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Delaware State Police 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.
Delaware State Police starts at $91,265 a year — about $43.88 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $22,875 above the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $26,267 above the median for state agencies.
How big the department isDelaware State Police reported 783 sworn officers to the FBI for 2025.No rate is shown: this agency does not police a single population the FBI publishes a figure for. 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 Delaware State says about itself
The Delaware State Police Human Resources Section is committed to excellence and anchored by a small team of dedicated Troopers and professional staff providing administrative support for over 1,000 employees.
What Delaware State does
The Delaware State Police was founded on 28 April 1923 with four stations at Wilmington, New Castle, Dover and Georgetown, and now employs over 1,000 people across its troops statewide. Alongside patrol and criminal investigation it runs specialist units including aviation, mounted patrol and polygraph.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 16 August 2026. Delaware State Police — Become a Trooper, recruiting page — open the source document
The Delaware State Police publishes a starting salary of $91,265 on its own recruiting page. Recruits live full time at the training academy in Dover for about twenty-two weeks with weekends off, then complete a further twelve weeks of field training at a troop. Troopers work twelve-hour shifts with the option of standby status for court, receive a take-home vehicle, six weeks of paid vacation a year, and may retire at twenty years with mandatory retirement at fifty-five.
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.
How this level compares
Where Delaware State 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. Delaware State starts at $91,265, so $26,267 above the state middle.
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How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Delaware State Police officer make?
Delaware State Police starts a new officer on $91,265 a year, about $43.88 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 Delaware State Police — Become a Trooper, recruiting page.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Delaware?
It ranks #1 of 14 agencies we have verified in Delaware — the highest in the state in the state — and #189 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $22,875 above, and against other state agencies $26,267 above.
Compare with another department
Put Delaware State Police 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 DE
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Delaware | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | New Castle City Police Department | Municipal | — | $75,338 | −$15,927 | #544 |
| 3 | University of Delaware Police Department | Special jurisdiction | 48 | $74,679 | −$16,586 | #570 |
| 4 | Middletown Police Department | Municipal | 38 | $74,550 | −$16,715 | #576 |
| 5 | New Castle County Police | County | 414 | $74,453 | −$16,812 | #582 |
| 6 | Dover Police Department | Municipal | 101 | $72,000 | −$19,265 | #668 |
| 7 | Newark Police Department | Municipal | 72 | $70,000 | −$21,265 | #767 |
| 8 | Selbyville Police Department | Municipal | 10 | $68,788 | −$22,477 | #824 |
| 9 | Seaford Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $68,474 | −$22,791 | #838 |
| 10 | Milford Police Department | Municipal | 35 | $67,971 | −$23,294 | #864 |
| 11 | Wilmington Police Department | Municipal | 279 | $67,600 | −$23,665 | #888 |
| 12 | Cheswold Police Department | Municipal | 4 | $57,500 | −$33,765 | #1,359 |
| 13 | Delaware Capitol Police | State | — | $53,807 | −$37,458 | #1,475 |
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.
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