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Los Angeles 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.
Los Angeles Police Department starts at $82,893 a year — about $39.85 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $16,208 above the median of the 2,288 agencies on this list, and $14,753 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA run about 14% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $72,991 somewhere at average prices — $9,902 less than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 170 against a national average of 100, where goods are 107. 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 isLos Angeles Police Department reported 8,663 sworn officers and 2,551 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 2.2 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 3,874,484.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 Los Angeles says about itself
It is the mission of the Los Angeles Police Department to safeguard the lives and property of the people we serve, to reduce the incidence and fear of crime, and to enhance public safety while working with the diverse communities to improve their quality of life. Our mandate is to do so with honor and integrity, while at all times conducting ourselves with the highest ethical standards to maintain public confidence.
What Los Angeles does
The Los Angeles Police Department says its mission is to safeguard lives and property, reduce crime and fear of crime and enhance public safety while working with Los Angeles' diverse communities to improve quality of life. It says this work must be carried out with honor, integrity and high ethical standards to maintain public confidence. Its core values include service to communities, reverence for the law, leadership, integrity, respect for people and continuous improvement
Shifts at Los Angeles
The City's MOU 24 with the Police Protective League, in force 2 July 2023 to 26 June 2027, sets the Flexible Work Schedule: "For field patrol assignments, the primary FWS shift is 12 hours", with 10-hour shifts allowed only as overlap and never as a primary watch. An officer on the 12-hour shift is generally scheduled to work THIRTEEN DAYS totalling 156 hours in each 28-day DEPLOYMENT PERIOD, is normally compensated for 160 hours including holiday time, should not be assigned more than FOUR CONSECUTIVE DAYS, and should not be given SINGLE DAYS OFF unless the officer asks for them. Deployment period work schedules are posted by noon on the second Wednesday before the period starts, and shift rotation is effective at the start of a deployment period. All other assignments run a 10-hour primary shift - 15 days and 150 hours in a period. The Department's own report to the Board of Police Commissioners on the Flexible Work Schedule (BPC #10-0296, Chief of Police, approved 27 July 2010) sets out which shift goes where: the FWS shift types are the 5/40, the 4/10 and the 3/12, and "officers assigned to patrol work the 3/12 shift on primary watches and 4/10 shifts on supplemental watches", while specialised units and administrative personnel primarily work the 4/10. A supplemental watch is a mid-watch covering the hours the main watches do not. How that works in practice is shown by the Office of the Chief of Police Notice 2.2.3 of 21 June 2023, on scheduling for sworn personnel during a special event: DAYS OFF ARE POSTED IN ADVANCE with the Deployment Period work schedule, and when a special event is declared after they are posted, management may temporarily adjust an officer's START OF WATCH earlier or later by up to three hours under MOU 24 Article 4.1.C.2 - beyond three hours, the excess is paid at half straight time on an overtime report. Detectives and administrative personnel take their adjustment from the beginning of their normal start time. The Department's own 2024 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE, activated by Office of the Chief of Police Memorandum No. 1 of 8 September 2023 (LAPD Temp No. 101 and 70), sets out the year: THIRTEEN deployment periods of 28 days each, running 17 December 2023 to 11 January 2025, and each period is divided into four lettered weeks A, B, C and D. The same schedule names the four shift plans in use by their department shorthand - 5/40, 4/10, 9/17 and 3/12 - which are the MOU's shift lengths paired with the number of days worked in a period: nineteen 8-hour days, fifteen 10-hour days, seventeen 9-hour days, thirteen 12-hour days. Vacations are capped so that 12 per cent or less of a command is away at once, supervisors included, and vacation schedules for the following year must be posted by 1 November.
The agency publishes the shift length but not a named cycle. These are the 12-hour rotations departments most often build on it: Pitman, 4 on, 4 off, DuPont, Panama, 3-4-4-3.
Thirteen shifts in a twenty-eight day period, no repeating week, and the roster posted a fortnight ahead: that is a schedule you cannot hold in your head, and it does not fit a wall calendar at all. BlueShifts keeps the deployment period as the unit rather than the month, so the days worked, the four-consecutive-day limit and the hours toward 156 stay visible together, and the court time that lands outside a 12-hour tour is counted where it falls. Two lengths run side by side in the same division - a primary 12-hour watch and a supplemental 10 - so what your neighbor works is not what you work. The deployment period is the unit LAPD actually runs on - thirteen of them a year, 28 days each, lettered A to D, and none of them line up with a calendar month. BlueShifts can carry that period alongside the month so the pay period, the vacation cap and the days worked toward thirteen are all read off one screen.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 August 2026. City of Los Angeles official Police Officer 2214 — open the source document
Opened 26 June 2026; sworn Police Officer salary begins $82,893;
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.
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How this level compares
Where Los Angeles 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. Los Angeles starts at $82,893, so $14,753 above the municipal middle.
How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Los Angeles Police Department officer make?
Los Angeles Police Department starts a new officer on $82,893 a year, about $39.85 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 Los Angeles official Police Officer 2214.
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #217 of 278 agencies we have verified in California — 61 pay less, 216 pay more in the state — and #406 of 2,288 nationally. Against the national median it is $16,208 above, and against other municipal agencies $14,753 above.
What shifts do Los Angeles Police Department officers work?
The City's MOU 24 with the Police Protective League, in force 2 July 2023 to 26 June 2027, sets the Flexible Work Schedule: "For field patrol assignments, the primary FWS shift is 12 hours", with 10-hour shifts allowed only as overlap and never as a primary watch. An officer on the 12-hour shift is generally scheduled to work THIRTEEN DAYS totalling 156 hours in each 28-day DEPLOYMENT PERIOD, is normally compensated for 160 hours including holiday time, should not be assigned more than FOUR CONSECUTIVE DAYS, and should not be given SINGLE DAYS OFF unless the officer asks for them. Deployment period work schedules are posted by noon on the second Wednesday before the period starts, and shift rotation is effective at the start of a deployment period. All other assignments run a 10-hour primary shift - 15 days and 150 hours in a period. The Department's own report to the Board of Police Commissioners on the Flexible Work Schedule (BPC #10-0296, Chief of Police, approved 27 July 2010) sets out which shift goes where: the FWS shift types are the 5/40, the 4/10 and the 3/12, and "officers assigned to patrol work the 3/12 shift on primary watches and 4/10 shifts on supplemental watches", while specialised units and administrative personnel primarily work the 4/10. A supplemental watch is a mid-watch covering the hours the main watches do not. How that works in practice is shown by the Office of the Chief of Police Notice 2.2.3 of 21 June 2023, on scheduling for sworn personnel during a special event: DAYS OFF ARE POSTED IN ADVANCE with the Deployment Period work schedule, and when a special event is declared after they are posted, management may temporarily adjust an officer's START OF WATCH earlier or later by up to three hours under MOU 24 Article 4.1.C.2 - beyond three hours, the excess is paid at half straight time on an overtime report. Detectives and administrative personnel take their adjustment from the beginning of their normal start time. The Department's own 2024 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE, activated by Office of the Chief of Police Memorandum No. 1 of 8 September 2023 (LAPD Temp No. 101 and 70), sets out the year: THIRTEEN deployment periods of 28 days each, running 17 December 2023 to 11 January 2025, and each period is divided into four lettered weeks A, B, C and D. The same schedule names the four shift plans in use by their department shorthand - 5/40, 4/10, 9/17 and 3/12 - which are the MOU's shift lengths paired with the number of days worked in a period: nineteen 8-hour days, fifteen 10-hour days, seventeen 9-hour days, thirteen 12-hour days. Vacations are capped so that 12 per cent or less of a command is away at once, supervisors included, and vacation schedules for the following year must be posted by 1 November. That is the agency's own published wording; the pattern is drawn on this page.
Compare with another department
Put Los Angeles 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 CA
| # | Agency | Level | Sworn # | Entry pay | Vs Los | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$80,726 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$66,550 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$65,049 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$61,110 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$60,203 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$58,131 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$56,847 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$56,072 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$55,368 | #9 |
| 10 | Los Gatos Police Department | Municipal | 34 | $132,394 | +$49,501 | #10 |
| 11 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$49,370 | #11 |
| 12 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$49,143 | #12 |
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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