Virginia locksmith marketing with your DCJS number on every ad and a registered tech behind it

In Virginia, a locksmith company is licensed like a security firm, not like a contractor. That changes what your ads must print, and it starts with one number.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services licenses locksmith businesses. The contractor board the Virginia page mentions for other trades has no say here. Under Virginia's private security licensing law, you need the DCJS business license to do the work and to ask for it. The same law puts the license number on all business advertising materials.

The DCJS business conduct rules repeat that duty and add a detail for shared ads. A coupon book, a mailer or a home show flyer that names several licensed companies must print each company's number.

Read plainly, the rule covers more than a newspaper ad:

• Your website. Put the number in the header or footer of every page, so a visitor who lands on a lockout page sees it.
• Your Google and Yelp listings. The business description has room for one line with the number.
• Paid ads. Where a short text ad has no room, the page behind it shows the number where a visitor looks first.
• Vans, cards and door hangers. Anything that carries your phone number and asks for work is safest treated as an ad.

That list is our reading. Ask DCJS about any format you are unsure of.

The name is protected as well. Calling yourself a "lock technician", a "lockman" or a "lock opener" counts as calling yourself a locksmith, under the law's definitions. A brand that avoids the word does not avoid the license.

One more line to check on your artwork. The conduct rules bar the state seal, the DCJS seal and any city or county seal from a logo, card or ad. A "proudly serving Virginia Beach" badge built on the city seal has to come off.

Plenty of businesses open locks in Virginia without a locksmith license. None of them may present themselves as locksmiths, and your marketing can lean on that line.

Virginia's list of exemptions lets some businesses do lock work without DCJS licensing. Towing and taxi companies, car dealers and stores that cut keys at the counter are among them. So are licensed contractors working within their license. Each exemption holds only while the business does not present itself to the public as a locksmith.

So a tow company may pop a car door for a stranded driver, but it may not advertise as a locksmith. In a search result, the business that says "locksmith" and shows a DCJS number is making a claim the others cannot.

Handing calls to unlicensed help is closed too. The DCJS business conduct rules forbid subcontracting locksmith work in Virginia to anyone DCJS has not licensed. The licensee keeps proof of the other company's license for at least three years. A shop that takes overflow calls from a dispatch line should ask for that line's license number first and keep it on file.

Google draws a similar line for every state. Its Advanced Verification policy asks aggregators and lead networks in locksmith services to show a typical price range near the top of the homepage and each landing page, along with their legal address. A real Virginia shop can show its address, its DCJS number and its van. A lead network often shows little more than a phone number.

Yelp watches the trade as well. Its 2025 trust and safety report puts locksmiths on its list of high-risk emergency categories, beside garage door repair and roadside help, and says it turned away more than 50,700 new business pages that year for spam signals. One name, one address and one number on every listing give Yelp nothing to question.

Answering a locked-out caller is not marketing. Texting last year's customers about a rekey is, and Virginia has its own rules for that.

A rekey text counts the same as a sales call under Virginia's phone privacy act. The law follows both the number and the person. A 703 or 757 number is in, and so is a Fairfax resident who kept an out-of-state cell.

The rules a rekey campaign meets:

• Hours. No call or text lands earlier than 8 a.m. or later than 9 p.m. where the customer is, unless they agreed to other hours ahead of time, under the calling hours rule.
• STOP means a decade. Once someone texts back STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE, that request stands for ten years or more, under the do-not-call section.
• Past customers. The business relationship exemption runs 18 months from the last job and three months from an inquiry, under the Act's definitions. A landlord you rekeyed for two years ago is outside it.
• Lead vendors. If a vendor texts or calls for you, you share the liability, contract or no contract, under the seller liability section.

The damages a person can sue for rise with each repeat: $500 the first time, then $1,000, then $5,000 apiece, under the Act's damages section.

Recording is simpler. Virginia lets you record a call you take part in, under its one-party consent law. Northern Virginia shops answer callers from Maryland and the District, whose rules this page does not cover, so a short "this call may be recorded" greeting is the safe habit. For the federal consent rules, see our small business guide on texts, AI answering and recordings.

Owners often ask about the state privacy law next. Virginia's consumer data law starts at 100,000 Virginia consumers' data in a calendar year, or 25,000 for a business making most of its money selling data. On our reading, few local locksmith shops come near that line. Not legal advice; confirm with counsel.