A police station is a facility operated by police or a similar law enforcement agency that serves to accommodate police officers and other law enforcement personnel. The role served by a police station varies by agency, type, and jurisdiction, but in larger agencies there may be multiple police stations that serve as regional or area sub-headquarters for personnel assigned to certain beats, administrative divisions, or police units, while in smaller agencies there may be fewer stations or even one singular police headquarters.

While "police station" is the most generic term, individual law enforcement agencies tend to have specific names for their stations, including:

Multiple informal names exist as well, such as "cop shop", "cophouse", or "nick". Regardless, "station" and "precinct" are most commonly used in media and public discourse irrespective of an agency's specific terminology.

The placement of a police station in regards to an agency's organization varies. For example, in Ireland, the Garda Síochána operates small sub-district stations serving towns and villages, district headquarters serving the largest town in a Garda district, divisional headquarters serving the largest city in a Garda division, and the Garda headquarters itself in Phoenix Park, Dublin; each of these oversees the one beneath them down to sub-district stations. Similarly, the Ontario Provincial Police operates 165 detachments of various sizes, five regional headquarters covering different regions of Ontario that oversee these detachments, a divisional headquarters dedicated to road traffic safety, and the Ontario Provincial Police Headquarters itself in Orillia.

The jurisdiction a police station serves has a variety of different names, such as beat, precinct, district, division, area, and zone. However, in some agencies such as the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, police stations are not limited to a specific area and officers have greater flexibility over where they can operate within their agency's jurisdiction.

Police stations typically feature office space for personnel to work, a reception area for public visitors, holding cells for temporarily confining detainees (the area these cells are in is called a custody suite in the United Kingdom), locker rooms for personnel use, storage rooms that may serve various purposes (such as an evidence room for holding evidence, an armory for storing issued weaponry and ammunition, or simple storage of equipment and supplies), and parking for police vehicles, among others. Unlike fire stations, the officers and personnel assigned to police stations typically do not live in the station itself.

However, these facilities ultimately depend on the agency's needs, the station building's size, and the station's intended role. Some agencies operate specialized police stations meant for specific purposes that may have less facilities or different facilities available. For example:

Most police stations are their own standalone buildings, though again, this tends to vary based on the agency's size, jurisdiction, and purpose. In some smaller towns in the United States, police stations may be combined with town halls, courthouses, or fire stations (these are sometimes called "municipal buildings" or "public safety buildings"). Some stations may be placed in high-traffic locations where a larger police presence is preferred such as shopping centers, airports, or train stations, unless these facilities have their own law enforcement agencies such as airport police.