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Oakland 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.
Oakland Police Department starts at $111,267 a year — about $53.49 an hour on a 2,080-hour year, before overtime. That is $42,877 above the median of the 1,681 agencies on this list, and $40,002 above the median for municipal agencies.
Cost of livingPrices in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA run about 16% above the national average, so this is worth roughly $96,241 somewhere at average prices — $15,026 less than the headline figure. Most of that is rent, at 195 against a national average of 100, where goods are 108. 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 isOakland Police Department reported 633 sworn officers and 241 civilian staff to the FBI for 2025. That is 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents, over a population of 444,211.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 Oakland says about itself
The Oakland Police Department (OPD) is committed to reducing crime and serving the community through fair, quality policing.
What Oakland does
Oakland Police Department is the municipal police force for California's eighth-largest city, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The City describes the department as committed to reducing crime and serving the community through fair, quality policing, and it publishes crime data, use-of-force reports and departmental policy through the City's own transparency pages. The department runs patrol across the city's policing areas alongside criminal investigations, and works with the City on violence prevention programmes.
Where the figure comes from
Checked 8 August 2026. City of Oakland official Police Officer (PERS) class specification + P — open the source document
Current Police Officer minimum $111,266.76; trainee is the lower academy classification and current official materials identify Police Officer as the sworn classification
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 Oakland 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. Oakland starts at $111,267, so $39,980 above the municipal middle.
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How it ranks
Common questions
How much does a Oakland Police Department officer make?
Oakland Police Department starts a new officer on $111,267 a year, about $53.49 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 Oakland official Police Officer (PERS) class specification + P.
Is that good pay for a police officer in California?
It ranks #49 of 222 agencies we have verified in California — 173 pay less, 48 pay more in the state — and #50 of 1,681 nationally. Against the national median it is $42,877 above, and against other municipal agencies $40,002 above.
Compare with another department
Put Oakland 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 Oakland | National |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Clara Police Department | Municipal | 141 | $163,619 | +$52,352 | #1 |
| 2 | Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety | Municipal | 227 | $149,443 | +$38,176 | #2 |
| 3 | Redwood City Police Department | Municipal | 83 | $147,942 | +$36,675 | #3 |
| 4 | San Jose Police Department | Municipal | 1,065 | $144,003 | +$32,737 | #4 |
| 5 | Mountain View Police Department | Municipal | 90 | $143,096 | +$31,829 | #5 |
| 6 | San Mateo Police Department | Municipal | 111 | $141,024 | +$29,757 | #6 |
| 7 | Los Altos Police Department | Municipal | 31 | $139,740 | +$28,473 | #7 |
| 8 | Hayward Police Department | Municipal | 171 | $138,965 | +$27,698 | #8 |
| 9 | Milpitas Police Department | Municipal | 84 | $138,261 | +$26,994 | #9 |
| 10 | Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office | County | 1,071 | $132,263 | +$20,996 | #10 |
| 11 | Menlo Park Police Department | Municipal | 43 | $132,036 | +$20,769 | #11 |
| 12 | Campbell Police Department | Municipal | 44 | $131,747 | +$20,480 | #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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