In September 2006 defense contractors reported average end-to-end processing time of over one year for
Top Secret clearances.
A February 2007 report by the Security Clearance Oversight Group (SCOG) indicated that it took an
average of 205 days for all types of clearances granted by agencies whose investigations were done by the
Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This figure was based on investigations completed between
October 1, 2006 and February 3, 2007. The report admits that this number does not include the application
processing time before an investigation is opened by OPM. In a September 2006 report, GAO calculated
this application processing time for Top Secret clearances handled by the Defense Industrial Clearance
Office (DISCO) to be about 111 days. The figure in the SCOG report may also be somewhat skewed due to
OPM’s emphasis on completing cases opened after October 1, 2006. The report did not provide separate
figures for different levels of clearances; however, anecdotal information suggests that Confidential and
Secret clearances take about two or three months less than Top Secret clearances.