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How does the starting salary for an ICE officer compare to other law enforcement agencies in 2025?
Executive Summary
The available 2025 reporting establishes that newly hired ICE officers’ starting pay falls broadly in a band from the high-$40,000s up to roughly $89,500 depending on grade and locality; published figures converge on a range roughly $49,000–$90,000 rather than uniform six‑figure entry pay [1] [2] [3]. Direct, apples‑to‑apples comparisons with other federal, state, or local law enforcement are not provided in these sources, and differences hinge on paygrade, locality adjustments, and recent law‑enforcement–specific raises [2] [4] [5].
1. Why the headline numbers for ICE vary and what they mean for new hires
Public summaries produce two recurring starting bands for ICE hires in 2025: a lower bound in the high-$40,000s and an upper bound approaching $90,000 depending on classification, locality pay and grade. One career‑advice summary lists a range of $48,371 to $77,210 and cites longer‑term ceilings near $167,603 for experienced agents, framing entry pay as variable and enhanced by benefits [1]. Snopes, in a July 23, 2025 clarification, gives a wider entry span from $49,739 to $89,528 and explicitly rejects claims that all new ICE agents uniformly receive six‑figure salaries, noting that location, paygrade and overtime drive variation [2]. Newsweek’s July 11, 2025 reporting repeats the same entry span and emphasizes bonuses and locality add‑ons that can raise take‑home pay for some hires [3]. Collectively these sources show no single starting figure; instead they present a structured federal pay framework where locality and grade matter most [2] [4].
2. How ICE starting pay compares in principle to other agencies — and why direct comparisons are missing
None of the provided sources supply a direct, current 2025 comparison of ICE starting pay against FBI, DEA, state police or municipal departments, so any headline comparison must be qualified. Older contextual material on federal and intelligence pay referenced FBI and CIA entry figures from past years, but those data are dated and thus not sufficient for 2025 juxtaposition [6]. Analysts point to the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) base pay tables and locality adjustments as the proper way to equate pay across agencies; without mapping ICE paygrades to the LEO scale and matching locality multipliers, apparent differences can be misleading [4]. News coverage that notes ICE becoming one of the highest‑funded federal law enforcement components highlights resource priorities but does not translate directly into a standardized starting‑pay edge over other agencies without granular paygrade comparisons [3].
3. Policy moves that shifted the 2025 pay landscape for federal law enforcement
In 2025 the Office of Personnel Management moved early to implement a law‑enforcement‑only pay increase of about 3.8%, contrasted with smaller raises for other federal civilians, explicitly to improve recruitment and retention in difficult‑to‑fill LEO roles [5]. This targeted raise affects starting pay for ICE and peer federal agencies that use LEO pay schedules, meaning that 2025 starting salaries are higher than 2024 baseline numbers and that year‑over‑year comparisons must account for that policy change [5]. News reporting and job postings in mid‑2025 therefore reflect both underlying paygrade structures and the recent OPM adjustment; the practical effect is that ICE’s reported entry bands in 2025 already incorporate pay actions that aimed to narrow recruitment gaps across federal law enforcement [3] [5].
4. Benefits, bonuses and overtime — why total compensation can differ dramatically
All examined sources underline that benefits and non‑base pay are significant: ICE hires receive health insurance, retirement, tuition reimbursement, paid leave and potential signing/performance bonuses, with overtime and locality pay materially increasing annual compensation for specific hires [1] [3]. Snopes specifically flagged media claims about pervasive six‑figure starting pay as misleading because overtime, locality differentials and higher grades account for many of the exceptions rather than base pay alone [2]. Newsweek and career guides echo that total compensation comparisons must therefore include benefits and supplemental pay to produce a fair cross‑agency comparison; absent that, base salary ranges paint an incomplete picture [3] [1].
5. Bottom line and what a precise comparison would require
The factual bottom line from available 2025 sources: ICE starting pay commonly cites a band from about $49,000 up to roughly $89,500 depending on grade and locality, supplemented by benefits and possible overtime that push actual earnings higher for some hires; claims of universal six‑figure starting salaries are unsupported [2] [3] [1]. To make a definitive comparison to other federal, state or local agencies for 2025 requires mapping specific agencies’ entry paygrades to the LEO base pay tables, applying locality pay and including typical overtime/bonus patterns — data that the reviewed sources do not deliver in tandem [4] [6]. For an exact cross‑agency ranking, obtain 2025 LEO pay tables by grade and locality plus each agency’s entry grade, and incorporate documented OPM adjustments and agency bonus policies [5] [2].