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Huntsville 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.
Huntsville Police Department starts at $58,614 a year — about $28.18 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $8,070 below the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $9,526 below the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Huntsville, AL run about 7% below the national average, so this goes about as far as $62,977 would somewhere at average prices — $4,363 more than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 78 against a national average of 100, where goods are 96. 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 isHuntsville Police Department reported 432 sworn officers and 133 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.9 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 234,043.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 Huntsville says about itself
The Huntsville Police Department will serve our community by protecting life, liberty, property and defending the constitutional rights of all people with compassion, fairness, integrity, and professionalism.
What Huntsville does
Huntsville Police Officers perform law-enforcement work protecting life and property through patrol, crime prevention, enforcement of laws and ordinances, investigations, apprehension, traffic enforcement, accident and crime-scene investigation and assistance to citizens, exercising independent judgment in emergency situations
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 August 2026. City of Huntsville official 2026 — open the source document
Opened 20 May 2026; official Police Officer Grade 14/8 minimum $58,614.40 annually. The standard recruitment is separate from the City's lateral-entry recruitment, so lateral experience is not required
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 Huntsville 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 | $33,280 | $68,140 | $163,619 | 1549 |
| County | $35,000 | $63,565 | $132,263 | 516 |
| Special jurisdiction | $31,200 | $60,204 | $107,954 | 71 |
| State | $33,994 | $65,166 | $110,916 | 145 |
| 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 $5,400 more than the middle municipal agency and about $9,900 more than the middle county agency and about $13,300 more than the middle special jurisdiction agency and about $8,300 more than the middle state agency and about $45,300 more than the middle territory agency. Huntsville starts at $58,614, so $9,526 below the municipal middle.
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How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Huntsville Police Department officer make?
Huntsville Police Department starts a new officer on $58,614 a year, about $28.18 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 Huntsville official 2026.
Is that good pay for a police officer in Alabama?
It ranks #5 of 35 agencies we have verified in Alabama — 30 pay less, 4 pay more in the state — and #1,649 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $8,070 below, and against other municipal agencies $9,526 below.
Compare with another department
Put Huntsville 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 AL
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Huntsville | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hoover Police Department | Municipal | 178 | $62,920 | +$4,306 | #1,390 |
| 2 | Madison Police Department | Municipal | 88 | $60,195 | +$1,581 | #1,550 |
| 3 | Birmingham Police Department | Municipal | 755 | $59,862 | +$1,248 | #1,588 |
| 4 | Auburn Police Department | Municipal | 131 | $58,798 | +$184 | #1,642 |
| 6 | Opelika Police Department | Municipal | 103 | $58,217 | −$398 | #1,663 |
| 7 | Shelby County Sheriff's Office | County | 147 | $57,408 | −$1,206 | #1,735 |
| 8 | Tuscaloosa Police Department | Municipal | 241 | $57,325 | −$1,290 | #1,740 |
| 9 | Alabama Highway Patrol | State | — | $56,726 | −$1,888 | #1,763 |
| 10 | Madison County Sheriff's Office | County | 184 | $55,390 | −$3,224 | #1,828 |
| 11 | Montgomery Police Department | Municipal | 259 | $55,168 | −$3,446 | #1,839 |
| 12 | Baldwin County Sheriff's Office | County | 174 | $53,768 | −$4,846 | #1,921 |
| 13 | Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office | County | 112 | $51,888 | −$6,726 | #1,997 |
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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