How Much Does a Top Secret Clearance Cost? DCSA Fees and Renewals

A Top Secret clearance costs you nothing as the applicant. The government pays the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) roughly $5,890 to $6,240 per person in FY2026 to conduct the investigation, with the exact figure depending on which agency is sponsoring you.¹ You cannot self-apply and you cannot pay to jump the line. A federal agency or cleared defense contractor has to sponsor you, and that sponsor’s agency picks up the bill.

What the Government Pays DCSA

DCSA runs more than two million background investigations a year for over 100 federal entities and 10,000 cleared companies.² Every investigation is billed to the requesting agency through interagency funding, not to the applicant and not to the contractor employer.³ Congress has looked at this arrangement and concluded that pushing the cost onto contractors would just come back to the government as overhead in their bids.⁴

DCSA publishes its rates each fiscal year in Federal Investigations Notices. For FY2026, a Top Secret-level (Tier 5) investigation is billed at:

$5,890 for non-DoD agencies
$6,240 for DoD agencies that also use DCSA adjudication services
$6,361 (non-DoD) or $6,739 (DoD) with priority processing for a faster turnaround¹

A Secret-level investigation is a small fraction of that — a few hundred dollars — because it involves far less fieldwork. The Top Secret price reflects the depth of the check: interviews with coworkers, neighbors, and references; verification of employment, education, and residences; a full credit and financial review; and scrutiny of any foreign contacts or interests. Some intelligence community positions add a polygraph for access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), and the sponsoring agency pays for that too.

What You Might Pay Out of Pocket

There is no application fee, processing fee, or examination fee anywhere in the clearance process. The only expenses that fall on you are small and incidental: pulling together records to complete the SF-86 questionnaire. That can mean ordering a college transcript, requesting a court record, or paying for copies of documents you no longer have. A $10 transcript fee here, a $20 records request there. Nobody reimburses you, but the totals rarely reach even $100.

What the Fee Buys

The Top Secret investigation is the most thorough background check the federal government performs. It begins with the SF-86, a long questionnaire covering employment, education, residences, foreign contacts, criminal history, financial records, drug use, and mental health, generally reaching back seven to ten years. Investigators then verify what you reported and look for what you left out.

The work billed to the sponsoring agency includes records checks (credit, criminal, court, employment, education), field interviews with people who know you, a detailed financial review, and an assessment of any foreign ties. Financial concerns, in practice, are the single most common reason clearances get denied, so the credit-and-finances portion tends to consume a real share of investigator time.

Ongoing Costs After You Are Cleared

The clearance itself doesn’t come with any annual fee to you, and the way the government funds ongoing monitoring is changing. Under the old system, cleared personnel got a full reinvestigation every five years, billed at roughly $3,230 to $3,580 per person in FY2026 rates.¹ That model is being phased out.

The full national security clearance population is now enrolled in continuous vetting, which pulls criminal, financial, and public records data on an ongoing basis instead of waiting for a five-year cycle.⁵ Periodic reinvestigations still happen when continuous vetting flags something that needs a deeper look, and the full transition is expected to be complete by FY2028. Either way, the applicant pays nothing.

Where a Clearance Can Actually Cost You Money

The investigation is free. An appeal is not. If DCSA determines that unresolved issues prevent granting eligibility, you receive a Statement of Reasons explaining the concerns. You can respond in writing, request a personal appearance with DCSA adjudicators, or let the decision stand. If that doesn’t resolve things, you can appeal to your component’s Personnel Security Appeals Board or elect a hearing before a Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) Administrative Judge, whose recommendation feeds into the board’s final determination.⁶

You are not required to hire a lawyer at any point. Many applicants do, particularly for DOHA hearings where a career in defense or intelligence is on the line. Security clearance attorneys typically charge flat fees ranging from around $5,000 to $10,000 or more for hearing representation, depending on case complexity. If the underlying issue involves substance abuse, mental health, or finances, counsel may recommend an expert witness — a psychologist, counselor, or financial advisor — which can add several thousand dollars more. All of it comes out of your pocket.

A Separate Kind of Cost: Falsifying the SF-86

One boundary worth flagging, since it sits well outside the price of the investigation itself. The SF-86 warns that knowingly making a false statement or concealing a material fact is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.⁷⁸ Beyond the criminal exposure, agencies routinely deny or revoke clearances when an applicant falsifies the questionnaire, and that decision follows you through any future federal position. The financial cost of clearing your name after that kind of finding — legal fees, lost income, sometimes a lost career — dwarfs anything the investigation itself would ever have charged.

The Short Version

For the vast majority of applicants, a Top Secret clearance costs zero dollars. The sponsoring agency pays DCSA somewhere between $5,890 and $6,739 in FY2026 depending on agency type and whether priority processing is used. Your only guaranteed expense is the handful of small records fees you may incur while filling out the SF-86. The costs to watch for come later, and only if things go wrong: an appeal, an attorney, an expert witness, or a criminal charge for lying on the form.

1
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. FIN 24-01 FY25 and FY26 Billing Rates
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Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. About the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency
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Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Billing Rates and Resources
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Congress.gov. Security Clearance Process – An Overview
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Performance.gov. FY25 Q1 Personnel Vetting Quarterly Performance Report
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Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Appeal an Investigation Decision
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Standard Form 86 – Questionnaire for National Security Positions
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally