Police Officer Salary in Montana (2026)

Police overtime runs on its own federal clock. Under section 7(k) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, an agency can set a work period of 7 to 28 days instead of a week. It then owes overtime only above 171 hours in 28 days, or 43 in a 7-day period. Some departments pay overtime sooner under a contract or policy, and that pay is real money. But only the overtime the law requires counts for the federal deduction.

From 2025 through 2028, the federal return lets you deduct the premium part of qualified overtime, the pay above your regular rate. The cap is $12,500 a year for a single filer and $25,000 on a joint return. It phases out above $150,000 of modified AGI single or $300,000 joint. It is available without itemizing, and a married couple must file jointly to take it.

Montana follows it. Montana's tax starts from federal taxable income, and its 2025 Form 2 instructions say the Schedule 1-A deductions, qualified overtime included, are part of Montana taxable income. So the same premium lowers your Montana tax too, which most states do not allow.

Take an officer at Montana's median of $33.68 an hour working 200 overtime hours a year that the 7(k) rule requires. That is $10,104 of overtime pay, of which $3,368 is the premium. The deduction cuts federal tax by about $741 and Montana tax by about $190. Overtime and deduction together lift take-home from about $55,513 to about $62,982.

Ask your agency two things. Which work period does it use under 7(k), and does your pay stub separate required overtime from contract overtime? If your stub shows only total overtime pay, the IRS's 2025 examples take one third of it as the premium for time and a half.

Pay rises fastest with rank, not years. Billings-area supervisors have a middle half of $82,260 to $112,970, and a sergeant's job there keeps about $71,999 at the median of $95,530. Detectives statewide run from $71,160 to $109,300.

Housing is the hard part. Census median home values are $687,900 in Bozeman, $473,100 in Missoula, $428,000 in Kalispell and $387,300 in Helena. Billings sits at $343,400 and Great Falls at $257,000. Against the metro patrol mean, a Bozeman home costs about 8.9 times pay and a Great Falls home 3.3.

The price index is moderate. With the US at 100, Billings scores 93.5 and Missoula 96.4. A Billings take-home of about $57,435 buys about $61,410 at national prices. Montana has no general sales tax.

Montana's tax is two rates for 2026: 4.7% up to $47,500 of taxable income for a single filer and 5.65% above it, with the joint threshold at $95,000. For 2027 the top rate falls to 5.4% and the threshold rises to $65,000. On the same $69,540, Montana leaves about $2,568 less than Wyoming, South Dakota or Washington, and $9 more than Idaho.

The neighbors pay differently. BLS means are $104,140 in Washington, $72,400 in North Dakota, $70,860 in Idaho, $67,080 in Wyoming and $64,320 in South Dakota. Washington's pay gap is far bigger than any tax difference.