Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers in Texas
May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
You keep
$62,226
after federal, FICA and Texas tax
Tax takes
$13,674
18.0% of the whole
Worth, in national money
$64,035
Texas costs less than average
On that salary you would be around the 25th percentile for this work in Texas — roughly, since only five points along the band are published.
One filer, standard deduction, no dependants and nothing paid in before tax — the same household the rest of this page uses, so the comparison holds. City and school-district income taxes are not included.
Median here
$75,900
Kept after tax
$62,226
Worth in national money
$64,035
State rank
23
of 51 states
What this pays, and what it is worth
- Middling, nationally. Texas pays this job around $75,900 at the midpoint, 23 of 51 states. The interesting numbers on this page are the two below it.
- Ordinary, locally speaking. This job ranks 139 among 493 occupations Texas publishes pay for.
- Cost of living is unremarkable here. From $75,900, tax leaves $62,226, and adjusting for local prices barely moves it — about $64,035 in comparable terms. Averages run higher here, $76,160, since top earners drag the number up.
- For police and sheriff's patrol officers the Texas median is $75,900, ranking 23 of 51 states reporting. Mid-band nominal positions are the ones most frequently reordered by the adjustments, because no large wage premium exists to absorb a state's tax or price level.
- Position 139 of 493 in Texas places police and sheriff's patrol officers in the middle of the state's wage distribution. Because within-state and cross-state rankings measure different things, this figure and the national one above should be read together rather than as a single verdict.
- Because Texas sits close to the national price level, the real-terms figure for police and sheriff's patrol officers — median $75,900 — tracks the post-tax figure closely: $62,226 retained, $64,035 adjusted. ⚠️ Neither is a wage; the second describes what the first buys. Mean pay of $76,160 exceeds the median, so the upper tail is doing the work.
Compare this career across states
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Pay band: Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers
The state median for this job
| Lowest tenth earn under | $51,240 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $75,900 |
| Top tenth earn over | $98,350 |
| This salary | $75,900 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
The same pay, somewhere else
The state median for this job
| Take-home in Texas | $62,226 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Florida | $62,226 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | −$3,885 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What you would need there
The state median for this job
| To match take-home only | $75,900 |
|---|---|
| Raise you would need | +$5,714 |
| Prices in Florida | 103 vs 97 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Sources and assumptions
- Half the people doing this work in Texas earn less than $75,900. The published range is $51,240 up to $98,350, so an individual figure can sit a long way from the middle in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, no pension contributions — that is the household behind Texas's $62,226, worked from $75,900. That is on purpose. It lets states be compared with each other, not with each other's family circumstances. Local city taxes are left out. Locally this work ranks 139 of 493.
- Two cautions on $64,035, the adjusted value of that $75,900 median. It levels out prices with a single number for all of Texas. No actual address matches that. The wage figures and price figures are also from different years. Each is published on its own timetable. This work sits at 139 of 493 locally.
- Reported values are medians; for police and sheriff's patrol officers in Texas the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band is $51,240 to $98,350. Neither the median nor the band is an offer rate, and neither accounts for hours, shift differentials or overtime.
- The Texas take-home of $62,226, on $75,900 for work ranking 139 of 493 locally, models the simplest household deliberately: holding it constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful. It also means the absolute figure overstates liability for most real filers, and municipal income taxes are outside the model entirely. The occupation ranks 139 of 493 in the state.
- This $64,035 adjusted figure, worked from $75,900, rests on a state-level price parity averaging over within-state dispersion larger than much of the between-state dispersion. Wage and price vintages differ by publication schedule. The result is directionally sound and not address-specific, for work at 139 of 493 in the state. The occupation ranks 139 of 493 locally.
Questions people ask
How much does pay for this job actually vary?
Less than you might expect. The bottom tenth earn $51,240 and the top tenth $98,350, so most people doing this work in Texas sit within a fairly tight band.
What does this pay actually buy where I live?
More than the figure suggests. Prices in Texas sit below the national level, so take-home here stretches like $64,035 would elsewhere. The wage is the same; the ground it covers is larger.
Is most of this wage taxed away?
Less than people assume. $62,226 of this wage reaches your account, because Texas takes no income tax from wages — but federal tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else.
Can I compare this job across every state?
Yes for this one. Pay is published in all 51 jurisdictions, so a state-to-state comparison here rests on the same survey everywhere rather than on a patchwork.
What is the dispersion of this occupation's wage distribution?
The tenth-to-ninetieth percentile span ($51,240 to $98,350) sits at or below the family's median dispersion, indicating relatively standardized compensation. Percentiles are published per state, so this dispersion is specific to Texas rather than a national figure.
What is this occupation's price-adjusted compensation in this state?
Texas's regional price parity is at or below the national average, so nominal wages understate purchasing power. Take-home deflated by the state price level is $64,035 in national-average terms. The adjustment uses an all-items index and does not isolate housing.
Why is the take-home ratio comparatively high in this state?
Texas levies no personal income tax on wages, so take-home of $62,226 reflects the federal layer and FICA alone. Federal income tax and FICA are unchanged; states without a wage income tax generally recover revenue through consumption and property bases instead.
Is this occupation's state coverage complete?
State-level estimates are published for all 51 jurisdictions for this occupation, so cross-state comparison is not confounded by suppression. ⚠️ Estimates remain survey-based and carry sampling error; small differences between adjacent states should not be over-read.