There are roughly two ways to count “how many TSA employees are there,” and they give slightly different numbers, but they are in the same ballpark.

Short direct answer

  • In total, TSA has on the order of 60–65 thousand employees , including all types of staff.
  • Of those, about 47,000 are front‑line Transportation Security Officers and related security personnel (the screeners and other security staff travelers usually see).

TSA workforce in context

  • A nonpartisan breakdown of the federal workforce shows that about 64,433 of the 2.31 million civilian federal employees worked for the Transportation Security Administration as of September 2024.
  • That means TSA accounts for a little under 3% of all civilian federal employees, making it one of the larger single sub‑agencies in the U.S. government.

Screeners vs. total employees

  • Public reporting and agency descriptions note that TSA employs over 47,000 Transportation Security Officers, Transportation Security Specialists, Federal Air Marshals, and other security personnel , which is the core security workforce.
  • The higher figure (around 64k) includes not only those officers but also administrative, support, IT, management, and other staff who work behind the scenes to run the agency.

Bottom line: If the question is “how many TSA employees exist in total,” the best current figure is around 64,000+ employees , with about 47,000 of them being front‑line security officers and related positions.