The South Dakota Professional Bondsman license
Professional Bondsman
Pledges its own cash as security for a bail bond. South Dakota approves it directly rather than through an insurer, and the price of that is an annual financial statement, trust deposits and a yearly list of forfeitures.
Course
None
This license has no pre-licensing course route.
Ways in
1
It requires the state exam.
Exam
$85
Required.
Every way to qualify
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Route 1 Clear the background check, then pass the bail bonds paper
State exam required
What the license covers
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SDCL 58-22-1(3): a professional bondsman is a person approved by the director who pledges cash or approved unregistered bonds as security for a bail bond in connection with a judicial proceeding and receives or is promised money or other things of value.
and the examination
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Pearson's SD Bail Bonds Producer paper, series code InsSD_BB49, fifty questions in sixty minutes at $85 and available only in a test centre, never online. Half of it is South Dakota law and the rest is bail bond principles, practices and terminology.
and age and residence
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Twenty-one years of age and a resident of South Dakota for at least one year. Pearson's handbook prints both as prerequisites to the examination itself rather than to the license, so a candidate who fails either cannot even sit the paper.
and the background check
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An Authorization form sent with payment to the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, under SDCL 58-22-14. Fingerprints certified by an authorized law enforcement officer are recommended and are not a prerequisite, which the handbook says in terms.
SDCL 58-22-1 defines the four kinds of bail licensee South Dakota issues and this file is one of them. 58-22-3 disqualifies a class of applicant outright and makes it a Class 6 felony to be one: jailers, police officers, committing magistrates, magistrate court judges, sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables, and anybody with the power to arrest or any control over federal, state, county or municipal prisoners. The examination content outline lists the professional bondsperson's own obligations as a topic in their own right: an annual financial statement, trust deposits and an annual list of forfeitures. South Dakota asks no pre-licensing course for it, which puts it beside its producer lines and against Missouri's twenty-four hours and Georgia's sixteen.
Read at sdlegislature.gov on 2026-08-20
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No national seller sells a course for this license. Aceable does not sell South Dakota at all. No course is required and no seller offers one. The paper is the same InsSD_BB49 all four bail licenses sit, and nothing sold addresses it.