How much does a
secure facility (SCIF) cost?
There is no honest single rate. Cost is an output of the configuration: the accreditation posture, the size, what the building already is, the shielding and acoustic requirements, the region and the schedule. This page explains what moves the number, what a range looks like by project profile, and why an estimate is not a bid.
How much does a SCIF cost?
It depends on the configuration, and the honest output at planning stage is a range rather than a figure. In Salian Defense's own estimating model, the least expensive configuration, a standard-posture new build on a greenfield site in a low-cost region with no shielding or mechanical additions, lands near $700 per square foot. Stacking a higher accreditation posture, a retrofit of a fully built interior, a high-cost region, a compressed schedule and RF shielding takes the same square footage to several times that.
In practice that means a small, simple facility commonly sits in the low millions, and a large, heavily shielded, highest-assurance build in an expensive market runs well into eight figures. Requirement to accredited operation commonly runs 12 to 36 months in Salian's project experience. The free estimator returns a range for your own configuration and shows which of your answers is carrying the cost.
A per-square-foot number is the wrong question, asked early.
Almost every secure facility conversation opens with a rate per square foot, because a rate is what a budget line wants. But accredited space is not priced like office space. The same 4,000 square feet can be a straightforward fit-out or a shielded, highest-assurance enclosure inside a live building on a compressed schedule, and those are not variations of one job. They are different jobs with the same floor area.
The rate is an output of the configuration, not an input to it. Which is why a published average is comforting and close to useless: it averages across configurations you are not building.
Budgets fail in four predictable ways.
- A rate is applied to the wrong configuration. A number from a peer's project, built to a different posture in a different market, is carried into a budget line and defended for a year.
- Requirements arrive after the budget. Attenuation, storage and detection are assumed from experience, then named differently by the AO/CSA, and the construction method changes rather than the finish.
- The building is priced before it is surveyed. Structure, mechanical capacity, penetrations and perimeter continuity are assumptions in an estimate and facts in a bid.
- The schedule is priced last. Compression is added at the end, when it buys overtime, parallel trades and expedited material instead of being planned for.
What drives SCIF cost.
A SCIF budget is the sum of a few decisions, most of them set by the accreditation requirement rather than by preference. The table below maps each driver to its effect on cost so you can see where the money goes before you commit to a design.
| Cost driver | Effect on cost |
|---|---|
| Storage and protection level | Closed storage and SAPFs raise the construction standard, intrusion detection and alarm-response requirements over open-storage working spaces. This is usually the single largest swing. |
| Size in usable secure square feet | Scales the whole envelope, though not linearly: fixed costs such as perimeter, entry control and mechanical penetrations amortize across larger spaces, so the rate per square foot falls somewhat at scale. |
| Sound attenuation | Higher sound group ratings require heavier wall assemblies, sound traps and acoustic isolation, adding material and labour. Amplified-sound areas cost more than normal-conversation areas. |
| RF and TEMPEST shielding | Shielding to a specified attenuation, plus any TEMPEST countermeasures, adds enclosure cost, filtered penetrations and verification testing. Not every facility needs it, and it is a major driver where it is required. |
| AA&E provisions | Arms, ammunition and explosives storage triggers additional hardening, vault-grade construction and physical-security standards where the mission calls for it. |
| Region | Regional labour and material rates, cleared-trade availability and accrediting-authority practice vary cost by market. Cleared labour is a thin market and its depth varies sharply by metro. |
| New build against retrofit | Retrofitting existing space can be cheaper or costlier than a new build depending on the gap between current conditions and the ICD-705 standard. A fully built interior has to be undone before it can be rebuilt. |
| Schedule | Compressing a schedule buys overtime, parallel trades and expedited material. A contractual date inside twelve months also leaves little room for the AO/CSA review cycle. |
| Accreditation path | A pre-coordinated fixed facility checklist and construction security plan compress schedule and rework. A late or incomplete package adds cost and delay. |
Drivers are stated as direction of effect, not as prices. What a specific facility must meet is set by the applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority.
What the model returns for four common shapes.
These are outputs of the same model the free estimator runs, at full intake, for four project profiles that come up often. They are budgetary planning ranges, not bids, and they exist to show how far configuration moves the number for the same floor area.
| Profile | Planning range |
|---|---|
| 2,000 sq ft, standard posture, new build on a greenfield site, Midwest, standard schedule, no special requirements | $1.1M to $1.6M The least expensive shape in the model, near $700 per square foot. |
| 4,000 sq ft, enhanced posture, fit-out of an existing shell, Southeast, standard schedule, acoustic protection and controlled entry | $4.2M to $5.3M Posture and the additive requirements roughly double the rate. |
| 5,000 sq ft, enhanced posture, retrofit of a fully built interior, National Capital Region, standard schedule, acoustic protection | $8.7M to $11.1M Region and undoing an existing interior are doing most of the work here. |
| 4,000 sq ft, highest assurance, retrofit of a built interior, National Capital Region, accelerated schedule, RF shielding, acoustic, independent mechanical, redundant power | $14.0M to $17.8M Every driver stacked. Roughly six times the rate of the first profile. |
Produced by Salian's own estimating model, which is published in full on the estimator page along with the arithmetic behind it. Rates are Salian's own, drawn from its secure-construction work, and are refreshed periodically. They are not a published index and are not a quote.
Get a range for your configuration.
The ranges above are shapes, not your number. The free estimator asks seven planning-level questions and returns a budgetary range, the answers of yours that are carrying the cost, and the method that produced the range. No email is needed to see it. If the question is whether the project can start at all rather than what it costs, the readiness check works through the requirement, the space, the building, the people and the evidence.
Do not enter classified facility details. Planning-level inputs only.
An estimate and a bid price different objects.
A budgetary range prices a facility as described. A bid prices a facility as drawn, on a surveyed site, in a named market, on a named date, with named subcontractors and a named risk position. When the two diverge it is almost always one of four things, and none of them is the model being wrong.
- Site conditions found during survey. Structure, mechanical capacity, floor location and perimeter continuity move from assumption to fact.
- Requirements named after the estimate. The AO/CSA names attenuation, storage and detection, and the construction method follows.
- Scope added during design. Doors, penetrations, equipment rooms and pathways multiply quietly between a description and a drawing set.
- Market movement. Cleared labour availability and material pricing move between the estimate and the award.
From a number to a facility, under one contract.
Salian Defense models the cost of a SCIF or SAPF against a specific requirement, then delivers the facility to ICD-705: design, construction, preparation for accreditation and operations under one contract, with the accreditation package prepared as the work happens and coordinated with the AO/CSA. Salian carries a facility to accreditation and stays through the determination. Where the blocker is a facility clearance rather than a building, Salian helps you identify and prepare for the sponsorship path. Where a project is already stalled or partly built, Salian steps in and finds what is missing before proposing a way forward.
The determinations, and the market.
The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility. DCSA or the applicable Cognizant Security Agency determines facility clearances, the Authorizing Official authorizes systems, and licensed architects and engineers seal what the law requires them to seal. Specialty trades and shielding are delivered through cleared partners under Salian's schedule.
Salian also does not control what the requirement turns out to be, what a survey finds in your building, or what cleared labour and material cost on the day your award lands. Those are the four reasons an estimate moves, and naming them early is worth more than a tighter estimate.
- Size the budget line. Run the estimator for your configuration and take the range.
- Test whether the project can start. The readiness check returns what is missing before construction should begin.
- Move from a range to a scope. Salian surveys, scopes and returns a feasibility read. That is the step that narrows a number, not a longer form.
SCIF cost, answered.
How much does a SCIF cost per square foot?
What is the difference in cost between open and closed storage?
How long does SCIF accreditation take?
What drives the total cost of a SCIF the most?
Can I get a SCIF cost estimate without sharing classified information?
Why is a SCIF estimate different from a construction bid?
What the cost drivers trace to.
The drivers on this page are the requirement categories that the governing documents for accredited space impose on construction. The dollar ranges are Salian's own model, not a published index, and are labelled as such wherever they appear.
- ICD 705, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities The Intelligence Community Directive establishing the standard for SCIF accreditation and reciprocity.
- ICS 705-1 and ICS 705-2 The Intelligence Community Standards for the physical and technical security of SCIFs, and for their standards and procedures.
- IC Technical Specifications for ICD/ICS 705 The technical specification set that construction, acoustic protection, shielding, intrusion detection and access control are designed and inspected against.
- Salian Defense estimating model The rates and multipliers behind every figure on this page. The method is published on the estimator page.
Access to some of these documents is controlled; your security officer or the AO/CSA is the right route to the current text.
Bring the requirement, not a rate.
Tell us what has to happen in the space, when it has to work and what building you have in mind, and we will tell you what it actually takes. If the answer is that the project should not start yet, we will say that too.