Private Investigator Salary: What Employees Earn, What Owners Keep

The median private investigator salary is $51,220 a year, or $24.62 an hour, as of May 2025, according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. A median is the midpoint: half of investigators earn more and half earn less. These are wages paid to employees only.

A percentile is the wage below which that share of workers fall. O*NET (the U.S. Department of Labor's occupational database) reports these 2025 figures:

BLS counted 39,500 jobs in 2025 and projects 41,700 by 2035, growth of 5%, with about 3,200 openings a year. Entry-level education is a high school diploma or equivalent.

Among the 48 states with a published median (Maryland and Nevada have none), medians for employed private investigators run from $39,060 in Mississippi to $76,480 in Oregon, nearly double, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 state file. Where the work is plentiful, pay is not always high: Florida and Texas have the most jobs after California and pay near the national median.

Two readings of this table matter more than the ranking.

First, our count from the same state file: 50 areas (48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) publish a median for this occupation. The median of those 50 medians, unweighted, is $49,800. Twenty-two of the 50 sit above the national $51,220 and 12 sit below $45,000. The national median is higher than the typical state because the biggest employers of investigators, such as California, pay more.

Second, the distance inside a state is larger than the distance between most states. In Texas the 90th percentile ($99,930) is about 2.8 times the 10th ($35,650). Your own state's median tells you less than which job you land in it.

These pay figures are not adjusted for cost of living. Licensing rules also differ by state, and our guide to private investigator license requirements by state covers that side.

A billing rate is what a client pays the firm, not what the investigator is paid. Five firms that publish their own rates all give a band that includes $100 to $150 an hour, while the BLS median employee wage is $24.62, so the billing rate is about 5.3 times the wage (our division: $130 ÷ $24.62).

An April 2026 survey by the law firm Michael & Associates contacted 32 investigation firms in the 10 largest metro areas. Twenty-six gave hourly quotes: the median was $130, the average $132, and the range $25 to $250. City averages ran from $95 in Dallas to $153 in Chicago. That is a small sample of quotes given to a researcher, so read $130 as a typical asking rate, not a measured market price.

The billed amount also does not stay with the investigator. R&D Investigations lists travel at $0.58 to $0.85 a mile and database searches at $25 to $200 each, and retainers (prepaid balances billed against) of $1,000 to $3,000 for basic cases.

A self-employed investigator keeps what remains after hours worked are converted to billed hours, then reduced by business costs and self-employment tax. In our model, 10 billable hours a week nets about $18 an hour across a 40-hour week, 20 hours nets about $46, and 30 hours about $74.

Run it yourself in five steps:

1. Billable hours a year = billable hours a week × weeks worked.
2. Billed amount = billable hours × your hourly rate.
3. Subtract costs: business miles × the IRS mileage rate, plus databases, insurance, licensing and equipment.
4. Subtract self-employment tax: 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) of 92.35% of net earnings, per the IRS.
5. Divide what is left by every hour you work, billed or not (a 40-hour week for 48 weeks is 1,920 hours).

Our model uses $130 an hour (the median quote in one April 2026 survey of firms), 48 working weeks, 15,000 business miles and $10,000 of other costs. As of October 2026, the mileage is priced at the second-half 2026 rate of 76 cents a mile, which comes to $11,400; the first-half rate was 72.5 cents. The mileage and the $10,000 are placeholders; replace them with your own. Income tax, health insurance and unpaid weeks are not included.

Two break-evens follow in our model, using the same inputs and 48 weeks. To match the $51,220 employee median after self-employment tax, a solo investigator would bill about ($51,220 ÷ 0.8587 + $21,400) ÷ $130, roughly 620 hours a year, or about 13 a week. To match the $97,630 90th percentile, the same formula gives roughly 1,040 hours a year, or about 22 a week. Here 0.8587 is what remains of each net dollar after self-employment tax (1 − 0.9235 × 0.153), and $21,400 is the model's costs. Both figures are before income tax and health insurance.

Our recommendation: test the 20-hour row before you test the rate. Finding the clients to fill 20 billable hours a week is the hard part, because marketing, travel and report writing are in the 1,920 hours but not in the bill. Our Business Practices Part 1 course is a 2-hour, $40 course covering service agreements, invoicing, collecting unpaid fees, expense tracking and business budgeting. For the license and setup order, read how to start a private investigator business.

Check four things in writing before you accept, because they decide whether $24.62 an hour is a real $24.62. Each test below has a pass and a fail.

• Travel time. Pass: the offer says travel between assignments is paid at your hourly rate. Fail: only time at the assignment is paid.
• Mileage. Pass: a stated per-mile reimbursement; compare it with the IRS business mileage rate. Fail: no reimbursement, which turns your car into an unpaid cost.
• Guaranteed hours. Pass: a stated weekly minimum. Fail: "hours as assigned," which can leave an annual figure well under the median.
• Employee or contractor. Pass: you are on payroll with taxes withheld. Fail: you are paid on a 1099 (independent contractor) form, which adds 15.3% of 92.35% of net earnings in self-employment tax; rerun the five steps with your own pay.

Investigators employed in government, professional services, and finance and insurance earn the most. BLS reports May 2025 medians of $75,810 in government, $75,710 in professional, scientific and technical services and $72,740 in finance and insurance, against $50,720 in administrative and support services and $41,480 in retail trade.

Employer type moves an employee's median by about 1.8 times ($75,810 ÷ $41,480, our division), close to the 2.0 times between the highest and lowest state medians ($76,480 ÷ $39,060, our division). Our inference is that employer type matters about as much as location. Among billing rates, R&D Investigations lists specialized investigations at $150 to $400+ an hour against $100 to $150 for standard work; those are rates clients are quoted, not pay. Our pages on what a private investigator does cover the work behind each path.

We sell self-paced online investigator training, and our courses run from $40 to $290. Our Expert Private Investigation Course costs $175 and runs 16 hours across 121 lessons in 18 chapters plus a final exam, ending in a certificate of completion, with a 70% pass mark and a second attempt if you miss it.

We also offer state courses: Texas Private Investigator ($175), Georgia 70-hours ($290), Minnesota Pre-Assignment ($185) and Vermont Private Investigator ($150). A certificate of completion is not a license. Your state board decides what counts toward one, so confirm with it first; our guide, Will This Private Investigator Course Count in My State?, shows how. We do not promise a job or a pay raise.

Questions about which course fits your state: call (832) 922-1215 or (706) 268-2221, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern. Start with the Expert Private Investigation Course.