A Top Secret clearance starts with a Tier 5 background investigation, and the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency bills that investigation at $5,355 for a non-DoD agency in fiscal 2025. The number is public and precise. It is also close to useless as a hiring budget, because it is the price the government pays to run the investigation, not the cost a contractor absorbs to put a cleared employee in a seat.

The fee is the sticker on the window. The bill a company actually pays runs across four lines: the investigation itself, the wait, the recurring vetting subscription that never stops, and the fixed overhead of being a cleared facility at all. Price only the first line and you will under-budget every cleared hire. Read the whole invoice before you decide to sponsor rather than hire someone already cleared.

How much does a Top Secret clearance cost versus a Secret?

A Top Secret needs a Tier 5 investigation, priced at $5,355 in FY2025 (non-DoD) and $5,890 in FY2026. A Secret needs only a Tier 3, at $415 in FY2025. The gap is more than twelvefold because the tier is set by the position’s risk and sensitivity, not by preference.

The investigative tier maps straight onto the clearance level. Under 32 CFR 117.10, a Tier 3 investigation covers moderate-risk, non-critical-sensitive positions and allows access at the Confidential and Secret levels, while a Tier 5 covers high-risk, critical-sensitive and special-sensitive positions and allows Top Secret and SCI access. That single regulatory line is why one badge costs a few hundred dollars and the other costs several thousand. The position designation drives the price, which is worth checking before you write a requisition; our guide on whether your job has the correct security clearance designation walks through it, and the ladder below the national-security tiers is covered in public trust positions, tiers, and investigation.

Those are the base numbers, and the real schedule has more lines. DoD components pay a version bundled with adjudication: a Tier 5 with adjudication ran $5,674 in FY2025 and a Tier 3 with adjudication $668. Priority service costs more, at $5,785 for a Tier 5 in FY2025 and $6,361 in FY2026. A Tier 5 reinvestigation, the periodic renewal contractors used to run, was $2,935. Add-on coverage stacks on top of any case: international coverage $900, a triggered enhanced subject interview $960, a standalone national agency check $140, a credit check $12, and an electronic fingerprint check $20. The full DCSA billing schedule (FIN 24-01) lists each product. The FY2026 rise is the first background-investigation increase after six years of flat or falling rates, and it will not be the last.

Why is the investigation fee only a sticker price?

Because the DCSA rate is what the government is billed to run the case, not the full cost a company carries. The larger money goes to the fully-burdened labor a contractor pays while the hire waits, the recurring continuous-vetting subscription, and the fixed overhead of holding a facility clearance. The fee is a benchmark, not the bill.

A contractor that wins a classified contract needs the labor now, and the person filling the seat draws a fully-burdened rate from day one, cleared or not. The billed cost of that hour is the direct salary loaded with indirect pools and fee, the industry figure known as a wrap rate. Contractor economics differ sharply from a direct federal appointment here, a distinction laid out in government contract jobs versus federal jobs. The three layers most people ignore, the wait, the subscription, and the facility overhead, are where the money actually pools.

What does it cost to keep a clearance active?

Clearances are no longer renewed by a periodic reinvestigation. The full national-security population now sits in continuous vetting, billed as a per-person monthly subscription: $7.40 a month for a DoD enrollee in FY2025, $3.25 a month for non-DoD. That recurring line, not a one-time renewal fee, is the ongoing price of holding a clearance.

The model changed under Trusted Workforce 2.0. As of December 3, 2024, all agencies had moved to the eApp system to initiate investigations, and the full national-security sensitive population is enrolled in continuous vetting rather than waiting five or ten years for a reinvestigation. The Trusted Workforce 2.0 quarterly progress report documents both. For a company, the practical effect is a subscription meter running against every cleared employee. The DoD enrollment ran $88.80 a year per person in FY2025, and CV rates rose 3% for FY2026. Multiply that by a cleared workforce of hundreds, hold it across every year of employment, and the recurring cost eventually dwarfs the one-time Tier 5 fee that opened the file.

How long will the wait cost you?

The delay is the expensive part. DCSA’s case inventory hit 291,200 investigations in September 2024 and fell to 222,700 by April 2025, a 24% drop with a projection to clear 200,000 by the end of FY2025. While the file is open, an employer can seek temporary eligibility so the hire starts sooner, but the labor carried during the wait is money out the door.

An open investigation does not have to mean an idle employee. Under 32 CFR 117.10, the government can grant temporary eligibility, previously called interim eligibility, for Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret when there is no disqualifying adverse information, letting a hire begin classified work before the full case closes. That eligibility cannot exceed one year, and non-citizens never qualify. DCSA reported interim determinations for industry averaging about 7 days as of 2022, a figure worth treating as vintage rather than a current guarantee. The backlog is why interim eligibility matters so much to a hiring plan; the DCSA case-inventory update tracks the pending caseload, and processing timelines are covered in how DoD clearance program timelines are improving. Recruiters and FSOs who manage the paperwork tightly shorten the carried-labor window, a discipline broken down in tips for moving new hires through the clearance process.

What does the fully-burdened labor add?

The billed cost of an hour of cleared labor is the direct salary loaded with indirect pools, fringe, overhead, and general and administrative cost, plus fee. Those pools are governed by FAR 31.203 and the profit element by FAR 15.404-4, and DCAA audits the resulting rates. No fixed multiplier exists in the regulation, so anyone quoting one is describing a single shop.

The reason the labor dominates is simple arithmetic against time. A one-time Tier 5 fee of a few thousand dollars is small next to a fully-burdened salary carried for the months a case can sit on the backlog. FAR 31.203 requires a contractor to accumulate indirect costs in logical pools and allocate them across contracts, and FAR 15.404-4 governs the fee stacked on top. What matters for a sponsoring decision is direction: every week a hire waits, the burdened labor clock runs faster than the investigation fee ever did.

What fixed overhead does holding a facility clearance add?

A company cannot touch classified contracts without a facility clearance, and it cannot hold one without appointing a U.S.-citizen Facility Security Officer who is investigated and cleared to the entity’s level and listed among its key management personnel. That is overhead carried no matter how many cleared employees sit under it.

The requirement is written into the NISPOM rule. 32 CFR 117.7 directs a cleared entity to appoint security officials who are U.S. citizens, undergo a personnel security investigation, hold national security eligibility at the level of the entity’s own determination, and sit on the key management personnel list. The FSO is a salaried role, often with a security staff behind it, and it exists whether the company sponsors one clearance or a thousand. That fixed cost is part of what sponsoring a clearance really costs, because a single hire has to carry a share of the security apparatus that makes it legal at all. The full scope of the role is laid out in FSO requirements for a cleared contractor.

What compliance costs ride along with a defense contract?

Cleared work pulls in cybersecurity and equal-opportunity compliance beyond the clearance itself. DoD’s CMMC Program rule took effect December 16, 2024, and the DFARS rule that writes CMMC into contracts took effect November 10, 2025. Two statutory OFCCP clauses still apply; the old Executive Order 11246 affirmative-action program does not.

Cybersecurity is now a contract condition, not a nice-to-have. The CMMC Program final rule at 32 CFR Part 170 requires contractors to verify, and at higher levels get third-party certification of, the safeguards protecting Federal Contract Information and Controlled Unclassified Information; the companion DFARS acquisition rule makes CMMC levels an award condition. On the labor side, the picture shifted in 2025. The Executive Order 11246 race and sex affirmative-action program that contractors carried for decades was revoked by Executive Order 14173 in January 2025, so that particular compliance cost has largely gone away. Two statutory obligations remain: the VEVRAA protected-veteran clause on covered contracts of $100,000 or more, and the Section 503 disability clause on subcontracts and purchase orders over $10,000. Budgeting compliance in 2026 means pricing CMMC in and taking the old affirmative-action plan out.

Is it cheaper to hire someone already cleared?

Almost always. A cleared candidate skips the Tier 5 fee, the months of carried labor, and the backlog entirely. Clearances move by reciprocity, and DCSA averaged a single day to transfer trust between organizations in FY2025. That gap is why cleared talent commands a pay premium, and why verifying an existing clearance up front pays for itself.

The economics are lopsided once you lay the two paths side by side. Reciprocity under SEAD 7 lets a valid clearance carry from one employer to the next, and DCSA reports averaging a single day for that transfer of trust. An employer generally cannot double-submit an investigation for someone already cleared, so hiring cleared is not just faster, it removes the fee line entirely. The current market sharpens the math further: a federal civilian hiring freeze and a return-to-in-person-work memorandum, both signed in January 2025, pushed more mission work onto contractors and raised the value of a candidate who can badge in tomorrow. The catch is downside risk on a sponsored hire, since a clearance that gets suspended or revoked turns the whole investment into a sunk cost. Verifying and moving an existing clearance is the cheaper path, which is why security clearance reciprocity and knowing what a recruiter needs up front to verify a clearance are worth building into your hiring process.

DCSA has already signaled another rate increase for fiscal 2027, on top of the 10% that landed in 2026. Stack that Tier 5 fee against the months of carried labor, the continuous-vetting subscription that never stops, and the FSO overhead standing behind all of it, and the arithmetic points one way. Sponsoring a clearance is sometimes the only option, and it builds a pipeline you control. But for 2026 staffing, the cheapest Tier 5 investigation is the one you never have to open: verify the clearance a candidate already holds, and let someone else’s sunk cost become your head start.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a Top Secret clearance cost in 2026?

A Top Secret requires a Tier 5 investigation. DCSA priced it at $5,355 in FY2025 for non-DoD agencies and raised it 10% to $5,890 in FY2026, with priority service at $6,361. DoD components pay a Tier 5 bundled with adjudication, which was $5,674 in FY2025. The agency has signaled a further increase for FY2027.

How much does a Secret clearance cost?

A Secret needs only a Tier 3 investigation, priced at $415 in FY2025 for non-DoD agencies and $455 in FY2026. For DoD, the Tier 3 bundled with adjudication was $668 in FY2025. The fee gap between a Secret and a Top Secret is more than twelvefold, driven by the difference between a Tier 3 and a Tier 5 investigation.

Can a new hire start before the investigation is finished?

Yes. The government can grant temporary eligibility, formerly called interim, for Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret when there is no disqualifying adverse information, so the employee can begin classified work sooner. Temporary eligibility cannot exceed one year, and non-citizens never qualify. Interim determinations for industry averaged about 7 days as of 2022.

Is it cheaper to hire someone who already holds a clearance?

Almost always. An already-cleared hire skips the Tier 5 fee and the backlog. Clearances move by reciprocity, and DCSA averaged a single day to transfer trust between organizations in FY2025 Q1. Those savings are a large part of why cleared candidates command a pay premium in the defense labor market.

Does the contractor pay the DCSA investigation fee directly?

Not necessarily. The DCSA rate is what the government is billed for the investigation; whether a contractor bears it depends on the contract. For most employers the larger cost is the fully-burdened labor carried during the wait, plus the recurring continuous-vetting subscription and the fixed overhead of holding a facility clearance.