Structural is not agriculture. That sentence is doing a lot of work, and if you take one thing from this guide, take that.

Texas structural pest control runs through TDA’s Structural Pest Control Service. The requirement is calculated differently than the agricultural side, it’s tracked on a different calendar, and a 5-CEU agricultural package — the kind most heavily advertised to Texas applicators — does not satisfy a structural license. People buy the wrong one every year.

If you’re licensed on the ag side instead, you want the agricultural renewal guide. If you’re not sure which you hold, start with the differences between the license types.

Step 1: Know which structural license you hold

Two different requirements live under SPCS, and they don’t share math.

Certified applicator — the licensed decision-maker. CEU requirement is built from your categories.

Technician — 8 hours of verifiable training for the preceding calendar year, running January 1 to December 31 ahead of your renewal date. That’s the requirement. The applicator category math below does not apply to you.

Everything from Step 2 on is written for certified applicators.

Step 2: Count your categories, then do the math

A structural certified applicator needs:

• 2 CEUs in general training, and
• 1 CEU in each category in which the applicator is certified

At least one of those two general units must be in federal and state laws, pesticide safety, environmental protection, or integrated pest management. The second general unit can be any approved general topic.

So your total is not a fixed number — it’s a function of how many categories you carry:

Categories certified in	General CEUs	Category CEUs	Total
1	2	1	3
2	2	2	4
3	2	3	5
4	2	4	6

This is the second-most-common structural mistake, right behind buying an ag course. An applicator certified in pest control, termite, and lawn and ornamental doesn’t need 3 CEUs — they need 5, and specifically one in each of those three categories. General credits do not substitute for category credits.

Count your categories off your license, not off memory.

Step 3: Work the calendar year, not your license date

Structural CEUs run on the calendar. Credits must be obtained in each calendar year, January 1 to December 31.

The practical translation: if you renew at any time in 2026, your CEUs must have been earned during calendar year 2025. Not the twelve months before your renewal date. The preceding calendar year.

This is the single biggest structural difference from the agricultural side, where credits follow your individual twelve-month licensing period. An applicator who holds both licenses is running two different clocks at once, and they will not line up.

One exemption worth knowing: applicators are not required to obtain CEUs during the first calendar year in which their license is issued. If you were licensed in 2025, your first real CEU year is 2026.

Step 4: Respect the self-study rule

CEUs may only be obtained through an approved self-study course every other year. Self-study will not be accepted two years in a row.

Read that again if you renew online out of habit. If you satisfied 2025 with an online self-study course, you cannot satisfy 2026 the same way. You need in-person or otherwise non-self-study credit that year.

The realistic plan is to alternate on purpose — online one year, a live program the next — rather than discovering the restriction in December when your options have thinned out.

Two more course rules that catch people:

• No approved course may be repeated for credit within the same calendar year. Taking the same course twice gets you the credit once.
• You can’t earn CEUs from a course you present. If you’re teaching it, it doesn’t count toward your own requirement.

Step 5: Verify the course is SPCS-approved for your category

TDA’s CEU search at ceusearch.texasagriculture.gov is filterable by applicator type, category, and delivery format. Use the structural filters, and match the category on the course to the category on your license.

This is where the ag-versus-structural mixup actually bites. AATCE’s Texas pesticide course, for example, is a good package — 5 CEUs, both special topics, credits reported to TDA — but it’s approved in the agricultural category, for commercial, noncommercial, and NCPS applicators. It will not satisfy a structural certified applicator license. Their breakdown of the Texas license types is worth reading precisely because it helps you confirm which side of the line you’re on before you spend money.

For structural credit specifically, filter TDA’s search to structural and buy from a provider whose courses come back approved for your categories. Providers with broad TDA catalogs — Pest Control Courses among them — carry structural applicator and technician offerings alongside their agricultural ones, but confirm the category on the individual course rather than trusting the vendor’s homepage.

Step 6: Renew, pay, and keep your records

Submit the renewal and fee before your expiration date. Fees depend on license type, so use your renewal notice.

Keep every certificate. TDA can ask you to document your continuing education, and on the structural side your certificates are proving two things at once: that the credit was in the right category, and that it landed in the right calendar year. Both matter, and neither is reconstructable a year later from memory.

If something is unclear about your specific license, call TDA at (877) 542-2474 or email license.inquiry@TexasAgriculture.gov. It’s a better use of ten minutes than guessing at category math.

The short version

1. Certified applicator or technician? Technicians need 8 hours of verifiable training and can stop reading here.
2. Count your categories: 2 general plus 1 per category. One of the general credits must be laws, safety, environmental protection, or IPM.
3. Credits come from the preceding calendar year, not your license anniversary.
4. Self-study is not accepted two years in a row. Alternate on purpose.
5. Verify the course is approved for structural and for your specific categories.
6. Renew before the date, keep the certificates.

The structural requirement is more arithmetic than the agricultural one and less forgiving about format. Neither of those is hard once a year. Both are miserable in the last week of December.

— Mike