Security officers placed on your property under an agreed scope and supervision plan — the human layer that cameras cannot replace. CIS's core service since 1990, available across Lebanon.
Manned guarding places security officers at a property to deter, detect, document, and escalate incidents in person. CCTV and access control support that human presence; they do not replace it.
A business needs manned guarding when its risk is continuous rather than occasional: a residential tower where residents and visitors arrive around the clock, a site holding valuable or sensitive stock, premises where staff or the public need to feel safe to function, or any property where an incident would cost more than the cover. If your current answer to "who responds at 3 a.m." is "we check the footage in the morning", that is the gap guarding fills.
What guarding is not is a commodity. Two companies can quote the same hourly rate for the same post and deliver completely different things: one sends a vetted, briefed, supervised officer who knows your escalation path, the other sends whoever was available. The rate looks identical on the proposal and the difference only appears on the night something happens — which is the worst possible moment to discover it.
If this is your first time comparing a security company in Lebanon, begin with the job your site needs rather than a guard count. The same plain framework applies whether you are considering security guards in Beirut or coverage elsewhere in Lebanon.
Manned guarding assigns a person to a defined post for defined hours, with written duties and a clear escalation path. A useful proposal therefore describes the post, the decisions the officer may make, what must be reported, and who is called when an issue exceeds the post.
Consider a staffed post when access, people, or valuable premises need attention during specific hours and an issue may require human judgement before recorded footage can help. Map the times and places of exposure first; continuous cover, scheduled cover, and a technology-only setup solve different problems.
There is no responsible universal price for manned guarding in Lebanon. Ask every provider to show the same cost structure, without relying on a headline hourly rate, so you can compare like with like.
Treat “licensed” as a document request, not a marketing adjective. Ask the provider to identify the current legal authorisation applying to the company and the personnel proposed for your site, who issued it, when it expires, and how evidence will be kept in the contract file. Requirements can vary by role and assignment, so verify the current documents before signing.
Ask who covers absence, who supervises the post, which records you receive, how incidents escalate, what is excluded, and what remedy applies if the written scope is missed. Put each answer in the proposal or contract; a verbal assurance cannot be compared or enforced later.
Record the property type, coverage hours, access points, people, and assets that need protection before comparing proposals.
Specify posts, schedules, duties, exclusions, reporting, and escalation so every quote covers the same requirement.
Ask for current legal documents and the exact quality credential. CIS’s verified credential is ISO 9001:2015.
After contract confirmation, CIS’s verified commitment for a new deployment is within 24 hours.
Document how to use CIS’s verified 24/7/365 for active clients availability once the site is active.
A shift starts with a handover, not with a chair. The incoming officer takes the log from the outgoing one: what happened, what is outstanding, which contractor is expected, which resident reported a problem. Skipping the handover is the single most common failure in badly run guarding, because it turns a continuous watch into a series of disconnected shifts that each start from zero.
Through the shift the work is mostly unremarkable and that is the point: controlling access at the entry point, verifying visitors and contractors against what is expected, walking the perimeter and the common areas on a varied pattern, checking that doors, gates, and lighting that should be secure actually are, and writing down what happened. Most of it is prevention that is invisible precisely because it worked.
When something does happen, the officer's value is judgement under time pressure: recognising what they are looking at, taking the immediate action that reduces harm, escalating to the right person, and contacting official emergency services when that is what the situation needs. Training is what makes that sequence automatic instead of improvised, and supervision is what keeps it that way months into a posting.
The right model depends on whether your risk is constant, periodic, or tied to a specific occasion.
The same officers assigned to your property shift after shift, rather than a rotating pool. They learn the layout, the access points, the evacuation routes, the residents and staff by sight, and which vendors are expected — the operational memory that makes a guard effective rather than merely present.
Best for: Residential towers, corporate headquarters, hospitals, schools, industrial sites, jewellery showrooms
Scheduled and randomised patrols across one or several sites rather than a static post. Cost-effective where a permanent presence is not warranted but an empty, unvisited property would be an easy target — and the irregular timing is itself the deterrent.
Best for: Warehouses, construction sites, closed premises, multi-property portfolios
Officers deployed for a defined occasion — an opening, a conference, a private function, a high-footfall retail period. Planned around the guest list, the venue, and the entry points rather than dropped in on the day.
Best for: Corporate events, private functions, retail peaks, exhibitions
Additional officers for a defined period: covering a gap in your own team, reinforcing a site while conditions are elevated, or protecting premises through a renovation or a dispute. Scaled up and back down without renegotiating the whole arrangement.
Best for: Staffing gaps, elevated-risk periods, renovations, disputes
Send the essentials now. Our operations team will review them and contact you to confirm the site, shift and right protection plan.
CIS guarding coverage extends across all 9 Lebanese governorates. The written proposal should still define the exact site, hours, posts, duties, and escalation path for the requested location rather than treating nationwide coverage as a standard package.
Before an officer is assigned, ask for the current legal authorisation applying to the company and proposed personnel, then define which identity, document, employment-history, and reference checks must appear in the contract file. Do not treat a uniform, a verbal assurance, or the word “licensed” as evidence by itself.
Ask every provider to describe the verification process and the records you may inspect before deployment. Put the required evidence, expiry checks, and correction procedure in writing so the standard can be reviewed later instead of depending on a sales conversation.
CIS’s verified quality credential is ISO 9001:2015. Ask the proposal to identify which recruitment, training, deployment, and supervision processes fall within the certified scope, and which dated records you will receive; do not infer that scope from the certification name alone.
Require a dated site briefing before the first shift, covering the property layout, access points, evacuation routes, standing instructions, and escalation contacts. The contract should also say who signs off that briefing and where the record is kept.
A guarding contract should name the supervisor, the visit or review schedule, the records delivered to the client, and the escalation contact for incidents and performance concerns. If those details matter to the purchase, make them measurable contract terms rather than assuming them from the service name.
Accountability also requires clear limits. State the officer’s permitted duties, prohibited actions, reporting threshold, and the point at which official emergency services must be contacted, then have current legal and insurance advisers review any regulated activity.
Guarding is the layer that makes the other layers useful. CCTV gives an officer eyes on places they cannot stand; access control decides who gets past the door they watch; GPS tracking tells a supervisor where a patrol actually is. And the CIS Lebanon Security Index™ sets the daily context — when conditions in your governorate are elevated, the posture on your site should reflect that rather than run on last month's assumptions.
The practical consequence is that guarding should be specified first and technology second, not the other way round. Deciding where the officer stands, what they must be able to see, and who they must be able to stop tells you where the cameras and the readers actually need to go. Buying the technology first and hiring a guard to watch it afterwards is how sites end up with sixteen cameras covering the car park and none covering the service entrance.
A guarding contract is not just a rate and a number of hours. It should name the posts and their exact hours, who covers absence and how quickly, what the officer is expected to do and explicitly not do, how incidents are reported and to whom, who supervises and how often they visit, and what happens if performance slips. Vagueness in any of those is not a detail — it is the thing you will argue about later.
Two clauses are worth reading twice. The first is cover: if your contract says two officers and one is sick, are you owed a replacement within an hour, by the next shift, or not at all? The second is escalation: when the officer judges that a situation exceeds them, who do they call, and does that person answer at 3 a.m.? A provider who has thought about your site will already have answers; one who has not will offer reassurance instead.
These are the questions that separate a managed guarding operation from a staffing arrangement. Ask them of us too — and hold our answers to the same standard.
Are your officers licensed to work in security in Lebanon?
Ask current Lebanese legal and insurance advisers how missing or expired authorisations affect your liability and cover, then require the relevant evidence in the contract file.
How do you vet officers before they are assigned to my site?
A provider who cannot describe the process does not have one — and this person will hold your keys.
Who supervises the guard, and how often do they actually visit?
Unsupervised guards drift. The honest answer is a schedule, not "regularly".
What happens when a guard calls in sick at 5 a.m.?
This is the question that separates a company from an individual arrangement. There should be a named process and a reserve.
How are incidents reported to me, and how fast?
You want to hear about an incident from your provider, not from a resident or the news.
Can I meet the officers before they are posted?
A provider confident in its people says yes without hesitating.
Is the price quoted per officer, per post, or per hour — and what does overtime cost?
A headline rate that excludes cover, overtime, and holidays is not the price you will pay.
Within 24 hours after contract confirmation for a new deployment. Verified emergency availability is 24/7/365 for active clients.
Treat licensing as a document check, not a marketing label. Ask CIS to identify the current legal authorisation applying to the company and proposed personnel, the issuing authority and expiry, and to place that evidence in the contract file before deployment.
Roster continuity depends on the written deployment model. If consistent assigned officers matter to your site, state the continuity requirement, relief arrangement, and permitted substitutions in the contract rather than assuming them from the words “permanent placement.”
Guard deployment and equipment are defined only after a site assessment and written scope. Any regulated capability is discussed only after its current licensing and availability have been confirmed.
All 9 governorates. Coverage is not uniform in character — a Beirut tower and a Beqaa industrial site need different postures — which is why the deployment is planned per site rather than sold as a standard package.
CIS does not publish a universal minimum contract on this page. The proposal must state the deployment model, duration, coverage hours, inclusions, and any minimum term in writing before you sign.
CIS’s verified quality credential is ISO 9001:2015. Your guarding contract should identify the performance record, named escalation contact, review process, correction period, and replacement remedy that apply if the written scope is missed.
Yes. A written security design can give people, cameras, and access control separate duties and a shared escalation path. Specify what each layer detects, records, decides, and reports so technology supports the guard post instead of duplicating it.
The public Index is one planning input for conditions in each governorate. Your contract should say who reviews it, whether it can change the agreed posture, and who authorises that change; it never replaces official guidance, and official services come first in an emergency.
Since 1990. Past contracts include UN agencies (UNICEF; UNGM vendor registration), banks, and embassies.
Tell us the property, the hours you need covered, and what concerns you. We will propose the lightest deployment that genuinely covers it.
Past contracts include UN agencies (UNICEF; UNGM vendor registration), banks, and embassies.
