers pest control services for hire or compensation.

A noncommercial applicator is a person not affiliated with a business that performs structural pest control for hire but is required to license because they perform pest control services.