Recruitment Incentive Program

The Secret Service may pay a recruitment incentive (also known as a recruitment bonus) to a newly appointed employee in a position that is likely to be difficult to fill in the absence of such an incentive. These require the employee to enter a continued service agreement committing the employee to stay in the position for a specified amount of time. Such incentives are generally only available, with some limited exceptions, to new Federal employees or those candidates who have had at least a break in service of at least 90 days from their last period of Federal employment.

The Secret Service offers a variety of recruitment incentives for difficult-to-fill positions. These include those targeted to eligible recruits hired to fill Special Agent, Uniformed Division Officer, and Specialty Team positions. Other incentives may be authorized on a case-by-case basis. In general, recruitment incentive payments may be authorized for eligible recruits up to 25 percent of the employee’s annual basic pay in effect at the beginning of the service period multiplied by the number of years in the service period. 

Note that these recruitment incentives may only be paid to the extent that the Secret Service has funds available for this purpose.