---
title: "Border Patrol Agent"
description: "Patrols the land borders and coasts between official ports of entry to detect and stop illegal entry, smuggling and trafficking."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/border-patrol-agent"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Border Patrol Agent

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-3051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-3051.04

Patrols the land borders and coasts between official ports of entry to detect and stop illegal entry, smuggling and trafficking.

Also advertised as: U.S. Border Patrol Agent; Border Agent; Border Patrol Officer; BORTAC Agent.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $76,210 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $36.64/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,510 to $115,120, with the middle half between $59,290 and $97,600
- **Total US employment:** 670,520
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 51,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 38/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 670,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,510 |
| 25th | $59,290 |
| 50th (median) | $76,210 |
| 75th | $97,600 |
| 90th | $115,120 |
| Mean (average) | $79,200 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $118,880 | $107,370 | 65,940 |
| WA | $102,080 | $95,390 | 9,160 |
| IL | $100,520 | $100,562 | 29,180 |
| AK | $99,130 | $96,845 | 1,260 |
| CO | $97,350 | $94,467 | 9,610 |
| DE | $92,970 | $93,149 | 1,800 |
| NY | $92,790 | $85,980 | 53,470 |
| NJ | $92,610 | $85,116 | 21,780 |
| DC | $88,650 | $80,664 | 4,720 |
| OR | $88,140 | $85,274 | 5,030 |
| PA | $85,470 | $87,597 | 26,510 |
| HI | $83,820 | $76,234 | 2,420 |
| MN | $83,360 | $84,526 | 9,160 |
| CT | $82,170 | $79,307 | 6,500 |
| MA | $78,940 | $74,643 | 17,040 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/border-patrol-agent/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/border-patrol-agent.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 693,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 717,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 24,200 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 51,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 39.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 27.2% |
| Some College Courses | 14.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 10.1% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 7.3% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 2.2% |

## What the work involves

- Patrol border areas by vehicle, foot, horse, boat or ATV
- Track people across terrain using sign cutting
- Respond to alerts from ground sensors and cameras
- Operate highway checkpoints and inspect vehicles
- Apprehend and process people who cross illegally
- Interdict smuggled drugs and contraband
- Provide first aid and rescue to people in distress

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Law and Government — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.31 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.44 |
| R — Realistic | 4.17 |
| I — Investigative | 2.64 |
| S — Social | 2.60 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 89.9 |
| ISTJ | 85.9 |
| ISFJ | 75.9 |
| ESFJ | 73.5 |
| ESTP | 63.9 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Custom and Border Protection Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/custom-and-border-protection-officer) — median $76,210
- [Customs Broker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customs-broker) — median $80,730
- [Detective and Criminal Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/detective-and-criminal-investigator) — median $93,790
- [Police Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/police-officer) — median $76,210
- [Compliance Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compliance-officer) — median $80,730
- [Transit and Railroad Police](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transit-and-railroad-police) — median $90,230
- [Transportation Security Screener](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-security-screener) — median $66,770
- [Private Detective and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/private-detective-and-investigator) — median $51,220
- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [First-Line Supervisor of Police and Detectives](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-police-and-detectives) — median $106,040

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/border-patrol-agent