ServSafe Food Handler: Price and How It Compares

The course is delivered online, and it ends with a test ServSafe calls an assessment. Pass it and you receive a certificate that remains good for three years.

Whichever language you're most comfortable in, chances are it's covered — the course comes in English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

ServSafe Manager is a separate certification that lasts five years. The Food Handler certificate lasts three.

ServSafe isn't the only company selling food handler training. This site covers all 50 states and lists ServSafe courses in four of them. In each of those four, other listed courses cost less.

In California, ServSafe runs $11.99, while the cheapest listed option, Learn2Serve, charges $7.49, and cards there are good for 3 years. In Illinois, ServSafe costs $15 against $7.95 from Premier Food Safety and eFoodHandlers, with cards lasting three years. In South Carolina, ServSafe is again $15, compared with $10 for the lowest-priced listed choices — StateFoodSafety, eFoodHandlers, and Always Food Safe — and cards there also last three years. In Texas, ServSafe runs $15 versus $6.99 from TAP Series, and a Texas card expires after two years.

San Diego County counts ServSafe among its approved options at $14.99, though the least expensive approved course there runs $7.95.

The source for the California price is the ServSafe California course list.

A food handlers card can come from ServSafe Food Handler, but it's not the only route. Plenty of states treat a card from any approved provider the same way, and those often cost less.

Then there are places that issue their own card and accept no substitute. A ServSafe certificate won't work in:

• Washington, where the state card must be obtained within 14 days of your start date
• Alaska, where the state card must be obtained within 30 days of your start date
• Riverside County, California, which takes none but its own certificate
• San Bernardino County, California, where the only accepted card comes from county Environmental Health Services
• Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, where only the Southern Nevada Health District issues cards

San Bernardino is not alone here. San Diego County also limits cards to courses it has approved, so the standard California card won't do there.

Hawaii, Ohio, and South Carolina run on a different system. Instead of requiring every worker to hold a card, they require a trained person in charge to be present on each shift.

Nine states make a food handlers card or approved training mandatory statewide. Alaska, California, Florida, and Illinois are among them, along with New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. Another 25 states have no statewide requirement whatsoever, and 13 more leave it up to individual counties or cities.