Texas Police Salary 2026: What 11 Departments Pay

The short answer. Eleven Dallas-Fort Worth municipal police departments publish a first sworn officer step we could read from the city's own pay plan. The middle of that set is Mesquite at $83,868.62 (sixth of eleven). We never average neighbors into a number neither city prints. The low is Fort Worth Step 1 at $78,358. The high is Frisco Step 0 (<12 months) at $90,750. The middle half still runs from Dallas at $81,232 to Grand Prairie at $90,000. Texas DPS is a separate row: Trooper I is $65,851 after a 12-month probation, on an authorized 50-hour week. Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Lubbock, Amarillo, Brownsville, McAllen, Waco, Killeen, and Pasadena are not in the table. N is 12, and that is the whole claim.

Last verified: 2026-08-22.

This is not a statewide census. It is the departments whose 2026 civil service plans, ordinances, or recruiting schedules we opened. Every dollar below comes from that city's document. ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, Salary.com, Indeed, and degree-marketing sites are not sources for this page.

Recruit pay and first sworn officer pay are two columns. They are not the same job. Fort Worth's trainee line is $65,520; its Step 1 officer line is $78,358. Folding those together would make Fort Worth look like the cheapest large city in the metro when the officer step is not.

If you are still mapping the license and the hiring sequence, start with How to Become a Police Officer in Texas and the TCOLE peace officer license requirements. Dallas hiring from the city's own posting is How to Become a Police Officer in Dallas. Denton hiring from the September 2026 POA is How to Become a Police Officer in Denton. Texas DPS hiring from Training Operations is How to Become a Texas State Trooper. Houston hiring from hpdcareer.com and NEOGOV 5328764 is How to Become a Police Officer in Houston. Lubbock hiring from Recruiting, the 2025-26 pay scale, NEOGOV 5405047, and lateral 5097636 is How to Become a Police Officer in Lubbock. Amarillo hiring from Benefits/Salaries and Workday JR2397 is How to Become a Police Officer in Amarillo. Brownsville hiring from the June 13, 2025 civil service notice, Employment & Benefits, and the stay-tuned exam page is How to Become a Police Officer in Brownsville. McAllen hiring from the August 21, 2026 civil service notice, Staff Services, and the October 13, 2026 exam packet is How to Become a Police Officer in McAllen. Waco hiring from the FY 2025-2026 Civil Service Police Salary Schedule, NEOGOV 5344313, Employment, Training, and Employment Fitness Test is How to Become a Police Officer in Waco. Killeen hiring from the Police Pay Plan FY 26, Employment, Hiring Process PDF, Minimum Requirements, and Academy Training is How to Become a Police Officer in Killeen. Pasadena hiring from Benefits, Requirements, ApplicantPro, Contact Us, and Academy is How to Become a Police Officer in Pasadena. Texas City hiring from Salary and Benefits, Eligibility, Hiring Process, Recruitment, and CivicAlerts 684 is How to Become a Police Officer in Texas City. Pearland hiring from the April 2026 Police Officer Pay Plan, Career Opportunities, Eligibility, and Selection Process is How to Become a Police Officer in Pearland. League City hiring from LCPD Jobs, the 2026 Pay Scale PDF 50866, Qualifications, and Hiring Process is How to Become a Police Officer in League City. Sugar Land hiring from Join SLPD, FY26 image 41837, and older NeoGov posting 5358419 is How to Become a Police Officer in Sugar Land. Lewisville hiring from Pay Plan 11436 and NEOGOV 5236259 is How to Become a Police Officer in Lewisville. Carrollton hiring from Civil Service 40069 is How to Become a Police Officer in Carrollton. Richardson hiring from payplan 1018, the FY 26 pay scale, and MUNIS 84-1 is How to Become a Police Officer in Richardson. Allen hiring from the FY 2025-26 Police Pay Plan and Join Our Force is How to Become a Police Officer in Allen. Flower Mound hiring from the FY 2025/26 PAY PLAN DP and NEOGOV 5442274 is How to Become a Police Officer in Flower Mound. Rockwall hiring from the FY 25-26 sworn matrix and older posting 00620 is How to Become a Police Officer in Rockwall. Lancaster hiring from older posting 19195, older posting 5365533, and live benefits is How to Become a Police Officer in Lancaster. Cedar Hill hiring from Join Our Team and older posting 5061095 is How to Become a Police Officer in Cedar Hill. DeSoto hiring from DocumentCenter 891 and older posting 4448007 is How to Become a Police Officer in DeSoto. Duncanville hiring from Recruitment Rev. FY25-26 is How to Become a Police Officer in Duncanville. Rowlett hiring from the FY2025-2026 Public Safety Step Plan and NEOGOV 5358987 is How to Become a Police Officer in Rowlett. Wylie hiring from the FY2026 Police Step Plan and NEOGOV 5183731 is How to Become a Police Officer in Wylie. Little Elm hiring from the FY 2025-26 Police Step Plan is How to Become a Police Officer in Little Elm. Baytown hiring from Careers, flyer 12619, and NeoGov 5445983 is How to Become a Police Officer in Baytown. Galveston hiring from the 2025 GPD Pay Scale Document 20263 is How to Become a Police Officer in Galveston. This page is the pay sheet.

What 11 pay documents actually show

Start with the statewide wage survey, because that is the number most "average salary" pages are quietly reprinting.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (occupation 33-3051, Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers, May 2025, retrieved 2026-08-21 through the BLS public data API) counts 63,100 such officers employed in Texas at a median annual wage of $75,900. The middle half of that wage survey runs from $61,240 to $93,800. Nationally the median is $76,210 across 670,520 officers.

That $75,900 is a wage survey of people already working, across every rank and every year of service. The figures in the table below are something different and more useful to someone deciding: they are the published entry rate a department will actually pay you, taken from the schedule the city adopted.

Across the 10 DFW municipal departments in this collection:

• The middle of the first sworn officer steps is Mesquite Police at $83,868.62 (Police Officer PG1 base on the January 1, 2026 plan). That is the sixth of eleven rows, not an average of Mesquite and Irving.
• The middle half of those 11 officer steps still runs from Dallas at $81,232 to Grand Prairie at $90,000.
• Three departments start a sworn officer at $90,000 or above: Grand Prairie at $90,000, Plano at $90,729, and Frisco at $90,750.
• Fort Worth at $78,358 is the only DFW officer step in this set below $80,000.
• Fort Worth's trainee line at $65,520 is the only DFW academy figure in this set below $80,000.

Dallas-Fort Worth versus the rest of Texas

The fire salary page can split 147 departments into Dallas-Fort Worth and everywhere else, because it has both samples. This page cannot.

All 11 municipal rows are Dallas-Fort Worth. There is no rest-of-Texas municipal median here. Houston PD, San Antonio PD, and Austin PD were not opened for this collection's first sworn officer table, so they are not estimated. Houston cadet pay is sourced on How to Become a Police Officer in Houston: Cadet $52,000 on Benefits and NEOGOV 5328764. Exhibit A page 2 Grade III 1 Year is 3,115.39 biweekly ($81,000.14 at 26 pay periods); Benefits prints that as $81,000. NEOGOV still shows First Year Police Officer $78,452. Houston stays out of this collection's table because the table is DFW municipal departments plus Texas DPS. Irving PD is in the table as of 2026-08-21: the Civil Service Pay Plan FY 2025-26 1st Edition prints Police Officer Rank Entry at $6,984 a month ($83,808). NEOGOV job 2600205 still shows a salary field of $0.00 annually. That field is not a wage.

The statewide agency in the collection is Texas DPS. The Trooper Salary table prints four columns: Base Salary (monthly), Yearly, Overtime, and Yearly w/Overtime. Recruit is $4,271.25 a month, $51,255.00 on the Yearly column, plus a $5,000 one-time graduation bonus. Probationary Trooper is $4,620.08 a month, $55,441.00 Yearly. Trooper I, after the 12-month probation, is $5,487.58 a month, $65,851.00 Yearly. Those annuals are the printed Yearly column, not computed here. The schedule is current from September 1, 2025 through August 31, 2027, paid monthly, with a 50-hour work week authorized. Trooper I on the Yearly w/Overtime column is $90,545.04. That is not base. This page uses the Yearly column.

Texas charges no state income tax, so a gap between two Texas departments is a gap in take-home on the base. Cost of living still moves inside the metro. Confirm the live posting before you treat any row as an offer.

Texas police pay, department by department

Three column definitions, because most published comparisons blur roles and the blur is where the misleading numbers come from.

• Recruit / academy is the printed trainee, recruit, or academy rate when the city prints one. A blank cell means the city did not print a separate academy line on the document we opened. It does not mean the academy pays the officer rate.
• First sworn officer is Step 0/1, Year 0-1, or the Police Officer base on the adopted plan. For Denton that is Police Officer Recruit (HA0011) entry $81,176.50 on the FY 2025-2026 plan effective January 3, 2026 (same cell as the FY 2024-2025 book effective January 4, 2025). The same plan prints Police Officer (HA0010) Step A at 1 year $84,724; that is a one-year cell, not this column. For Dallas that is Year 0-1 under the FY 2025-2026 start-step enhancement; the Meet and Confer market-survey start sits beside it in the notes.
• Source is the document title, link, effective date printed on the document, and the date we read it.
• Every figure is base pay. No overtime, no certification pay, no assignment pay, no education stipend.

Departments are listed by first sworn officer step, high to low, so the ranking is visible. DPS sits in its own section, not in this ranking.

Plano's live department card previously carried $80,889. The FY 2025-26 plan prints recruit $86,423 and officer $90,729. The document wins. The card is corrected with this article.

Arlington's pre-2015 legacy entry of $79,692.80 is not the new-hire scale. New candidates use the 2015-and-after table.

Two older Grand Prairie bands still circulate. An older NEOGOV posting, 3935436 (closed April 29, 2023), prints $74,982.00-$103,499.00. A Fraternal Order of Police listing prints $66,787-$92,187 and is not a city document. Neither is the Oct 1, 2025 plan. The adopted plan and the current NEOGOV bulletin both print $90,000.

Texas DPS, not a municipal twin

Do not rank Trooper I against Frisco Step 0 (<12 months). One is a state schedule on a 50-hour week. The other is a municipal officer step on Frisco's FY26 plan. Frisco's own FAQ says the department is not civil service. Both figures are real. They are not the same comparison.

The holes, named

Irving PD. The Civil Service Pay Plan FY 2025-26 1st Edition, Job 4262 Grade CP01 Rank Entry, prints $6,984 a month effective January 4, 2026; Join Irving PD reprints $83,808 a year. That is the table row. NEOGOV 2600205 still shows $0.00; that field is not a wage.

Houston, San Antonio, Austin. Out of this collection's first sworn officer table on purpose. Houston cadet $52,000 is sourced; Exhibit A Grade III 1 Year is 3,115.39 biweekly. See How to Become a Police Officer in Houston. Lubbock PNCSP Cadet $70,000.32 sits on the FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule, an adopted cell outside this collection. See How to Become a Police Officer in Lubbock. A statewide range built from DFW plus a guess at those three would be the old size-band copy this site already cut.

Dallas Police Trainee as a lower academy rate. The uniformed schedule still has no separate trainee stipend. The FY26 civil service posting (T46100-FY26) lists Police Officer Trainee at $81,232, which is the Year 0-1 officer figure, not a lower academy line. Directory startingPay is now 81232.

Denton FY 2025-26 police plan as a separately titled book. Found in the city's Laserfiche Pay Plans folder: FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Plan, effective January 3, 2026. Recruit HA09 $80,790, HA0011 entry $81,176.50 / step 1 $81,563.00, Officer HA0010 Step A $84,724 through Step E $108,831.00. Those cells match DocumentCenter 8436 (FY 2024-2025, effective January 4, 2025). The September 2026 recruit posting reprints $80,790. This table uses HA0011 entry as the first sworn cell. Cite the posting for the hiring title and the FY 2025-2026 book for the officer cells.

Dallas-Fort Worth BLS metro series. The Texas statewide OEWS series for 33-3051 opened. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro series did not resolve on this retrieval, so there is no BLS DFW median on this page. The DFW comparison above is the 10 municipal officer steps, not a wage survey.

Method

The universe. DFW municipal police departments named in the unit brief, plus Texas DPS. N started as 12 names. Irving dropped to a hole. N published is 11.

What counts as a source. A civil service pay plan, an adopted pay ordinance, a city compensation PDF, a dated position-opportunity announcement that reprints the plan rate, or the DPS Training Operations salary page. That is the whole list. A recruiting page is a cross-check. Where recruiting and the adopted plan disagree, both figures are recorded and the adopted plan is the published number.

Four rules.

1. Null is a value. A blank recruit cell means the city did not print a separate academy line. It never means we filled it from the officer step.
2. Categories stay separate. Trainee pay is not officer pay. Dallas's market-survey start is not Year 0-1. DPS base is not DPS overtime.
3. Conflicts are named, not averaged. Fort Worth recruiting still shows FY 2025 Step 1 on one block. Plano's old $80,889 is not averaged with $90,729. Garland's Benefits page meta description still says January 1, 2018 / $59,047; Ordinance 7682 is the source.
4. Do not convert. Quote the unit the document prints. If the document prints both monthly and yearly, quote both. DPS prints Base Salary monthly and a Yearly column; the annuals here are that Yearly column, not 12 times the monthly computed by us. McKinney's recruit line is the city's 95 percent of officer start, printed by the city, not computed here.

What this page is not. It is not 180 departments. It is not a rest-of-Texas municipal ranking. It is not TCOLE agency records; those 1,463 rows carry zero pay.

Frequently asked questions

What is the starting salary for a police officer in Texas?

There is no single figure. Across the 11 Dallas-Fort Worth municipal departments in this collection, the middle of the first sworn officer steps is Mesquite at $83,868.62. The low is Fort Worth at $78,358. The high is Frisco Step 0 (<12 months) at $90,750. Academy pay is a separate and lower number at the cities that print one. Texas DPS Trooper I is $65,851 after probation, on a 50-hour week, and is not in that municipal set.

Which Texas police department pays the most?

In this collection, Frisco publishes the highest first sworn officer step at $90,750 (STEP-0, <12 months), then Plano at $90,729, then Grand Prairie at $90,000. That is a ranking of published officer steps among the 11 DFW municipal departments we opened. It is not a statewide ranking. Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Lubbock, and Amarillo are not in the set. Irving Rank Entry is $83,808.

What is the average police officer salary in Texas?

The median annual wage for the 63,100 police and sheriff's patrol officers working in Texas is $75,900, per Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data for May 2025. Nationally the median is $76,210. That is a wage survey across all ranks and all years of service, which is a different measurement from the published entry rates in this article's table.

Why is Fort Worth's academy number so much lower than its officer step?

Because they are different jobs on the same plan. Police Trainee is $65,520. Police Officer (X03) Step 1 is $78,358. Recruiting prints $5,460 a month during the academy, the same dollar as the adopted Police Trainee line ($65,520). Its graduation block prints $6,339 a month and labels that $78,000 a year; $6,339 a month is $76,068, and $6,339 is the FY 2025 Step 1 monthly. The adopted FY 2026 Step 1 is $78,358.

Why isn't Irving listed?

Because we could not open a primary document with a printed dollar. The compensation page did not render a schedule. The current NEOGOV bulletin prints $0.00. A blank would be more honest than an estimate, and a blank that pretends to be a row would make every other figure on the page less trustworthy. Irving stays in the holes list until the book opens.

Why aren't Houston, San Antonio, and Austin in the table?

Because their first sworn officer schedules were not opened as a settled cell for this collection. Houston cadet pay is $52,000 on hpdcareer Benefits and NEOGOV 5328764; Exhibit A Grade III 1 Year is 3,115.39 biweekly ($81,000.14); NEOGOV still shows $78,452. See How to Become a Police Officer in Houston. Lubbock PNCSP Cadet $70,000.32 sits on the FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule, an adopted cell outside this collection. See How to Become a Police Officer in Lubbock. Killeen Probationary Police Officer Step 1 $67,640.14 sits on the Police Pay Plan FY 26 effective October 1, 2025, an adopted cell outside this collection. See How to Become a Police Officer in Killeen. Pasadena Officer (Includes Cadets) Step 1 $78,671.25 sits on Benefits and the Police Salary Chart effective December 22, 2025, a recruiting chart outside this collection. See How to Become a Police Officer in Pasadena. Texas City Probationary Patrolman $64,662.42 sits on Salary and Benefits, a recruiting table outside this collection. See How to Become a Police Officer in Texas City. The older copy on this site that named those cities with unsourced bands is the copy that got cut. This page does not put them back as guesses.

Do I get paid during the academy?

At the cities that print a recruit or trainee line, yes, at that line. Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Garland, Denton, and Fort Worth print one. Dallas, Mesquite, Irving, and Arlington did not print a separate academy line on the documents we opened. Irving pays Police Officer Rank Entry in academy. DPS pays $51,255 during the school plus a $5,000 graduation bonus. Houston prints Cadet $52,000 on Benefits and NEOGOV 5328764, and GRADE II Probationary 2,376.00 biweekly on Exhibit A after graduation. Austin prints Regular Academy $67,000 on Pay & Benefits and iCIMS 1110, and a rank-table Cadet line of $60,000 on the same page. El Paso prints Recruit $24.57 hourly / $51,105.60 on Join EPPD Salary Effective 09/01/2025 and NEOGOV 5306595; academy and FAQ still show an older $23.97. Lubbock prints PNCSP Cadet $70,000.32 on the FY 2025-2026 Police Pay Schedule. See How to Become a Police Officer in Lubbock. Amarillo prints Recruit Officer (Step 1) $72,847 on Benefits/Salaries. McAllen prints Police Probationary I $22.0336 per hour on the August 21, 2026 civil service notice. Waco prints Recruit $32.89 per hour on the FY 2025-2026 Civil Service Police Salary Schedule. Killeen prints Probationary Police Officer Step 1 $67,640.14 on the Police Pay Plan FY 26. Pasadena prints Officer (Includes Cadets) Step 1 $78,671.25 on Benefits and the Police Salary Chart effective December 22, 2025. Texas City prints Probationary Patrolman $64,662.42 on Salary and Benefits; there is no cadet cell. Pearland prints Police Officer Step 0 $77,112 on the April 2026 plan. See How to Become a Police Officer in Pearland. Cadet compensation PDF 35072 prints PD-Police Cadet NE19 min $56,263.09 / mid $65,992.90 / max $75,722.72. Those are not the same cell. League City prints Police Officer Cadet PN1 $68,154.47 on the LCPD 2026 Pay Scale while cadets attend a local academy the department chooses and pays for. Sugar Land prints Police Officer-Recruit P-1 $30.92 an hour on FY26 image 41837 and Starting Pay $64,314 on NeoGov 5358419 while recruits attend a local academy. See How to Become a Police Officer in League City. Baytown prints Probationary / Starting Base Pay $84,049 on Careers and flyer 12619; the cadet hourly cell is unpublished, and academy tuition reimbursement up to $2,500 is not a recruit wage. Galveston prints Cadet Entry $24.30 / $50,555.07 on the 2025 GPD Pay Scale while attending the Basic Police Officer Academy.