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Fayetteville 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.
Fayetteville Police Department starts at $57,699 a year — about $27.74 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $10,691 below the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $13,565 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR run about 9% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $63,161 would somewhere at average prices — $5,462 more than the headline figure. Most of that is utilities, at 75 against a national average of 100, where goods are 94. Based on price levels for this metropolitan 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 isFayetteville Police Department reported 152 sworn officers and 53 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 105,335.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.
About Fayetteville
Fayetteville Police Department serves a Washington County city of some 94,000 in north-west Arkansas with over 170 sworn and civilian members. Its patrol division is the largest unit and the department calls it the backbone: a captain, four lieutenants, eight sergeants and 64 officers working 12-hour shifts on geographical beats, responsible around the clock for calls for service, preliminary investigations, traffic enforcement and accident investigation. A special operations division under a lieutenant and two sergeants supervises trail patrol, entertainment district patrol and motorcycle patrol, and the department is CALEA accredited, with divisions covering warrants, professional standards, central dispatch, community policing, investigation, records, property and evidence, and recruiting and training.
Shifts at Fayetteville
Fayetteville patrol officers work 12-hour shifts and are assigned to geographical areas of responsibility known as beats.
Twelve-hour shifts never sit neatly in a seven-day week, so the pattern moves and no two months look the same. BlueShifts builds it once and keeps every month ahead correct.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 August 2026. City of Fayetteville, Arkansas official 2026 Police Offic — open the source document
Opened 3 February 2026; official Police Officer minimum $27.74/hour = $57,699.20 annually. The recruitment is a general Police Officer candidate pool and not a lateral-only process. Lateral experience placement and other add-ons are excluded
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.
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How this level compares
Where Fayetteville 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. Fayetteville starts at $57,699, so $13,588 below the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Fayetteville Police Department officer make?
Fayetteville Police Department starts a new officer on $57,699 a year, about $27.74 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 City of Fayetteville, Arkansas official 2026 Police Offic.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Arkansas?
It ranks #4 of 9 agencies we have verified in Arkansas — 5 pay less, 3 pay more in the state — and #1,347 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $10,691 below, and against other municipal agencies $13,565 below.
What shifts do Fayetteville Police Department officers work?
Fayetteville patrol officers work 12-hour shifts and are assigned to geographical areas of responsibility known as beats. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Fayetteville 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 AR
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Fayetteville | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arkansas State Police | State | — | $67,675 | +$9,976 | #880 |
| 2 | Rogers Police Department | Municipal | 140 | $61,363 | +$3,664 | #1,180 |
| 3 | Little Rock Police Department | Municipal | 535 | $57,928 | +$229 | #1,326 |
| 5 | North Little Rock Police Department | Municipal | 175 | $55,068 | −$2,631 | #1,428 |
| 6 | Conway Police Department | Municipal | 127 | $50,924 | −$6,776 | #1,535 |
| 7 | Fort Smith Police Department | Municipal | 155 | $50,003 | −$7,696 | #1,563 |
| 8 | Arkansas Game and Fish Commission — Enforcement Division | State | — | $50,000 | −$7,699 | #1,565 |
| 9 | Faulkner County Sheriff's Office | County | 54 | $48,357 | −$9,342 | #1,593 |
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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