Home › Police pay › Georgia › Atlanta Police Department
Atlanta Police Department entry pay
What this agency pays a new officer to start, and how that compares with the rest of the country.
Entry pay onlyEvery salary here is what an officer is paid on day one, out of the academy — base pay on a 40-hour week, with no overtime, shift differential, specialty or education pay counted. Nobody stays on it.
Atlanta Police Department starts at $60,987 a year — about $29.32 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $7,403 below the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $10,277 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Georgia run about 4% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $63,335 would somewhere at average prices — $2,348 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 89 against a national average of 100, where goods are 99. Based on state-wide price levels, because this agency is not tied to a single metro area, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024. The salary above is what the employer publishes; this line is our arithmetic on it, and nothing on this site is ranked on it.
How big the department isAtlanta Police Department reported 1,817 sworn officers and 532 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 3.5 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 525,939.A rate is only meaningful for a city department, where the population served is the city’s own. Reporting to the FBI is voluntary, so a count can reflect a partial return as easily as a small agency, and the FBI asks that agencies not be compared on staffing. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, Full-time Law Enforcement Employees, 2025.
What Atlanta says about itself
The mission of the Atlanta Police Department is to create a safer Atlanta by reducing crime, ensuring the safety of our residents and building trust in partnership with our community.
What Atlanta does
Atlanta Police Department officers serve seven zones including the airport. The department accepts lateral entrants from in-state and out-of-state agencies and from qualifying military police units, and officers who return to APD come back at the tier they left at. Sworn officers may apply for an education incentive once onboarded, worth $2,100 a year for an associate degree or $4,200 for a bachelor's, added to base pay rather than paid as a lump sum; multiple degrees do not stack. The Atlanta Police Foundation funds a scholarship reimbursement programme of up to $3,000 a year for officers pursuing college and postgraduate study, supports an in-city housing programme intended to keep officers living in the neighbourhoods they police, and together with Peachtree Presbyterian Church provides a $100,000 line-of-duty life insurance policy for every sworn officer.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 18 August 2026. Atlanta Police Department official recruiting site, Salary and Benefits page — open the source document
APD publishes a single starting salary for the rank of Police Officer, $60,987.00, under the heading that new salaries take effect on 1 January 2025. There is no separate recruit or cadet rate published, so the academy rate and the first rate as an officer are the same figure and the entry-pay choice does not arise. A LATERAL rate of $66,395 is listed separately and is EXCLUDED: it applies to in-state, out-of-state and qualifying military police transfers and the department notes it can be higher depending on prior law enforcement experience. The figure was checked for staleness because the effective date is twenty months old; the page is actively maintained, carrying 2026 pension material and images uploaded in 2026, and no later increase was found. For scale, the department's starting salary was reported as $52,865 in 2023. Excluded as add-ons: the annual education incentive of $2,100 for an associate degree or $4,200 for a bachelor's, and holiday premium pay.
Entry-level base salary only. Overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift
differentials, locality pay and lateral rates are excluded, so most officers earn more
than this.
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save your shift schedule once and BlueShifts fills the rest of the year in.
How this level compares
Where Atlanta sits is partly about the agency and partly about which level of policing it belongs to. The three levels do not pay the same.
| Level | Lowest | Median | Highest | Agencies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal | $35,006 | $71,287 | $163,619 | 1046 |
| County | $36,492 | $65,374 | $132,263 | 416 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,195 | $107,954 | 69 |
| State | $33,994 | $64,998 | $102,692 | 143 |
| Federal | $70,477 | $73,502 | $86,530 | 5 |
| Territory | $16,640 | $28,236 | $43,354 | 9 |
Federal agencies pay the most to start
The middle federal agency starts at $73,502 — about $2,200 more than the middle municipal agency and about $8,100 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,500 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Atlanta starts at $60,987, so $10,300 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Atlanta Police Department officer make?
Atlanta Police Department starts a new officer on $60,987 a year, about $29.32 an hour on a 2,080-hour year. That is base salary before overtime, bonuses, education incentives, shift differentials and locality pay, so most serving officers earn more. The figure comes from Atlanta Police Department official recruiting site, Salary and Benefits page.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Georgia?
It ranks #8 of 25 agencies we have verified in Georgia — 17 pay less, 7 pay more in the state — and #1,196 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $7,403 below, and against other municipal agencies $10,277 below.
Compare with another department
Put Atlanta Police Department side by side with any other agency on the site — the two salaries, what each is worth once local prices are counted, and which comes out ahead.
The agencies either side of it
Other agencies in GA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Atlanta | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sandy Springs Police Department | Municipal | 149 | $71,686 | +$10,699 | #687 |
| 2 | Georgia Bureau of Investigation | State | 338 | $64,977 | +$3,990 | #1,027 |
| 3 | Georgia State Patrol | State | — | $63,684 | +$2,697 | #1,072 |
| 4 | South Fulton Police Department | Municipal | 213 | $63,440 | +$2,453 | #1,086 |
| 5 | Roswell Police Department | Municipal | 154 | $62,462 | +$1,475 | #1,135 |
| 6 | Savannah Police Department | Municipal | 425 | $61,989 | +$1,002 | #1,156 |
| 7 | Alpharetta Police Department | Municipal | 105 | $61,100 | +$113 | #1,190 |
| 9 | Snellville Police Department | Municipal | 50 | $60,905 | −$82 | #1,199 |
| 10 | Fulton County Sheriff's Office | County | 349 | $60,000 | −$987 | #1,240 |
| 11 | Fulton County Police Department | Municipal | 349 | $60,000 | −$987 | #1,249 |
| 12 | Athens-Clarke County Police Department | Municipal | 235 | $59,287 | −$1,700 | #1,275 |
| 13 | DeKalb County Sheriff's Office | County | 306 | $57,919 | −$3,068 | #1,327 |
Base pay is only part of the year
Whatever the figure above, the rotation is what decides your year — which weekends you lose, when the changeovers land, what you can plan around. Save yours once and BlueShifts shows it a year ahead, with the off-duty jobs you take and what each one paid.
Scan to install
