Have an Alarm? Get a Permit!
If you have a house alarm — and you should! — you must have an alarm permit from the City of Los Angeles. It’s the law.
The first-year fee for the alarm is $37. The annual renewal fee is $30.
If you use an alarm monitoring service, give them the permit number (along with your emergency contact information.)
You can register your alarm system with the City’s Office of Finance. You can do the paperwork and payment online, or go to one of their branch locations.
Operating an alarm system without a valid permit is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or a year in county jail or both.
If you don’t pay the renewal fee on time, a late penalty of $15 will be imposed for renewing your alarm permit from January 1 to March 31. Permits renewed after that will incur a penalty of $30, in addition to the renewal fee.
False alarms that result in a police response will result in a fee of $162 if you have a valid alarm permit. That will go up $50 for each subsequent false alarm.
If you don’t have a permit, the first false alarm will cost you $262, with each additional false alarm increasing that by increments of $100.