What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Seattle?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 12 records listed for a contractor or trade in Seattle, WA, 6 apply to every business of this type and 6 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 6 that always apply, 3 carry a flat fee, coming to $350.40. That is a floor, not a total. 2 of the 12 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 2 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Business License Tax Certificate: $73 a year for gross Seattle income under $20,000; $147 for $20,000–$499,999.99; $667 for $500,000–$1,999,999.99; $1,604 for $2,000,000–$5,000,000; $3,210 above that. New applicants starting July 1 or later pay half the applicable tier.

Commercial Building Permit: Valuation-based via the city's Development Fee Index (Table D-1), e.g. $325 flat up to $1,000, then $325 plus $1.60 per $100 up to $25,000, rising in bands to $554,359 plus $2 per $1,000 above $200,000,000. A standard permit pays 100% of the Index for both the permit fee and plan review; a tenant alteration filed within 18 months of the building's first Certificate of Occupancy pays only 50% of the Index for both. Minimum fee $292. A $25 Washington State Building Code Council surcharge applies to every commercial building permit.

Permits for a contractor or trade in Seattle, WA come from 5 separate offices: Seattle Finance and Administrative Services, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, Washington State Department of Revenue, Business Licensing Service, Washington Secretary of State, Corporations and Charities Division, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• Seattle Finance and Administrative ServicesIssues 1 permit on this page: Business License Tax Certificate(206) 684-8484www.seattle.gov/city-finance/business-taxes-and-licenses
• Seattle Department of Construction and InspectionsIssues 3 permits on this page: Contractor Registration (State — no Seattle-specific layer confirmed), Certificate of Occupancy, Commercial Building Permit(206) 684-8600www.seattle.gov/sdci
• Washington State Department of Revenue, Business Licensing ServiceIssues 2 permits on this page: Washington State Business Licence, Reseller PermitPO Box 9034, Olympia, WA 98507-9034 · (360) 705-6705dor.wa.gov/open-business/apply-business-license
• Washington Secretary of State, Corporations and Charities DivisionIssues 3 permits on this page: Certificate of Formation (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual ReportPO Box 40234, Olympia, WA 98504-0234 · (360) 725-0377www.sos.wa.gov/corporations-charities/business-entities
• Washington State Department of Labor and IndustriesIssues 3 permits on this page: Contractor Registration, Electrical Contractor Licence, Plumbing Contractor LicencePO Box 44450, Olympia, WA 98504-4450 · (800) 647-0982lni.wa.gov/licensing-permits/contractors

Confirmed directly against the city's own current page. A business is exempt entirely if its Seattle gross income is $4,000 or less and it keeps no place of business in the city. This is separate from the Washington state Business License Service fee ($50 to open, $5 to renew) already covered at the state layer. Effective January 1, 2026 the separate B&O tax-owing threshold — a different question from whether this certificate itself is required — rises from $100,000 to $2,000,000 with a new $2,000,000 standard deduction.

This is the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries contractor registration, already the baseline for the whole state — SDCI verifies this registration number when a permit is pulled. No dedicated Seattle-specific general contractor license page could be found either confirming or ruling out an additional city layer in this pass, so none is asserted here.

No separate fee when tied to an active building permit — the city's own fee subtitle states directly that the permanent Certificate of Occupancy fee "is not assessed in addition to the building permit fee." Without a construction valuation, the minimum building permit fee of $292 applies instead. A temporary Certificate of Occupancy is half that base fee ($146), and a duplicate/reissued certificate is $48.85. A single-family home or duplex never needs one.

A 5% technology fee surcharge applies on top of all Chapter 22.900B–H fees. This is a rate schedule tied to construction valuation by design, not a flat number — the specific total for any project depends on its own estimated cost.

This is a real statewide business licence, which almost no other state has, and the $50 is only the handling fee — each endorsement carries its own charge on top, though state tax registration itself is free and a trade name is $5. Adding a location or a partner city's non-resident endorsement costs nothing; anything else is $10; renewal is $5 a year with a late penalty of half the endorsement fee up to $150. The statute allows up to $90 to open, so do not publish the cap as the price. The important limit is geographic: 223 cities have partnered with the department so their licence can be bought on the same form, but Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Everett, Kent and Renton have not, and a business in those cities files separately — Seattle's own certificate runs from $73 to $3,210 by revenue band. Spokane and Vancouver are partners. Registration is required if you use a trading name, hire within ninety days, collect sales tax, need any endorsement, or gross $12,000 a year or more. Form the entity with the Secretary of State first.

$180 by post and $200 online, because Washington charges a $20 surcharge for filing online rather than a discount — the reverse of most states, and easy to miss since the fee tables print only the $180. Annual reports are expressly exempt from that surcharge. A corporation costs exactly the same $180; a nonprofit is $80, or $40 if it grosses under half a million. Expediting adds $100 for three days or $150 for same day. Name reservation is $30 for a hundred and eighty days and cannot be done online at all.

The rule treats an LLC's certificate of formation and a corporation's articles as the same thing — the public organic record — and prices both at $180, with no share-based component. So Washington gives no filing-cost reason to prefer one structure over the other, at formation or afterwards, since the annual report is $70 either way. There is also an initial report due within a hundred and twenty days of formation, free if filed with the formation document and $10 if left until later.

$70 for an LLC and $70 for a corporation, with no online surcharge — annual reports are one of the few filings the $20 charge does not touch. The due date is the last day of the entity's own formation month rather than a common calendar date, and filing up to a hundred and eighty days early does not move it. Late costs $25, taking it to $95, and reinstatement after administrative dissolution is $140 plus every missed year. The Secretary of State sends a courtesy notice sixty days out but the statute is explicit that failing to send it does not excuse the filing. A nonprofit pays $10.

No fee — the department answers the question in one word. The permit is generally good for four years but only two if you are a contractor, have been open under twelve months, have reported no gross income in the last twelve months, were on non-reporting status when you applied, or have missed a return in the last year. Many renew automatically; where they will not you get about ninety days' notice. It does not transfer when a business is sold, and a seller must keep a copy or an electronic verification for five years. Separately, Washington's main business tax is the business and occupation tax on gross receipts, which has no registration fee of its own and is banded for services — 1.5 per cent under a million dollars of prior-year revenue, 1.75 to five million and 2.1 above, against 0.471 per cent retailing and 0.484 per cent manufacturing and wholesaling.

Washington registers contractors rather than licensing them, and there is no competency exam for either a general or a specialty registration — the gate is money. A $30,000 bond for a general contractor or $15,000 for a specialty one, both doubled on 1 July 2024 from $12,000 and $6,000, so older figures are wrong; plus $200,000 of public liability and $50,000 property damage cover, or $250,000 combined. Judgments involving single-family dwellings in the past five years push the bond up to $90,000. A general contractor may hire subcontractors across trades while a specialty contractor may work only in its own registered specialty and may not subcontract at all. Working unregistered is a gross misdemeanour. Registration is not one of the endorsements the statewide business licence carries.

One price covers a general electrical contractor and every specialty — the rule does not distinguish them, and holding several specialties needs only one fee and one bond. Completing the renewal fully online saves $47.70. A $4,000 bond is required, along with $20,000 property, $50,000 single-injury and $100,000 multiple-injury cover, and the business must designate a certified master electrician or administrator whose own credential is separately priced. The current schedule took effect on 1 July 2026 and these fees are revised on an annual July cycle, so check the date on anything you read.

This is the single most out-of-date thing in circulation about Washington contracting. Since 1 July 2021 plumbing contractors have held a standalone licence and are expressly exempt from the general contractor registration chapter — so material describing Washington plumbers as specialty contractors is publishing pre-2021 law. The bond is $6,000 and the insurance limits are $50,000 property, $100,000 for one person and $200,000 for more, all higher than the electrical contractor's. Individual journey level, residential specialty and residential service certificates are $242.70 for three years, and a trainee certificate is $60 a year. As with electrical, the current schedule dates from 1 July 2026.