You hold TS/SCI. Or you are about to. And the second a recruiter sees it on your resume, the rate they offer goes up.

But ask ten people what TS/SCI actually means and you get ten half-answers. Some say it is a higher clearance than Top Secret. Some say it is a separate clearance. Some think SCI is the agency. None of that is right.

From the government side of cleared contracts, every name proposed to my team came across my desk first. The clearance was the entry ticket. Not the prize. The bid did not move forward without it, but the work was won on the resume that came stapled to it. So the people who got billed on my contracts knew exactly what they were holding. They also knew exactly what it was worth.

This article is the foundational explainer. What TS/SCI is. How the investigation works. Where the civilian premium comes from. And what can take it away.

What Are the Three Security Clearance Levels?

The U.S. government uses three clearance levels. They are set by Executive Order 13526. Each one matches a level of damage that an unauthorized disclosure could do to national security.

Confidential

The lowest tier. Confidential covers info where a leak would cause "damage" to national security. Most folks who hold this clearance never even think about it. It is common for support roles, junior administrative jobs, and some military positions. The investigation is short. The renewal cycle is long. On the civilian side, a Confidential clearance gets you in the door but does not move the salary needle much.

Secret

The middle tier. Secret covers info where a leak would cause "serious damage" to national security. This is the most common clearance in the U.S. military. If you served in a deployable role, you probably held one. The investigation is a Tier 3. The clearance is good for ten years before it needs to be looked at again. On the civilian side, a Secret clearance is the workhorse for defense contractor jobs, federal logistics roles, and a lot of cleared IT work.

Top Secret

The highest of the three named levels. Top Secret covers info where a leak would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security. The investigation is a Tier 5. It is deeper, longer, and goes further back. Top Secret is the floor for most intel jobs, special operations support, and senior contractor billets. This is where the civilian salary premium starts to show up in a real way. Brad has covered the specific dollar figures in our Top Secret clearance salary guide.

Is TS/SCI a Higher Clearance Than Top Secret?

No. And this is the part most people get wrong.

SCI is not a fourth clearance level. SCI stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information. It is an access program that lives on top of Top Secret, not a higher tier sitting above it.

Think of it this way. Top Secret is the building. SCI is a locked room inside the building. You need Top Secret to enter the building. You need a separate read-in to enter each locked room. Some rooms hold satellite imagery. Some hold signals data. Some hold human source reporting. Each room has its own door, its own key, and its own need-to-know list.

So when someone says they hold TS/SCI, they hold Top Secret and they have been read into one or more SCI compartments. The Director of National Intelligence sets the standards for SCI access through Intelligence Community Directive 704. Each agency runs its own read-in process inside that framework.

SCI access expires when you leave the read-in. You can hold an active Top Secret with no current SCI accesses. That is normal. The TS holds the line. The SCI tickets get punched and pulled as missions change.

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What Other Access Programs Will I Hear About?

SCI is the one you hear about most because it covers intelligence work. But it is not the only access program. Here are the others that show up on cleared job descriptions.

Special Access Programs (SAP)

SAPs are even more tightly compartmented than SCI. They cover specific weapon systems, technologies, or operations that need protection beyond standard Top Secret. SAP access is granted program by program. The investigation requirements vary. Most SAPs require a Tier 5 plus a polygraph plus an additional review.

Q and L (Department of Energy)

The Department of Energy runs its own clearance scheme. A "Q" clearance is the DOE equivalent of Top Secret. An "L" clearance is the DOE equivalent of Secret. These come into play for nuclear weapons work, national lab jobs, and some Naval Reactors roles. The investigations mirror the DoD tiers but the access categories are different.

NATO Clearances

NATO has its own classification levels. NATO Secret and Cosmic Top Secret are the two that show up most. If you served in a NATO billet, you may have held one of these alongside your U.S. clearance. They do not replace a U.S. clearance. They run in parallel for NATO-controlled info.

What Does the SSBI or Tier 5 Investigation Actually Check?

The investigation behind a Top Secret clearance used to be called the SSBI. Now it goes by Tier 5 under the federal investigative standards. Same animal. New name. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) runs most of these for DoD personnel and cleared contractors.

A Tier 5 looks back ten years. It is deeper than the Tier 3 used for Secret. Here is what investigators dig into.

Foreign Contacts and Travel

Every foreign national you have close or continuing contact with. Every country you have visited in the last seven years. Foreign business interests. Foreign property. Foreign bank accounts. If you have a spouse or in-laws who are foreign nationals, expect a deep look at the relationship. This is not automatic disqualification. It is automatic scrutiny.

Finances

Credit reports. Bankruptcies. Tax filings. Unpaid debts. Gambling activity. The standard adjudicators apply is simple. Is this person under enough financial pressure to be compromised by a foreign actor offering money? One missed credit card is not the issue. Unpaid taxes and unexplained money flowing in or out are the issue.

Drug and Alcohol History

Past use. Frequency. Honesty about it. The adjudicators care more about whether you lied on the form (SF-86) than about whether you tried something a decade ago. Lying is what kills a clearance. Disclosed past use, especially years back, with a clear pattern of having stopped, is often adjudicated favorably.

Criminal Record

Arrests. Convictions. Civil judgments. Even things that were expunged. The form asks. Investigators verify. Same rule applies. Disclose it. Adjudicate it.

Personal Conduct and Mental Health

Investigators interview neighbors, coworkers, supervisors, and references. They are looking for patterns of dishonesty, recklessness, or anything that suggests you cannot be trusted with sensitive info. The mental health question on the SF-86 only triggers if treatment was for specific categories. Counseling that is strictly for marital, family, or grief issues not related to violence by you, and counseling strictly related to adjustments from military combat service, are explicitly excluded under current rules. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence updated this guidance to encourage people to seek help.

Polygraph (For SCI Read-Ins)

The Tier 5 itself does not require a polygraph. The polygraph kicks in when an agency reads you into specific SCI compartments. There are two main types. A counterintelligence (CI) poly covers foreign contacts and unauthorized disclosure. A full-scope poly covers CI topics plus lifestyle questions like drug use and criminal activity. NSA and CIA generally require a full-scope. At DoD agencies like DIA and NGA, a CI poly is standard. The type of poly depends on the specific agency and program. We break down what to expect in our clearance polygraph guide.

The full timeline for a Tier 5 has been shrinking. Old estimates of 12 to 18 months no longer reflect current performance. The current numbers are in our clearance investigation timeline article.

What Is Continuous Vetting and Trusted Workforce 2.0?

The old model was the periodic reinvestigation. Before 2014, Top Secret holders were reinvestigated every five years and Secret holders every ten. In 2014, the government standardized that to five years across all levels. Then Trusted Workforce 2.0 replaced the entire periodic model with continuous vetting. All of that older model is now gone. The government runs a system called Trusted Workforce 2.0.

Under Trusted Workforce 2.0, cleared personnel are enrolled in Continuous Vetting. This means government systems automatically check criminal records, financial data, foreign travel, and other public records on a rolling basis. If something flags, the investigator looks at it then. Not five years from now.

For you, the cleared employee, it means a few things. One: your clearance does not expire in the old sense as long as you stay in Continuous Vetting and stay employed in a cleared position. Two: a new debt, a foreign trip, or an arrest is going to show up in the system quickly. Three: you do not have to redo a full SF-86 every five years like the old days.

DCSA has been the lead agency rolling this out for DoD. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence sets the policy framework. Trusted Workforce 2.0 has been the policy framework since 2018. For DoD, DCSA finished enrolling all clearance holders in Continuous Vetting in 2021. Across the broader federal government, rollout is still underway. The program is expected to reach all agencies around 2028.

Why Does TS/SCI Command a Civilian Salary Premium?

Three reasons. Supply, time, and contract math.

The Supply Side

You cannot buy a TS/SCI off the shelf. A defense contractor cannot post a job, hire a candidate, and then sponsor them through a full Tier 5 plus SCI read-in plus poly. The math does not work. The investigation takes too long. The role needs to be filled now. So the contractor pays a premium to hire someone who already holds the clearance.

The Time Side

Even with Trusted Workforce 2.0, a brand-new TS investigation still takes months. SCI read-in is on top of that. A polygraph adds more time. A cleared candidate can be on the contract billing in two weeks. An uncleared candidate is six to twelve months out.

The Contract Side

Cleared contracts are billed by the labor category. Each category has a billing rate. The contractor pays the cleared employee a salary. The government reimburses the contractor at the labor category rate. The difference between the two is the contractor's margin. TS/SCI labor categories bill at higher rates than Secret. So the contractor can pay a higher salary and still hit margin. This is where the premium comes from. The rate card does the work.

The actual dollar premium varies by role, location, and contract. We have the breakdown by clearance level in our Top Secret salary article. The negotiation play for TS/SCI specifically is in our clearance jobs salary negotiation guide.

Where Does TS/SCI Pay the Real Premium?

Some sectors pay more for cleared talent than others. Here is where the money lives.

Defense Contractors

The big primes (Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, General Dynamics, L3Harris) and the mid-tier intel shops (Booz Allen, CACI, Leidos, SAIC, ManTech, Peraton). These shops bid cleared work to DoD and the intelligence community. They live and die by their cleared headcount. They pay the premium because their proposal scoring requires cleared bodies.

Intelligence Community Agencies

CIA, NSA, NGA, NRO, DIA. These agencies hire direct federal employees and also rely heavily on cleared contractors. Direct GS roles top out at GS-15 with locality. Contractor roles can pay more for the same work. Many vets start as contractors then convert to staff. Some go the other way. Pay parity is closer in the IC than in standard federal hiring.

Federal Civilian Cleared Roles

DoD civilian roles. DHS. DOJ (FBI, DEA, ATF). State Department (Diplomatic Security). Department of Energy. Treasury. All of these have cleared billets. The pay is GS-scale, but the clearance plus military background often pushes you in at a higher step. Federal LE roles like FBI special agent or DEA agent (1811 series) often require or favor TS/SCI. The transition path from Army CID into 1811 work is one we cover in our 31D to federal LE article.

Cleared Tech and Cyber Roles

This is the fastest-growing slice. Cleared cloud engineers. Cleared cyber operators. Cleared geospatial analysts. Cleared signals work. Many of these roles map directly off of MOS or rating skill sets. Geospatial intel work for Army 35Gs is one example we cover in our 35G to civilian GIS article. Cleared telecom and EW work for 25E translates similarly in our 25E to civilian telecom article.

What Can Suspend or Revoke a TS/SCI Clearance?

Holding a clearance is conditional. The adjudicative guidelines in Security Executive Agent Directive 4 spell out the thirteen categories that adjudicators look at. The same categories that get a clearance granted are the ones that can take it away.

Foreign Influence

New foreign contacts. A new foreign-national family member. A foreign business interest. A foreign property purchase. A trip to a sensitive country without reporting it. The standard is whether the contact could be used to pressure or compromise you. Continuous Vetting catches a lot of this.

Financial Considerations

This is the most common cause of clearance trouble. Unpaid taxes. Bankruptcies that were not disclosed. Wage garnishments. Gambling losses. A pattern of irresponsibility with money. The fix is usually a payment plan and disclosure, not stonewalling.

Personal Conduct

Lying on the SF-86. Lying to an investigator. Cheating on a polygraph. The cover-up almost always does more damage than the underlying issue. Adjudicators will forgive a lot. They will not forgive being lied to.

Drug Involvement

Current illegal drug use is disqualifying. This includes marijuana. As of April 28, 2026, the DEA moved FDA-approved marijuana products and state-licensed medical marijuana into Schedule III under federal law — recreational marijuana remains Schedule I. No updated adjudicative guidance for clearance holders has been issued under SEAD 4 as of this writing, so the practical disqualifying standard is unchanged for now. That may shift as the legal landscape continues to move. Past use is adjudicated case by case. Honesty matters more than abstinence.

Criminal Conduct

New arrests. New convictions. Patterns of legal trouble. Domestic violence convictions. Anything that involves dishonesty (fraud, theft, embezzlement) hits especially hard.

Alcohol Consumption

DUIs. Patterns of binge drinking that affect work or judgment. Alcohol-related incidents. The adjudication looks for patterns, not single events.

Outside Activities and Allegiance

Foreign government employment. Foreign military service. Affiliations with groups that advocate violence against the U.S. government. Anything that suggests divided loyalty.

If your clearance gets flagged, you get a Statement of Reasons (SOR). You have the right to respond. You have the right to a hearing in many cases. The Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) publishes its case decisions. Most of them turn on mitigation, not on whether the underlying issue existed. The takeaway: respond, do not ignore.

Does TS/SCI Transfer Between Agencies?

The clearance itself, generally yes. SCI access, generally no.

The Top Secret clearance is a federal-government-wide credential. Under clearance reciprocity rules set by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an agency is supposed to accept another agency's investigation and adjudication. In practice, the receiving agency may do additional vetting before granting access.

SCI access is different. Each agency owns its own SCI compartments. Even a current TS/SCI holder may need to be read in again at a new agency, even if both agencies are part of the IC. The poly may also need to be redone. NSA full-scope polys generally do not transfer to CIA. CIA full-scope polys do not generally transfer to NSA. The agencies trust their own polygraphers more than the other agency's.

We have the full reciprocity walk-through in our clearance reciprocity guide.

How Long Does My Clearance Stay Active After I Separate?

This is the question every transitioning service member asks. The answer has two parts.

Your clearance becomes "current" the moment you leave a cleared billet. It stays "current" for a window after separation, usually 24 months, as long as you have not had a break in cleared service. During that window, a new employer can pick up your clearance and put you back in active status fairly quickly. After the window closes, the clearance becomes inactive and the new employer has to start a fresh investigation.

The 24-month rule is the headline. The mechanics behind it matter too. Who initiates the pickup. What the new employer needs. How DCSA tracks the gap. We cover all of that in our secret clearance after separation guide and the DoD clearance status after separation article.

If you are already past the window, your clearance is inactive. That is not the end. You can still list it on your resume. You can still bid on cleared jobs. The receiving employer just has to sponsor a new investigation. The full phrasing playbook for an inactive clearance is in our inactive clearance resume article.

How Should I List TS/SCI on My Resume?

Short answer: prominently. Cleared recruiters scan for the clearance line first. If they cannot find it in six seconds, they move on. This is one of the few cases where being direct beats being clever.

The clearance line goes either in your summary, in the header, or in a dedicated "Clearance" line item near the top of the resume. Not buried in your skills section. Not hidden in a bullet under your last assignment.

List what you actually hold. Active vs current vs inactive matters. Date of last investigation if you know it. Polygraph type if you have one. The exact phrasing is the full subject of our security clearance resume guide. That article is the one to read if you are about to apply for a cleared role.

BMR's Federal Resume Builder handles the clearance line placement when you tag your role as cleared. It also pulls the rest of your federal-resume formatting. Hours per week. Supervisor info. Detailed duties. You do not have to chase the template manually.

What Should I Do Next?

If you are still in and hold TS/SCI, start tracking your investigation dates now. Your security manager has them. Get the date of your last Tier 5, the date of your last poly (if applicable), and the dates of any read-ins. You will need all of this for civilian and federal applications.

If you are within 24 months of separation and want to stay in cleared work, start applying before you separate. Cleared contractors can pick up an active clearance fast. Once it goes inactive, the math changes.

If you are already out and your clearance is inactive, do not write it off. List it on your resume with the inactive status clearly marked. The cleared market still values a recent inactive TS/SCI more than someone with no history at all.

The clearance is the entry ticket. The job goes to whoever pairs the clearance with a resume that proves they can do the work. That is what BMR is built for. Paste a job posting. Get a federal or private-sector resume tailored to that exact role, with your clearance positioned where recruiters look first. Free tier covers two tailored resumes, two cover letters, and the LinkedIn optimization. Start at the Federal Resume Builder or the Military Resume Builder depending on the role.