In this study, the sensitivity of an active pixel sensor (APS) was adjusted by employing a gate/body-tied (GBT) p-channel metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (PMOSFET)-type photodetector with a transfer gate. A GBT PMOSFET-type photodetector can amplify the photocurrent generated by light. Consequently, APSs that incorporate GBT PMOSFET-type photodetectors are more sensitive than those APSs that are based on p-n junctions. In this study, a transfer gate was added to the conventional GBT PMOSFET-type photodetector. Such a photodetector can adjust the sensitivity of the APS by controlling the amount of charge transmitted from the drain to the floating diffusion node according to the voltage of the transfer gate. The results obtained from conducted simulations and measurements corroborate that, the sensitivity of an APS, which incorporates a GBT PMOSFET-type photodetector with a built-in transfer gate, can be adjusted according to the voltage of the transfer gate. Furthermore, the chip was fabricated by employing the standard 0.35 μm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, and the variable sensitivity of the APS was thereby experimentally verified.