Free Seattle Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Seattle residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Seattle Municipal Code on top of state law — the 180-day increase notice, the ten dollar late fee ceiling, the one-month move-in cap, and just cause under SMC ch. 22.205.

Seattle SMC ch. 7.24 Just Cause RRIO Registration Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Seattle residential lease agreement is a Washington lease with a second body of law sitting on top of it. The state layer is the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act at RCW chapter 59.18, with eviction under chapter 59.12; the city layer is the Seattle Municipal Code, and it is one of the densest municipal landlord-tenant regimes in the country. Inside the city limits the rent-increase notice is 180 days rather than the statewide ninety — and SMC 7.24.030.A deems that term into the agreement whether it is typed or not. A late fee may not exceed ten dollars a month, and no fee at all may be charged for serving a notice. The security deposit and nonrefundable move-in fees together may not exceed one month’s rent, the fees alone may not exceed ten per cent of it, and the tenant — not the landlord — chooses whether to pay in instalments. A tenancy may be ended only for one of the sixteen just causes in SMC chapter 22.205, and not even then if the unit is unregistered. Several of these rules attach to a landlord action rather than to a unit type, so the coverage test matters as much as the rule: the December-to-March eviction defence turns on an owner who owns more than four rental units citywide, and the move-in ceiling does not reach a single-family residence the owner lives in. Every Seattle figure below was verified on 6 August 2026 against the Seattle Municipal Code itself, codified through Ordinance 127423, together with SDCI’s published Director’s Rules and notices. The statewide Washington layer is verified separately on our Washington residential lease agreement page and is not repeated here.

How to Fill Out This Seattle Lease Agreement

The order below is not cosmetic. Two of these steps have to happen before the lease is offered rather than at signing, and one of them — registration — decides whether the landlord can ever lawfully end the tenancy. Work down the list in sequence.

Build Your Seattle Residential Lease Agreement

Answer the questions below and the generator produces a signable multi-page PDF carrying the Seattle terms as well as the Washington ones. Several answers change what the document says rather than merely what it fills in — the owner-occupancy question decides whether the move-in ceiling applies at all, the portfolio-size question decides whether the December-to-March eviction defence reaches this owner, and the subsidized-tenancy question switches the notice period between 180 days and 30. Nothing is stored; the PDF is built in your browser.

What Makes a Seattle Lease Different From a Washington Lease?

Short answer: five whole subject areas that state law leaves alone, plus stricter numbers on three that it does not. A Washington lease has to satisfy RCW chapter 59.18. A Seattle lease has to satisfy that and the Seattle Municipal Code, and where the two speak to the same thing the stricter duty governs the tenancy. The city cannot regulate the amount of rent — RCW 35.21.830 preempts a city or town from regulating the amount of rent charged for residential rental structures or sites — so Seattle has legislated around the edges of the rent figure instead, and legislated hard.

The five subjects the state code does not reach at all are: just cause for ending a tenancy at municipal level (SMC chapter 22.205, which sits alongside RCW 59.18.650 rather than replacing it); rental registration and inspection (SMC chapter 22.214); relocation assistance, in two separate schemes (SMC chapters 22.210 and 22.212); tenant selection, through the first-in-time rule and the income-screening arithmetic in SMC chapter 14.08; and the information packet the landlord must hand over with every offer under SMC 7.24.080. None of those exists in RCW chapter 59.18, and none of them appears in a statewide template.

The three where Seattle simply demands more are the ones that quietly break an imported document. The rent-increase notice is 180 days instead of ninety. The late fee is capped at ten dollars a month where the state caps nothing. And the move-in money is capped at one month’s rent where the state caps nothing — a point worth stating carefully, because the one-month figure people associate with Washington was enacted as RCW 59.20.170 and belongs to the manufactured and mobile home act governing lot rentals, not to chapter 59.18 at all. Inside Seattle the one-month ceiling is real; it just comes from SMC 7.24.035.A.

Everything the state layer contributes — the deposit accounting deadline, the entry notice and its required contents, the prohibited-provisions list, the statewide rent-increase limit and the disclosure set — is set out in full on our Washington residential lease agreement page, and the procedural side of ending a tenancy is covered in our Washington eviction process guide. This page does not repeat either; it covers what Seattle adds.

There is one further difference of kind rather than degree. Seattle prices drafting as well as conduct. SMC 7.24.060.A.2 makes a landlord who includes a provision prohibited by SMC 7.24.030.B, 7.24.035, 7.24.036 or 7.24.038 in a new or renewed rental agreement liable to the tenant for up to three thousand dollars plus fees and costs. The landlord does not have to enforce it, rely on it, or even remember it is there. That single subsection is the reason a Seattle landlord cannot safely download a Washington form and hope.

How Much Notice Must a Seattle Landlord Give to Raise Rent?

One hundred and eighty days — and the term is deemed into the agreement whether it is typed or not. SMC 7.24.030.A provides that any rental agreement or renewal of a rental agreement for a residential rental unit in the City of Seattle entered into after 8 November 2021 shall include or shall be deemed to include a provision requiring at least 180 days’ prior written notice whenever the periodic or monthly housing costs to be charged a tenant are to increase. The one exception is a subsidized tenancy where the amount of rent is based on the income of the tenant or on circumstances specific to the subsidized household; that takes at least 30 days instead.

Two features of that drafting matter. The first is deemed to include. A landlord who signs a lease promising the statewide ninety days has not shortened the period; the ordinance reads the 180-day term in over the top. The second is housing costs rather than rent. SMC 7.24.020 defines housing costs as rent as defined by chapter 59.18 RCW, and SMC 7.24.030.E requires the agreement to describe the terms and conditions of every monthly or periodic payment required as a condition of tenancy — rent, deposits, nonrefundable move-in fees, last month’s rent, utility payments, parking fees and late fees among them. An increase in a recurring charge is an increase in housing costs and carries the same notice.

SMC 22.206.180.H comes at the same duty from the enforcement side: it is unlawful for an owner to increase the periodic or monthly housing costs charged to a tenant without giving at least 180 days’ prior written notice (30 for the subsidized case), and the notice must describe how the tenant may obtain information about the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords. Separately, SMC 22.206.180.K makes it unlawful to issue a notice to terminate tenancy, to increase housing costs, or to enter a unit unless the notice contains a reference on how to access that information — with the reference language adopted by SDCI by rule rather than printed in the code, so it has to be taken from the Department and not from a template.

Does a Seattle Rent Increase Notice Have to Carry Anything Else?

Yes. Two further documents and one condition, none of which appears on any page currently ranking for this query.

The first is the economic-displacement notice. SMC 22.212.020.A requires the SDCI Director to prepare a notice describing how people may obtain information about the rights and obligations of tenants and owners under the economic displacement relocation assistance chapter, to publish it on the Department’s website, and to provide links to translated versions in the five languages most commonly spoken in Seattle other than English, determined annually. SMC 22.212.020.B then requires the owner to provide that notice together with a required rent-increase notice, delivered to an adult tenant of each housing unit either personally or by certified mail return receipt requested and by first-class mail addressed to the unit. The Director supplies copies to an owner at no cost on request, so there is no excuse for omitting it.

The second is the state prescribed form. Washington’s own rent-increase machinery still applies inside the city: RCW 59.18.720(3) sets out a statutory rent and fee increase notice to tenants that the notice must be substantially the same as, and RCW 59.18.700(2) requires facts supporting any claimed exemption to appear in the notice itself. Seattle’s 180 days replaces the state’s ninety; it does not replace the form.

The condition is the inspection checklist. SMC 22.206.180.I makes it unlawful for an owner to increase housing costs by any amount if the Director has determined that the unit does not comply with the checklist prescribed by SMC 22.214.050.L and the weighted requirements of SMC 22.214.050.M. The mechanism is worth reading closely, because it puts a lever in the tenant’s hand: on receiving an increase notice a tenant who believes the unit has defective conditions may notify the owner in writing, describing them, before the effective date stated in the notice; either party may then request an inspection from the Director. If the unit passes, or the conditions were caused by the tenant, the increase takes effect on the date in the notice. If it fails, the increase does not take effect until the Director determines compliance, and the tenant may not lawfully refuse payment until that determination is made. Money paid in the meantime is refunded or credited, prorated using a thirty-day month. If the tenant denies access for the inspection, the increase takes effect on the date access was denied or the date in the notice, whichever is later.

Can a Seattle Landlord Raise Rent to Get Around Relocation Assistance?

No, and SMC 22.210.136 supplies both a certification duty and a presumption. No owner may increase rent for the purpose of avoiding the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance. Where a tenant has received notice of an increase of ten per cent or more over the rate charged the same tenant for the same unit and services in the preceding twelve months, and believes the increase is for that purpose, the tenant may complain to the Director within one year of receiving the notice. The owner must then, within ten days of being notified of the complaint, complete and file a certification stating that the increase is not for the purpose of avoiding the chapter — and failure to file it is a defence for the tenant in an eviction action based on failure to pay the increased rent. The Director may investigate regardless of whether a certification is filed.

The presumption is stronger still. Under SMC 22.210.136.D there is a rebuttable presumption that the increase was made to avoid the chapter where, within 90 days of the effective date of an increase of twenty per cent or more, the tenant vacates and, within 180 days of that effective date, the owner engages in substantial rehabilitation or applies for a permit for substantial rehabilitation, demolition, change of use or removal of rent or income restrictions — and the owner either failed to file the certification or failed to follow the chapter after filing it.

How Much Can a Seattle Landlord Charge as a Late Fee?

Ten dollars a month, and nothing else at all. SMC 7.24.034.A, added by Ordinance 126803 in 2023, provides that any fee for late payment of rent shall not exceed ten dollars per month, and that no other fee may be charged for late payment of rent, including but not limited to a fee for the service of any notice required under state law. SMC 7.24.034.B then closes the obvious workaround: a landlord may not charge a fee associated with the issuance of a notice to a tenant, including a fee for preparing and delivering a notice regarding late payment of rent, a notice to pay or vacate, or a notice of noncompliance with a rental agreement.

This is the single largest divergence between Seattle and the rest of Washington, and not one of the nine pages ranking for this query mentions it. Washington places no statutory ceiling at all on the amount of a residential late fee, so a template drawn to state law will happily carry a percentage-of-rent fee, a daily fee, and a separate notice-preparation charge. All three are unlawful inside the city. Note also what the state layer still contributes: RCW 59.18.170(2) forbids any late fee for rent paid within five days following its due date, and RCW 59.18.230(2)(i) makes a lease term charging one inside that window a prohibited provision carrying up to two months’ rent in statutory damages. The two rules stack — nothing before day six, and never more than ten dollars a month after it.

One figure to distrust while you are here. Several Washington guides state a late-fee limit of twenty dollars or twenty per cent of monthly rent, whichever is greater, and cite RCW 19.150.150. Chapter 19.150 is the Self-Service Storage Facilities act and speaks throughout of an owner and an occupant of a storage space. It has nothing to do with a residential tenancy in Seattle or anywhere else in the state.

What Is the Maximum Security Deposit in Seattle?

The deposit and the nonrefundable move-in fees together may not exceed the first full month’s rent. SMC 7.24.035.A provides that after 15 January 2017 the total amount of a security deposit and nonrefundable move-in fees may not exceed the amount of the first full month’s rent for the tenant’s dwelling unit; where rent is not paid or otherwise apportioned monthly, the total rent is prorated on an equal monthly basis for the sole purpose of applying the limit.

That is a ceiling on the two together, and there is a second ceiling inside it. SMC 7.24.035.B.4 caps the total amount of nonrefundable move-in fees at ten per cent of the first full month’s rent, with one carve-out: if the cost of a tenant screening report exceeds ten per cent, the excess may be included in the nonrefundable fee, but may not exceed the customary costs charged by a screening service in the City of Seattle. Rankers give the one-month figure and stop; the ten per cent sub-cap is the one that is actually breached, because a cleaning fee and a screening fee together will pass it on most Seattle rents.

SMC 7.24.035.B.1 then forbids everything else: other than nonrefundable move-in fees, security deposits, pet security deposits and last month’s rent, landlords are prohibited from charging tenants any one-time fee at the beginning of the tenancy. Administration fees, key fees, lease-preparation fees, amenity fees and move-in coordination fees have nowhere to sit. SMC 7.24.035.B.3 adds that if the tenant has paid a nonrefundable move-in fee for cleaning, the landlord may not deduct additional cleaning charges from the security deposit — a city-level echo of RCW 59.18.130(10).

Can a Seattle Tenant Pay the Deposit in Instalments?

Yes, and the choice is the tenant’s, not the landlord’s. SMC 7.24.035.C provides that tenants may pay security deposits and nonrefundable move-in fees in instalments, and that landlords may not impose any fee, charge any interest, or otherwise impose a cost on a tenant because a tenant elects to pay in instalments. The ladder depends on the length of the term:

Note the threshold that differs. The deposit ladder’s middle rung starts at 30 days; the last-month’s-rent ladder’s middle rung starts at 60 days. Any source that gives one ladder for both is wrong about one of them. In every row the tenant may instead propose an alternative schedule, and if the landlord agrees, SMC 7.24.035.C and SMC 7.24.038.C require that schedule to be described in the rental agreement — which is why this generator writes the election into the document rather than leaving it to a side letter.

There is exactly one situation in which the election disappears, and it has two limbs that must both hold. SMC 7.24.035.C.4 removes the instalment right where (a) the total of the security deposit and nonrefundable move-in fees does not exceed twenty-five per cent of the first full month’s rent and (b) payment of last month’s rent is not required at the inception of the tenancy. Satisfying one limb is not enough. Finally, SMC 7.24.035.C.5 provides that a tenant’s failure to pay according to an agreed schedule is a breach of the rental agreement subjecting the tenant to a ten-day notice under RCW 59.12.030(4) — a lease breach, not a failure to pay rent, which matters for which notice is served.

What Are the Pet Rules in a Seattle Lease?

A capped deposit, no other fee of any kind, and nothing at all for an assistance animal. SMC 7.24.038.A allows a pet damage deposit provided the total may not exceed twenty-five per cent of the first full month’s rent, regardless of when it is paid — so a landlord cannot take a small deposit at signing and top it up later. SMC 7.24.038.B forbids requiring a pet damage deposit at all where the pet serves as an assistance animal for the tenant, without preventing the landlord bringing an action for damage the assistance animal actually causes. SMC 7.24.038.D bars keeping any portion of the deposit for damage not caused by pets for which the tenant is responsible.

The subsection that most Seattle leases fail is SMC 7.24.038.E: other than the pet damage deposit authorized by subsection 7.24.038.A, the landlord may not charge the tenant any fee for keeping a pet. Monthly pet rent is a fee for keeping a pet. So is a nonrefundable pet fee, a pet administration fee and a pet screening charge. Rankers quote the twenty-five per cent figure and stop, leaving recurring pet charges in their own templates.

One drafting point that decides disputes: SMC 7.24.038.C requires the amount to be specified in the rental agreement where the pet’s occupancy begins at the beginning of the tenancy, and in an addendum to the rental agreement where it begins later. A landlord who approves a pet in month seven and records the deposit in an email has not complied.

Does Seattle Require Just Cause to End a Tenancy?

Yes, under SMC chapter 22.205 — and that chapter is separate from, and additional to, the state just cause statute. SMC 22.205.010 provides that an owner of a housing unit shall not evict or attempt to evict any tenant, or otherwise terminate or attempt to terminate the tenancy of any tenant, unless the owner can prove in court that just cause exists, and that the reasons for termination of tenancy listed below, and no others, shall constitute just cause under this Chapter 22.205. There are sixteen of them, lettered A through P. A Seattle landlord has to satisfy both regimes: the state grounds in RCW 59.18.650 and the city grounds here.

What Are the Sixteen Just Causes in Seattle?

Set out in outline, with the notice each requires. The full text governs; this is a map, not a substitute.

Two features deserve emphasis. Cause P is not satisfied by a general allegation: the notice has to name the crime and the facts supporting it, and the owner must have assured that SDCI has recorded receipt of a copy of the notice of termination. And cause P defines engaging in criminal activity narrowly — drug-related activity violating chapters 69.41, 69.50 or 69.52 RCW, or activity that is a crime under state law but only if it substantially affects the health or safety of other tenants or the owner.

What Defeats a Seattle Eviction Even When a Just Cause Exists?

Three things, and they sit in the opening paragraph of SMC 22.205.010 rather than in the list of causes. Regardless of whether just cause exists, an owner may not evict a residential tenant from a rental housing unit if:

• The unit is not registered with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections where SMC 22.214.040 requires registration. The ordinance adds that an owner is in compliance if the unit is registered before issuing a notice to terminate tenancy — so registering after the notice goes out does not repair it.
• The landlord has failed to comply with SMC 7.24.030.J and the reason for terminating is that the tenancy ended at the expiration of a specified term or period. A missed renewal offer does not merely cost money; it removes expiry of the term as a ground.
• SMC 22.205.080, 22.205.090 or 22.205.110 gives the tenant a defence — the December-to-March defence, the 2020 eviction moratorium defence, or the school-year defence.

Two further procedural rules run alongside. SMC 22.205.030 requires an owner terminating any tenancy protected by the chapter to advise the affected tenant in writing of the reasons for the termination and the facts in support of those reasons, with any termination notice required by law. And SMC 22.206.195.D requires owners to give notice of the tenant’s right to counsel in any notice required by chapter 22.205, subject to SDCI rulemaking, providing expressly that failure to include the required language on any notice issued pursuant to Chapter 22.205 shall be a defense to eviction. That right itself comes from SMC 22.206.195.A: any tenant residing in Seattle named in an unlawful detainer suit under chapter 59.18 RCW has the right to legal counsel free of charge if indigent, meaning unable to pay the cost of counsel because available funds are insufficient to retain it.

Can a Seattle Landlord Evict a Tenant Between December and March?

Sometimes — but SMC 22.205.080 creates a defence with three cumulative limbs, and its coverage test is widely misstated. It is a defence to eviction if all of the following hold: the eviction would result in the tenant having to vacate the housing unit at any time between December 1 and March 1; the tenant household is a moderate-income household as defined in SMC 23.84A.016; and the housing unit is owned by a person who owns more than four rental housing units in the City of Seattle, with “owns” including having an ownership interest in the units.

SMC 22.205.080.D then carves out a long list. The eviction may occur as otherwise allowed by law where the reason for termination is cause E; cause F, provided the tenant was given at least 90 days’ written notice; or causes J, K, L, M, N, O or P. It may also proceed where the tenant failed to comply with a three-day or ten-day notice to vacate for a drug-related activity nuisance under chapter 7.43 RCW or for maintenance of an unlawful business or conduct under RCW 59.12.030(5), or because the tenant’s conduct has a substantial detrimental impact on, or constitutes an imminent threat to, the health or safety of other tenants in the building or the owner.

SMC 22.205.080.E creates a rent mitigation fund for low-income households at risk of eviction during that window, and for housing providers who cannot evict because the unit is subject to income or rent restrictions. Two details bear on drafting: a tenant must request mitigation funds on or before the date a writ of restitution is executed, and when a landlord issues a notice to terminate tenancy due to nonpayment of rent, the notice must contain information about how to access the tenant mitigation fund — unless the Council has not appropriated funds for it. The information for the notice is adopted by SDCI by rule.

What Is Seattle’s School-Year Eviction Defence?

A defence with no income test and no ownership test at all — which makes it far broader than the winter one. Under SMC 22.205.110 it is a defence to eviction if the eviction would result in the tenant having to vacate the housing unit during the school year and the tenant is any of: a child or student; a person having legal custody of a child or student, including but not limited to a parent, step-parent, adoptive parent, guardian, foster parent or custodian; or an educator.

“Educator” is defined far more widely than most summaries suggest. SMC 22.205.110.C.2 defines it as any person who works at a school in Seattle as an employee or independent contractor of the school or its governing body, including but not limited to all teachers, substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, substitute paraprofessionals, administrators, administrative staff, counselors, social workers, psychologists, school nurses, speech pathologists, custodians, cafeteria workers, and maintenance workers. A school custodian and a cafeteria worker are inside the defence by name.

“School” is equally broad: any child care, early childhood education and assistance program, or head start facility, and any public, private or parochial institution providing educational instruction in any or all grades up to and including twelfth grade. And “school year” is the period from the first day of the academic year to the last day, as set by Seattle School District No. 1 or its successor on its calendar for first through twelfth grade students — taking, where multiple dates exist, the earliest first day and the latest last day. Because the district calendar moves annually, the window cannot be stated as fixed dates in a lease; it has to be looked up.

The carve-outs in SMC 22.205.110.B are a shorter list than the winter ones: causes E, J, K, L, M, N, O and P, a three-day notice to vacate for a drug-related activity nuisance under chapter 7.43 RCW, or maintenance of an unlawful business or conduct under RCW 59.12.030(5). Notably cause F — sale of a single-family dwelling — is absent from the school-year carve-out list, though it appears with a 90-day proviso in the winter one.

Does a Seattle Landlord Have to Offer a Lease Renewal?

Yes, and failing to do it costs three months’ rent. SMC 7.24.030.J provides that the landlord must offer the tenant for whom the tenancy for a specified time is expiring a new tenancy on reasonable terms for the same rental unit, with the new tenancy starting the day after the expiring one ends. The offer must be made between 60 and 90 days before expiry and before the landlord offers tenancy to any third party; the proposed rental agreement must be delivered in accordance with RCW 59.12.040; and the tenant must be given 30 days to accept or decline.

There is a rebuttable presumption that the landlord failed to offer a new tenancy on reasonable terms if the existing tenant declines the proposed agreement and, within 30 days after the tenant has vacated, the landlord lists the unit for rent on terms materially more favourable to a prospective tenant. A renewal offered at a rent the landlord has no intention of achieving is therefore not a safe way to clear a unit.

Four exceptions appear in SMC 7.24.030.J.2. The landlord may decline to offer a new tenancy if the tenant gave written notice at least 60 days before expiry of an intention to vacate voluntarily; if the landlord asserts a just cause under SMC 22.205.010 and complies with SMC 7.24.030.J.3; if the existing agreement provides for the tenancy to continue month to month after it expires; or if, more than 90 days before expiry, the landlord and tenant agreed a new rental agreement for the same unit starting the day after the previous one ends. Where a just cause is asserted, SMC 7.24.030.J.3 requires written notice in the same 60-to-90 day window informing the tenant of the cause and the facts supporting it, and makes the landlord responsible for every other requirement attaching to that cause — notice periods, relocation assistance and other remedies included.

The remedy is in SMC 7.24.030.J.4: a landlord who fails to comply with J.1 or J.3 shall be liable to the tenant in a private right of action for the cost of three months’ rent under the terms of the expired rental agreement, costs of suit, and reasonable attorney’s fees. And, as above, SMC 22.205.010 independently bars an eviction whose stated reason is expiry of the term where the landlord did not comply with SMC 7.24.030.J.

Can a Seattle Tenant Take Back an Agreement to Move Out?

Yes, and the second route has no stated deadline. SMC 22.205.120 provides that if a tenant has agreed to terminate a tenancy — including but not limited to a termination within a rental agreement or in a separate termination agreement — the tenant may rescind that agreement within ten business days after signing by delivering written notice of rescission to the landlord. And the tenant may rescind more than ten business days after signing if the tenant signed the agreement without representation by an attorney or other tenant advocate, or outside of a proceeding mediated by a neutral third party. The ordinance sets no outer limit on that second route. Nothing in the section is applied so as to create a power or duty in conflict with federal law, and federal requirements supersede in the event of conflict.

The practical consequence is that a cash-for-keys agreement signed at a kitchen table, with no advocate and no mediator, is rescindable by written notice at a time the ordinance does not fix. A landlord who wants finality needs either the ten business days to pass with the tenant represented, or a mediated proceeding.

What If a Seattle Landlord Does Not Carry Out the Stated Reason?

It is a violation, and for three of the causes it is a private right of action worth up to two thousand dollars. SMC 22.205.060 makes it a violation of chapter 22.205 to evict or attempt to evict, or to terminate or attempt to terminate a tenancy, using a notice referencing causes E, F, H, K, L or M without fulfilling or carrying out the stated reason for or condition justifying the termination. SMC 22.205.070 then gives the tenant, where the notice referenced causes E, F or H, a private right of action for damages up to two thousand dollars, costs of suit or arbitration, and reasonable attorney’s fees.

SMC 22.205.040 adds a front-end check on the same three-ish grounds. Where a tenant who has received a notice claiming cause E, F or M believes the owner does not intend to carry out the stated reason and complains to the Director, the owner must, within ten days of being notified by the Director of the complaint, complete and file with the Director a certification stating the owner’s intent to carry out the stated reason. Failing to file that certification after a tenant complaint shall be a defense for the tenant in an eviction action based on this ground. Two of the causes also carry their own rebuttable presumptions inside SMC 22.205.010 itself: the 60-consecutive-days occupancy test for cause E, and the marketing tests for cause F.

What Is the Seattle Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance?

A licence to rent at all, and the precondition to ever ending the tenancy. SMC 22.214.040.A provides that, after the applicable registration deadline, no one shall rent, subrent, lease, sublease, let, or sublet to any person or entity a rental housing unit without first obtaining and holding a current rental housing registration for the property where the rental housing unit is located. One registration identifies and covers all rental housing units on the property. For condominiums and cooperatives the property to be registered is the individual unit being rented plus the common areas accessible to its tenant, not the whole building, and an owner of several units in one such building may file a single application for them.

A registration is valid for two years from the date the Department issues it (SMC 22.214.040.C). A new owner must update the registration information within 60 days after closing, and where property is held in common the registration is updated when more than 50 per cent of the ownership changes. Any change to the information required by SMC 22.214.040.G — including the contact for repair requests and the list of units available for rent — must be updated within 60 days.

The application itself is more than a name and address. SMC 22.214.040.G requires the property address; the name, address and telephone number of the owners; the same for the applicant if different; the name, address and telephone number of the person or entity the tenant is to contact when requesting repairs, and that person’s business relationship to the owner; a list of all rental housing units on the property identified by a unique means; a declaration of compliance that all units available for rent are listed and meet or will meet the chapter’s standards before they are rented; and a statement of whether those conditions were established by the owner’s declaration or by physical inspection by a qualified rental housing inspector.

What Does Non-Registration Actually Cost a Seattle Landlord?

Two consequences, and the second is the one that decides cases.

The first is money. SMC 22.214.086.A.1 imposes a cumulative civil penalty of one hundred and fifty dollars per day for the first ten days a violation or failure to comply exists, and five hundred dollars per day for each day thereafter, with a separate violation existing for each day. SMC 22.214.086.A.2 adds a five thousand dollar penalty on top for anyone who knowingly submits or assists in submitting a falsified certificate of compliance, or knowingly submits falsified information on which one is issued. Penalties may be appealed to the Director in writing within ten days of service of the notice of violation, and may be reduced for good cause once compliance is achieved.

The second is possession. SMC 22.214.075.A provides that, in addition to enforcement under the chapter, and as further provided by Chapter 22.205, owners may not issue a notice to terminate tenancy to evict residential tenants from rental housing units if the units are not registered with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections as required by Section 22.214.040. The opening paragraph of SMC 22.205.010 says the same thing from the other direction and adds the timing rule: an owner is in compliance if the rental housing unit is registered before issuing a notice to terminate tenancy. An unregistered unit cannot be lawfully emptied, and a landlord who discovers the gap after serving a notice cannot cure it by registering and carrying on — the notice was issued while the unit was unregistered.

Which Seattle Rentals Are Exempt From Registration?

Ten categories, none of them a small-landlord exemption. SMC 22.214.030.A applies the registration provisions to all rental housing units except:

• Housing units lawfully used as short-term rentals, if the unit is the primary residence of the short-term rental operator as defined in SMC 23.84A.030;
• Units rented for not more than 12 consecutive months as a result of the property owner, who previously occupied the unit as a primary residence, taking a work-related leave of absence or assignment such as an academic sabbatical or temporary transfer;
• Units that are a unit unavailable for rent;
• Units in hotels, motels, inns, bed and breakfasts or similar accommodations providing lodging for transient guests, not including short-term rentals unless they qualify under the first bullet;
• Units in facilities licensed or required to be licensed under chapter 18.20, 70.128 or 72.36 RCW;
• Units in any state licensed hospital, hospice, community-care facility, intermediate-care facility or nursing home;
• Units in any convent, monastery or other facility occupied exclusively by members of a religious order or congregation;
• Emergency or temporary shelter or transitional housing accommodations;
• Units owned, operated or managed by a major educational or medical institution, or by a third party for the institution; and
• Units a government entity or housing authority owns, operates or manages, or units exempted from municipal regulation by federal, state or local law.

The inspection provisions carry their own separate exemptions in SMC 22.214.030.B, which are not the same list: units receiving government funding or subsidies that are inspected by a governmental entity at least once every five years as a funding condition, where the owner submits substantial-equivalence information within 60 days of being notified an inspection is required; units with conventional funding from private or government-insured lenders inspected by the lender at least once every five years on the same submission condition; and accessory dwelling units and detached accessory dwelling units provided the owner lives in one of the housing units on the property and an immediate family member, as identified in SMC 22.205.010.E, lives in the other. A property can therefore be exempt from inspection while remaining fully subject to registration.

How Does Seattle Rental Inspection Work?

SMC 22.214.050.A requires the Department to select properties for inspection by a qualified rental housing inspector on a random methodology adopted by rule, covering at least ten per cent of all registered rental properties per year. Newly constructed or substantially altered properties receiving a final inspection or first certificate of occupancy and registering after 1 January 2014 are kept out of the random pool for five years. SMC 22.214.050.B requires every registered property to be inspected at least once every ten years, and at least ten per cent of properties whose last inspection is more than five years old to be reinspected each year.

The Department gives at least 60 days’ advance written notice that an inspection is required. The certificate of compliance must be submitted within 60 days of that notice, and must be based on a physical inspection of the interior and exterior carried out not more than 60 days before the certificate date. An owner may inspect 100 per cent of the units and file only the certificate, or sample: 20 per cent of the units, rounded up, to a maximum of 50 units per building, with the Department selecting which. Where fewer than all units are inspected, the owner must also submit copies of the inspection results.

Failures cascade, and the cascade is the part landlords underestimate. If two or more selected units — or twenty per cent of the inspected units, whichever is greater — fail on the same checklist item, another 20 per cent of the units must be inspected, and if any of those fail on the same condition, 100 per cent of the units in the building must be inspected. If any single unit has five or more failures of different checklist items, the same escalation runs. And the Director may require up to 100 per cent inspection wherever a failure indicates potential maintenance or safety issues elsewhere in the building. A complaint about one unit can also trigger a Department inspection of that unit under SMC 22.214.050.C, and if it fails the SMC 22.214.050.M standards the Director may require the other units under the same registration to be inspected too.

What Documents Must a Seattle Landlord Hand Over at Signing?

Three, and two of them are municipal. The state layer requires an executed copy of the rental agreement to each tenant who signs it (RCW 59.18.065) and the signed, dated move-in checklist before any deposit is collected (RCW 59.18.260). Seattle adds the information packet and the registration copy.

The information packet, published as the Renter’s Handbook. SMC 7.24.070.A requires SDCI to prepare a packet containing a summary of chapter 7.24 and of the Housing and Building Maintenance Code, the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance, the Condominium Conversion Ordinance, the Cooperative Conversion Ordinance, the Mobile Homes and Mobile Home Parks Ordinance, the Third Party Billing Ordinance, the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance and the Washington State Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, describing the rights, obligations and remedies of landlords and tenants under each — plus information on how to register to vote and update a registration, including a voter registration form.

SMC 7.24.080.A then requires a copy of that summary to be provided to any tenant or prospective tenant by or on behalf of a landlord when such rental agreement is offered, whether or not such agreement is for a new or renewal rental agreement. For a renewal it may be provided electronically. And a landlord must distribute the summary annually to tenants having month-to-month tenancies — a recurring duty no ranking page mentions. SMC 7.24.080.B requires the voter registration material with a new agreement. SMC 7.24.080.C covers oral agreements: the packet must be given before the oral agreement is entered into, or as soon as reasonably possible afterwards.

The registration copy. SMC 22.214.040.I requires a copy of the current rental housing registration to be delivered to the tenants in each unit, or posted and kept posted where readily visible to all tenants, within 30 days after the Department issues it — and a copy of the current registration shall be provided by the property owner or owner’s agent to all new tenants at or before the time they take possession of the rental housing unit. That is a lease-stage document, and it belongs in the same envelope as the handbook.

What Is Seattle Tenant Relocation Assistance, and When Is It Owed?

The Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance, SMC chapter 22.210, is triggered by what the owner does to the building. SMC 22.210.040 applies it to displacement caused by demolition, change of use, substantial rehabilitation, or removal of rent or income restrictions from any dwelling unit in Seattle. “Substantial rehabilitation” is defined in SMC 22.210.030 as extensive structural repair or extensive remodeling that requires displacement of a tenant and either requires a building, electrical, plumbing or mechanical permit, or is valued at six thousand dollars or more for any tenant’s dwelling unit. That figure is low enough that ordinary renovation programmes reach it.

Eight exclusions appear in SMC 22.210.040.A–H: a unit demolished or vacated because of damage caused by an event beyond the owner’s control, including fire, civil commotion, malicious mischief, vandalism, tenant waste or natural disaster; a unit ordered vacated or demolished by the Director under SMC 22.206.260 because of damage within the owner’s control; a unit being converted to a condominium, which is regulated by SMC chapter 22.903 instead; a unit inside the boundaries of a major educational institution owned by it and occupied by its students, faculty or staff; a unit in a mobile home park unless rented by its occupant from the park owner or operator; a unit for which relocation assistance is required by other state, federal or other law, unless that law requires chapter 22.210 to apply; a unit for which the Seattle School District provides assistance under a Director-approved plan giving substantially equal or greater benefits; and a unit operated as emergency or temporary shelter for homeless persons by a non-profit organization or public agency.

The licence comes first. SMC 22.210.050 provides that prior to the demolition, change of use or substantial rehabilitation of any dwelling unit, and prior to removing rent or income restrictions where that displaces a tenant, an owner must obtain a tenant relocation license. The Director issues no permit for the work until the licence is obtained, and in a restriction-removal case an owner may not increase the rent prior to obtaining a tenant relocation license.

The sequence that follows is prescribed in detail: relocation information packets obtained from the Director and personally delivered to an adult tenant of each affected unit within 30 days of the licence application, with signed delivery receipts or sworn statements filed within ten days of the last delivery (depositing them in the mail is expressly not adequate delivery); tenant certification forms returned to the Director within 30 days, extendable once for good cause; the Director’s eligibility notices sent by both regular and certified mail; the owner’s share lodged within five days of that notice; and only then the 90-day notice on a Director-provided form, delivered personally or by registered or certified mail, with a copy posted at every entrance and proof of delivery filed within 20 days. No tenant relocation licence may issue until 90 days after delivery of that notice to all affected tenants.

How Much Is Seattle Relocation Assistance, and Who Publishes It?

State it as a mechanism, because it moves every year. SMC 22.210.130.A provides that low-income tenants displaced by demolition, change of use, substantial rehabilitation or removal of rent or income restrictions, who comply with the chapter, shall be paid a total relocation assistance payment in the amount of two thousand dollars to be paid by the City, subject to appropriation — and then that the amount of relocation assistance shall be adjusted annually by the percentage amount of change in the housing component of the Consumer Price Index, as published by the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Such adjustments shall be published in a Director’s rule.

So the authority is the ordinance, the publisher is the Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, and the vehicle is a Director’s Rule issued under the rulemaking power in SMC 3.06.040. The current rule is SDCI Director’s Rule 10-2026, published 23 April 2026 and effective 15 May 2026, which supersedes Director’s Rule 4-2025. Its stated methodology is the CPI for All Urban Consumers rather than for Urban Wage Earners, on the ground that CPI-U covers 94 per cent of the population, applied to the housing component for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metropolitan Statistical Area, which changed by 3.7 per cent in 2025. Applying that gives five thousand five hundred and fifty-two dollars and ten cents, rounded to the nearest dollar. The rule reads: The amount of relocation assistance required by subsection A of SMC 22.210.130 shall be five thousand five hundred and fifty-two dollars. This amount shall apply to all Tenant Relocation License applications that are submitted on or after May 15, 2026.

Who pays. SMC 22.210.110.A makes the owner responsible for one-half of the total relocation assistance due to eligible tenants, with the City responsible for the other half — so on the current figure that is two thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars from each side per eligible household. The owner’s half is lodged with the Director as a cash deposit or an irrevocable letter of credit with terms acceptable to the Director, and the Director may call for more if the sum proves insufficient.

Who gets it. Only low-income tenants, which SMC 22.210.030 defines as total combined income per dwelling unit at or below fifty per cent of the median income, adjusted for family size, in King County. A tenant who moved in after the licence application, master use permit, restriction-removal notice or building permit is still eligible unless the owner advised that tenant in writing, before occupancy, that the tenant is ineligible and that the unit may be demolished, substantially rehabilitated or changed in use, or will have restrictions removed and when. SMC 22.210.100.B is emphatic about the consequence: any tenant who is not advised in writing as provided in subsection 22.210.100.A.2 prior to taking occupancy shall be entitled to full relocation benefits. The owner must keep a copy signed by the tenant acknowledging receipt and its date.

Tenants also carry deadlines. A tenant who fails or refuses to submit the certification form, refuses to provide income information within 30 days of the packet or an extension, or intentionally misrepresents material information is not entitled to assistance (SMC 22.210.090.B). And SMC 22.210.130.E deems the right waived where the tenant does not submit a completed request within 180 days after vacating, or within 180 days after the restriction removal or the eligibility notice, whichever is later, or does not cash the cheque within 180 days.

What Is Seattle Economic Displacement Relocation Assistance?

A second, entirely separate scheme — and the trigger is a rent increase, not a building project. SMC chapter 22.212 was added by Ordinance 126451 in 2022. SMC 22.212.060.C states the relationship in terms: payment by the owner of economic displacement relocation assistance under this Chapter 22.212 does not constitute compliance with the tenant relocation assistance requirements of Chapter 22.210. An owner can owe both.

The trigger is defined in SMC 22.212.010 by reference to a required rent-increase notice, meaning the notice required by SMC 7.24.030.A where it is either a one-time increase of ten per cent or more, or a one-time increase of less than ten per cent which, in combination with all other rent increases taking effect within either the 12 months before its effective date or the household’s tenancy in the unit — whichever period is shorter — will result in a cumulative increase of ten per cent or more. Four staged increases of three per cent inside a year do not escape the chapter.

Who qualifies. Under SMC 22.212.030 a household representative is entitled to assistance if a tenant of the unit received a required rent-increase notice; the representative complies with the SMC 22.212.040 deadlines; after receiving the notice but before the increase takes effect the household vacates or a member gives the owner written notice of the date the household intends to vacate; and the household is a low-income household as defined in SMC 23.84A.016.

The mechanics run against the owner’s cash. The application is due within 180 days after a tenant received the notice or 60 days after the increase took effect, whichever is later, with a 60-day extension available for good cause requested before the period expires. The Director notifies the owner within five days of receiving the application, and within ten days of a complete application sends both sides a notice stating entitlement and amount. The owner must pay the Director within seven days of receiving that notice, and may not reduce the payment by any amount the owner believes the tenant owes — a security deposit for damage, for example (SMC 22.212.060.B). The Director pays the household representative within 14 days of sending the notice, and the payment is not treated as income for any City benefit program. If the household rescinds its notice or fails to vacate on the stated date before payment is made, the representative must withdraw the application in writing.

Can a Seattle Tenant Add a Roommate?

Largely yes, and the landlord’s power to screen the newcomer is narrower than most leases assume. For agreements entered into after 30 June 2020, SMC 7.24.030.I provides that — subject to the landlord’s screening authority in the same subsection — the tenants, a tenant’s immediate family, an additional resident who is not a member of the tenant’s immediate family, and the additional resident’s immediate family may reside in a rental unit, provided the total number of persons does not exceed occupancy limits established by federal, state or local law.

“Immediate family” is defined broadly in SMC 7.24.020: spouses, domestic partners, former spouses and former domestic partners, adult persons related by marriage, siblings, persons 16 years of age or older who presently reside together or have resided together in the past and who have or have had a dating relationship, and persons in a parent-child relationship including parents, stepparents, grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians, foster parents and custodians of minors.

Four rules follow. The tenant must inform the landlord of each additional person’s name within 30 days following the commencement of occupancy. Landlords shall not impose conditions on any person other than a tenant, including but not limited to using additional screening criteria, that are beyond those imposed on a tenant to qualify for or obtain occupancy. If one of the tenants or occupants vacates before the end of the tenancy, the landlord shall not reduce the number of persons allowed to occupy the unit for the remainder of the tenancy. And while a landlord may screen a potential tenant and additional residents other than the tenant’s immediate family, a screening report obtained for a member of the tenant’s immediate family under SMC 14.08.040.F and chapter 14.09 may not be used to exclude that person from occupancy or from becoming a party, except as SMC 7.24.032 provides.

A landlord may require by written notice that any resident who is not immediate family become a party to the agreement; if that person fails to do so within 30 days of receiving the notice, they must vacate within 45 days of receiving it (SMC 7.24.030.I.6). SMC 7.24.031 handles succession when the named tenant leaves early: members of that tenant’s immediate family occupying the unit may become parties on the same terms that applied to the vacating tenant, and other residents may do so if they have resided in the unit for at least six consecutive months immediately prior to the tenant’s vacation, subject to screening. The same 30-day and 45-day mechanics apply.

The coverage test is in SMC 7.24.032. Neither SMC 7.24.030.I nor SMC 7.24.031 applies to denial of occupancy by landlords of federally assisted housing subject to federal regulations requiring denial of tenancy — including where a household member is subject to a lifetime sex offender registration requirement under a state program or has been convicted of manufacturing or producing methamphetamine on the premises of federally assisted housing — or to the renting of a dwelling unit or accessory dwelling unit where the owner occupies a part of the dwelling unit or accessory dwelling unit.

How Does Seattle’s First-In-Time Rule Work, and Is It Still Law?

It is still law, and it governs how the tenancy is filled before any lease is drafted. SMC 14.08.050 makes it an unfair practice, effective 1 January 2017 and after complying with SMC 7.24.030.J where that applies, for a person to fail to do four things.

First, give notice of the criteria. The owner must notify a prospective occupant, in writing or by posting in the leasing office, in the building where the unit is located and — if it exists — on the website advertising the unit, at the same time as providing the information RCW 59.18.257(1) requires, of: the criteria the owner will use to screen prospective occupants and the minimum threshold for each criterion that the applicant must meet to move forward, including any different or additional criteria used in an individualized assessment related to criminal records; all information, documentation and other submissions necessary for screening under those criteria; how to request additional time to complete an application to ensure meaningful access or a reasonable accommodation and how that affects the receipt date; and whether the SMC 14.08.050.A.4 exceptions apply to the unit.

Second, timestamp. The owner must note the date and time of receipt of every completed rental application, whether submitted by mail, electronically or in person.

Third, screen in order. Completed applications must be screened in chronological order of receipt to determine whether the applicant meets all the criteria necessary for approval.

Fourth, offer to the first qualified applicant. The owner must offer tenancy to the first prospective occupant meeting all the screening criteria. If that applicant does not accept within 48 hours of the offer, the owner reviews the next completed application in chronological order until an applicant accepts.

The detail that decides disputes sits in SMC 14.08.050.A.3. Where, after screening, the owner needs more information than the notice listed, takes an adverse action described in RCW 59.18.257(1)(c), or decides to conduct an individualized assessment, the application shall not be rendered incomplete. The owner must notify the applicant in writing, by phone or in person of what is needed and of a specified period of at least 72 hours to provide it — and the owner’s failure to give that notice does not affect the applicant’s right to 72 hours. If the information arrives inside that period, the original submission date is preserved for chronological ordering. If it does not, the owner may treat the application as incomplete or reject it.

Requests for additional time are handled the same way. Where an applicant needs more time to submit a complete application to ensure meaningful access or for a reasonable accommodation, the owner documents the date and time of the request, and that becomes the receipt time for ordering purposes; the owner shall not unreasonably deny the request. If it is denied, the actual receipt time of the complete application governs. The owner may require reasonable documentation of the need for additional time for meaningful access — but not for a reasonable accommodation request — and must say so when granting the extension.

The coverage tests. The duty to offer to the first qualified applicant does not apply where the owner is legally obligated to set the unit aside to serve specific vulnerable populations, or voluntarily agrees to do so, including for homeless persons, survivors of domestic violence, persons with low income, and persons referred by non-profit organizations or social service agencies. And SMC 14.08.050.E provides that nothing in this Section 14.08.050 shall apply to an accessory dwelling unit or detached accessory dwelling unit wherein the owner or person entitled to possession thereof maintains a permanent residence, home or abode on the same lot.

Legal status. The rule was challenged and upheld: the Washington Supreme Court decided Yim v. City of Seattle in 2019 and held that the first-in-time rule did not effect a taking. The section has been amended since, most recently by Ordinance 127305 in 2025. It is in force.

Can a Seattle Landlord Ask About Criminal History?

The answer changed in 2023, and most templates have not caught up — but the change is narrower than the headlines suggested. Seattle’s Fair Chance Housing Ordinance is SMC chapter 14.09, whose current chapter title is Use of Screening Records in Housing. The City’s own published position, on the Seattle Office for Civil Rights criminal-history-protections page, is that following the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Yim v. City of Seattle the Office will no longer enforce the portion of the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance that bans a landlord from inquiring about a tenant’s or applicant’s criminal history, but will continue to enforce all other portions of the FCHO, including bans (subject to exceptions) on requiring a tenant or applicant to disclose their criminal history or taking an adverse action based on that history.

So: the inquiry ban is dark. The disclosure-requirement ban and the adverse-action ban are not. A landlord who asks the question and then declines the applicant because of the answer has not stepped into a safe harbour — the second half of the ordinance is the half still being enforced. Note also that two different cases share the name Yim v. City of Seattle: the 2019 Washington Supreme Court decision upholding first-in-time, and the 2023 Ninth Circuit decision on the criminal-history inquiry provision. They are about different ordinances and reach different results, and conflating them is an easy way to get both wrong.

How Does Seattle Treat Source of Income and Subsidies?

Seattle goes further than the state, and the difference is arithmetic rather than principle. The state rule, RCW 59.18.255, already forbids refusing to rent based on source of income and requires any rent voucher or subsidy to be subtracted from the monthly rent before income criteria are applied, with liability of up to four and a half times the monthly rent. SMC 14.08.040.F makes it an unfair practice for an owner or lessor, when determining tenant eligibility for leasing, subleasing or renting, to apply income screening criteria such as an income-to-rent ratio inconsistently with two rules: any payment from a Section 8 or other subsidy program that reduces the amount of rent for which the tenant is responsible must be subtracted from the total of the monthly rent, and all sources of income must be included as a part of the tenant’s total income, except where the unit is subject to income or rent restrictions under a housing regulatory or subsidy agreement that determines income differently.

Applying a three-times-rent test to the full contract rent of a voucher holder is the classic breach: the test has to run against the tenant’s portion.

SMC 14.08.040.H adds two duties no state statute imposes. It is an unfair practice to fail to cooperate with a potential or current occupant in completing and submitting required information and documentation for that person to be eligible for or to receive rental assistance from Section 8 or another subsidy program. And it is an unfair practice to fail to accept a written pledge or commitment by a subsidy program to pay past due or current housing costs, and court costs or reasonable attorney’s fees already incurred and directly related to recovery of the unpaid housing costs — provided all of the following hold: the pledge, alone or combined with other subsidy payments and any verifiable income, is sufficient to bring the occupant current; it is received before a notice under RCW 59.12.030(3) or (4) or RCW 59.04.040 is issued, or before the compliance period in such a notice ends; it commits the owner to no conditions beyond timely providing information necessary for payment, and specifically does not require the owner to agree not to pursue future unlawful detainer actions; and the provider commits to paying within five business days of issuing the pledge, directly to the owner where possible.

The fair-housing chapter has its own coverage test, and it is not the same one that governs the deposit rules. SMC 14.08.190.A provides that nothing in chapter 14.08 applies to the renting, subrenting, leasing or subleasing of a single-family dwelling wherein the owner or person entitled to possession maintains a permanent residence, home or abode — except for SMC 14.08.040.B and .C, SMC 14.08.045, SMC 14.08.060 and SMC 14.08.070.A and .B, which continue to apply. So an owner-occupied single-family rental is outside most of the chapter but remains bound by the retaliation, harassment and coercion rule, the real-estate-transaction discrimination rule and the unfair-inquiry and advertising rules. SMC 14.08.190.B also confirms what the chapter protects by listing the factors a choice among prospective tenants may not rest on, which include alternative source of income, participation in a Section 8 or other subsidy program, political ideology, honorably discharged veteran or military status, caste, citizenship or immigration status, and the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a disabled person. Further exclusions in the same section cover religious organizations, single-sex residential halls, senior and disability housing meeting the federal definition, unemancipated minors, and government-sponsored affordable housing set-asides.

Two further Seattle fair-housing rules bear on leasing. SMC 14.08.040.I makes it an unfair practice to advertise, institute or maintain a preferred employer program, with a grandfathering provision only for programs that were part of an unexpired rental agreement when the ordinance introduced as Council Bill 118755 took effect. And SMC 14.08.015 requires all persons required to post a fair housing poster under 24 C.F.R. Part 110 to also post a Seattle Open Housing Poster at the same locations the federal regulation requires.

Which Acts Are Prohibited to a Seattle Landlord?

SMC 22.206.180 lists them, and SMC 22.206.305 prices them per incident. Except as Title 22 or the state act specifically requires or allows, it is unlawful for an owner to: change or tamper with any lock on a door used by the tenant; remove any door, window, fuse box or other equipment, fixture or furniture; request, cause or allow any owner-supplied gas, electricity, water or other utility service to be discontinued; remove or exclude a tenant from the premises except pursuant to legal process; or evict, increase rent, reduce services, increase the obligations of a tenant, or otherwise impose, threaten or attempt any punitive measure against a tenant because the tenant has in good faith reported violations of Title 22 to SDCI or the Seattle Police Department, or otherwise asserted, exercised or attempted to exercise any legal right arising out of the occupancy.

Entry is on the same list. SMC 22.206.180.F makes it unlawful for an owner to enter a tenant’s unit or premises except at reasonable times with the tenant’s consent after at least two days’ notice of intent to enter for inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, alterations, improvements or services, or at least one day’s notice to exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors — or in an emergency, or in case of abandonment as defined by state law. That mirrors RCW 59.18.150, which supplies the further content requirements: the exact time and date or a stated window, and a telephone number for the tenant to object or reschedule.

Tenant organising is protected by name. SMC 22.206.180.G makes it unlawful to prohibit a tenant, or the tenant’s authorized agent when accompanied by the tenant, from distributing leaflets in a lobby, other common areas and at or under tenants’ doors; posting information on bulletin boards subject to generally applicable rules that may not specifically exclude tenant-organising material where other tenant postings are allowed; initiating contact with tenants; assisting tenants to participate in tenant organisation activities; and holding meetings, including political caucuses or forums for public officials or candidates, unattended by management, at reasonable times and in an orderly manner, in community or recreation rooms open to tenants — or, where no such room is available, in common areas including a laundry room, hallway or lobby.

The remedy is SMC 22.206.305: nothing in Title 22 limits a tenant’s private right of action under chapter 59.18 RCW, and when an owner commits an act prohibited by Section 22.206.180, a tenant has a private right of action against the owner for actual damages caused by the prohibited act. To the extent that actual damages are unliquidated or difficult to prove, a court may award liquidated damages of up to three thousand dollars instead of actual damages. Such damages when awarded are to be on a per incident, rather than a per tenant, basis. The prevailing party may recover costs and attorney fees. Per incident, not per tenant, is the phrase to notice in a multi-unit building.

Does Seattle Have Its Own Retaliation Rule?

Yes, and its rebuttal standard is higher than the state’s. SMC 7.24.110.A makes it a violation of chapter 7.24 for any person to retaliate against a tenant or prospective tenant because they exercised or attempted to exercise rights conferred by that chapter. Retaliation is defined as any of four things: refusing to provide, accept or approve a rental application or a rental agreement; applying more onerous terms, conditions or privileges, including increased rent, to a person who asserts those rights than to one who does not; misrepresenting any material fact when providing a rental reference about a tenant; and threatening to allege to a government agency that a tenant or prospective tenant, or a family member of one, is not lawfully in the United States. Neither of those last two appears in RCW 59.18.250.

SMC 7.24.110.B provides that if a person takes any of those actions within 90 days of the date a tenant or prospective tenant exercises rights conferred by chapter 7.24, the action is presumed retaliatory — and the presumption may be rebutted only by producing clear and convincing evidence that the actions were not retaliatory. The state presumption in RCW 59.18.250 is a rebuttable presumption affecting the burden of proof and comes with three counter-presumptions running the landlord’s way; the Seattle presumption has none of them and demands a higher standard of proof to displace.

Which Lease Clauses Are Void in Seattle?

Everything RCW 59.18.230 voids, plus three municipal voiding rules on top. The state list is the ten prohibited terms in RCW 59.18.230(2) — waiver of chapter rights; class-action waiver; nondisclosure agreement about the lease or the offer; confession of judgment; the tenant agreeing to pay the landlord’s attorneys’ fees; exculpation or indemnity; a particular arbitrator agreed at the outset; arbitration unless the landlord pays the whole cost and the agreement is notarized; late fees inside the five-day window; and rent by electronic means only — with statutory damages of up to two times the monthly rent for knowing use, plus the separate abolition of distress for rent and voiding of any lien on the tenant’s personal property in RCW 59.18.230(4).

Seattle then adds:

• SMC 7.24.030.L: any provisions in a rental agreement that violate SMC 7.24.030 are null and void and of no lawful force and effect.
• SMC 22.205.020: any rental agreement provision which waives or purports to waive any right, benefit or entitlement created by the just cause chapter is deemed void and of no lawful force or effect.
• SMC 7.24.100.A: no rental agreement, oral or written, may provide that the tenant waives or forgoes rights or remedies under chapter 7.24.

There is one narrow escape in SMC 7.24.100.B, and it is drafted so that no template can use it. A landlord and tenant may agree in writing to waive specific requirements of chapter 7.24 only if all of four conditions are met: the agreement is in writing and identifies the specific provisions to be waived; the agreement may not appear in a standard form written lease or rental agreement; there is no substantial inequality in the bargaining position of the two parties; and the attorney for the tenant has approved the agreement in writing as complying with the first three. The second condition disqualifies every downloadable lease in this SERP, this one included, by its own terms. This generator therefore waives nothing.

Alongside the voiding rules sits SMC 7.24.030.B, which bars a month-to-month or periodic agreement entered into after 29 September 1993 from requiring occupancy for a minimum term of more than one month or period, from imposing penalties — whether designated as “additional rent” or fees — where the tenant lawfully terminates and vacates before such a prohibited minimum term ends, or from requiring forfeiture of all or part of a deposit for doing so.

Can a Seattle Lease Make the Tenant Pay the Landlord’s Attorney Fees?

No — and the reason is state law, not city law, which is why the answer is the same as on our Washington page. RCW 59.18.230(2)(e) provides that no rental agreement may provide that the tenant agrees to pay the landlord’s attorneys’ fees, except as authorized in this chapter and awarded by a court pursuant to a judgment. Both limbs of that exception point away from the lease: it preserves fee awards that chapter 59.18 itself creates and that a court makes. It is not the prevailing-party exception some states have, and a reciprocal “prevailing party” clause does not cure it, because the tenant is still agreeing to pay the landlord’s fees. This form contains no fee field and generates no fee clause.

Fees nevertheless arise constantly, and in Seattle they arise in more places than elsewhere. Alongside the roughly fourteen statutory fee provisions in chapter 59.18 — entry, prohibited provisions, retaliation, holding fees, source of income, screening, deposits, ouster, utility shutoff, abandonment, wrongful eviction and unlawful rent increases — the Seattle code adds at least six of its own, and every one of them runs toward the tenant:

SMC 22.206.295 adds one more, outside the lease: a property owner who does not deposit emergency relocation assistance with the City for a tenant under SMC 22.206.260.F and .G is subject to a private civil action to recover the amount, attorney fees and court costs.

Does Seattle Set Its Own Habitability Standards?

Yes, and one of them is a number state law does not supply. SMC 22.206.160.B.3 requires the owner of a building containing rented housing units, regardless of any lease provision purporting to transfer the responsibility, to maintain heat in all habitable rooms, baths, and toilet rooms at an inside temperature, as measured at a point 3 feet above the floor and 2 feet from exterior walls, of at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. and 58 degrees Fahrenheit between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 7 a.m. from September 1 until June 30, unless the tenant is contractually obligated to provide heat. RCW 59.18.060 requires facilities adequate to supply heat; it does not name a temperature, an hour or a season.

The same subsection carries Seattle’s detector rules, which are more specific than the state’s. Owners must install smoke detectors on the ceiling or on the wall not less than four nor more than twelve inches from the ceiling, at points centrally located in a corridor, inside each sleeping room, and immediately outside each sleeping room; install carbon monoxide alarms outside each sleeping room and on each level of the unit, and inside any sleeping room containing a fuel-burning appliance or fireplace; test both when each unit becomes vacant; make all needed repairs or replace them with operating devices before a unit is reoccupied; and instruct tenants as to the purpose, operation, and maintenance of the detectors and alarms and have the tenant sign a statement of understanding. That signed statement is a lease-stage document in its own right.

SMC 22.206.160.A adds duties that apply regardless of any lease provision or agreement purporting to transfer them to an operator, manager or tenant: removing garbage, rubbish and debris; securing vacant buildings; exterminating pests that menace public health, safety or welfare; removing imminently hazardous articles or substances; locking or removing doors and lids on outdoor storage furniture, appliances and furnaces; maintaining the building and equipment to the minimum standards in SMC 22.206.010 through 22.206.140 and in safe condition, except for maintenance duties the code places on the tenant, and except for owner-occupied units where no rooms are rented; affixing a legible street number at least two inches high; maintaining the building to the Seattle Existing Building Code; complying with SDCI emergency orders; furnishing tenants with keys for the required locks on their units and building entrance doors; and maintaining electricity, water and gas service equipment for each unit in good working order.

The tenant’s side is SMC 22.206.170: clean and sanitary condition of the occupied part; proper storage and disposal of garbage; complying with reasonable requests for pest prevention and granting reasonable access for it; reasonable care of electrical and plumbing fixtures; repairing or paying for damage caused by the tenant’s negligent or intentional acts or those of invitees or licensees, unless the tenant is exempt from liability under SMC 7.24.030.H; granting reasonable access for inspection or the owner’s code-required maintenance; not storing imminently dangerous materials; and testing and keeping in working condition, including replacing batteries, all smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms required by law.

Is a Seattle Tenant Protected When a Perpetrator Damages the Property?

Yes, and the protection is Seattle’s rather than the state’s. SMC 7.24.030.H, for agreements entered into after 31 December 2019, provides that a tenant is not liable for damage to the landlord’s property that was caused by a perpetrator of domestic violence, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, or stalking where two conditions are met. The tenant must notify the landlord in writing that the tenant, a family or household member, or an intimate partner was a victim and that the damage was caused by the perpetrator — regardless of whether the property damage occurred during an act of that violence, assault, harassment or stalking. And the tenant must provide documentation signed and dated by a qualified third party stating that the report was made, the time and date the damage occurred, the location, a brief description of it, and that the tenant informed the third party of the perpetrator’s name.

One detail is easy to get backwards: the record of the report provided to the tenant must not include the alleged perpetrator’s name. The qualified third party keeps a copy and notes the name on its own retained version. A valid order of protection may serve as the written record if it contains the five listed elements. “Qualified third party” is defined in SMC 7.24.020 as a law enforcement officer, a person subject to chapter 18.120 RCW, an employee of a state court, a licensed mental health professional or other licensed counselor, a trained advocate employed by a crime victim or witness program as defined in RCW 7.69.020, a member of the clergy as defined in RCW 26.44.020, or a person performing case management employed at a social service agency. Providing the verification does not waive the confidential or privileged nature of the communication, and no record obtained from the disclosure may be used against the victim in other proceedings without a written waiver.

The landlord is not left without a route. SMC 7.24.030.H.3 preserves the landlord’s ability to seek compensation from the perpetrator, and SMC 7.24.033 establishes a landlord mitigation program to reimburse an owner for that damage — wall gouges and holes, damage to doors and cabinets including hardware, carpet stains or burns, cracked tiles or hard surfaces, broken windows, damage to disposals, toilets, sinks, sink handles, ceiling fans and lighting. Reimbursement is conditioned, among other things, on the property having been registered where SMC 22.214.040 requires it, on the RCW 59.18.260 move-in checklist having been completed, signed and dated by both parties with a copy given to the tenant, on the damage having been repaired, and on an insurance claim having been made and denied. Two of those conditions are things the landlord either did or did not do at the start of the tenancy.

Where Does Seattle’s Power to Do All This Come From?

From everywhere except the rent figure itself. RCW 35.21.830 preempts cities and towns from regulating the amount of rent charged for residential rental structures or sites, and has done since 1981. That preemption binds local government; it has never bound the Legislature, which is why a statewide rent-increase limit at RCW 59.18.700 and a local preemption can coexist without contradiction. It also explains the shape of the Seattle code: the city cannot say what the rent may be, so it legislates the notice before an increase, the fees that ride alongside rent, the deposits taken at the start, the grounds on which a tenancy may end, the documents that must change hands, and the consequences of displacement. Every one of those is outside the preempted field.

The state rent-increase limit still applies inside Seattle, and it is stated on our statewide page as a mechanism rather than a number for the same reason this page states the relocation figure as a mechanism: RCW 59.18.700(1)(c) requires the Department of Commerce to calculate and publish the maximum for the following calendar year from the June twelve-month change in the consumer price index for all urban consumers, all items, Seattle area. A Seattle landlord raising rent therefore has to clear three separate hurdles: the state percentage limit, the Seattle 180-day notice, and the state prescribed notice form — plus the SDCI economic-displacement notice riding along with it.

Seattle Lease Ordinance Reference Table

Every provision below was read in the Seattle Municipal Code itself on 6 August 2026, on a code face codified through Ordinance 127423 of 14 April 2026. Where a rule is state law rather than city law it is marked as such.

What the Ranking Seattle Lease Templates Get Wrong

Nine pages currently rank for this query. Three of them are not Seattle pages at all — they cover statewide Washington and carry no municipal code content, so a reader who follows their template into a Seattle tenancy gets the ninety-day notice, no late-fee ceiling, no move-in cap, no just cause chapter and no registration duty. Of the six that do address Seattle, the recurring failures are these.

• The just cause citation is out of date. The rules are SMC chapter 22.205, recodified from 22.206.160.C, with a Code Reviser’s note recording the move. Pages citing the old subsection are pointing at a place the rules no longer are.
• The ten dollar late fee ceiling is absent everywhere. Not one of the nine mentions SMC 7.24.034, and several repeat the statewide position that Washington caps no late fee — true of the state, false of the city.
• The 180 days is described as a lease term rather than a deemed term. SMC 7.24.030.A reads it into the agreement; a lease promising ninety days does not get ninety days.
• The second notice is missing. No page mentions that SMC 22.212.020.B requires the SDCI economic-displacement notice to travel with a rent-increase notice.
• The ten per cent sub-cap is missing. Pages give the one-month ceiling and stop, leaving the SMC 7.24.035.B.4 fee cap — the one most often breached — unstated.
• Monthly pet rent survives in their templates. SMC 7.24.038.E forbids any fee for keeping a pet other than the capped deposit.
• The instalment ladders are conflated. Deposits step at 30 days; last month’s rent steps at 60.
• No coverage tests are stated at all. The owner-occupied single-family carve-out in SMC 7.24.035.H, the accessory-dwelling-unit carve-out from first-in-time in SMC 14.08.050.E, and the federally assisted housing and owner-occupancy carve-outs from the roommate rules in SMC 7.24.032 appear on none of them.
• The seasonal defences are described from a summary rather than the ordinance. Even SDCI’s own page describes the December-to-March defence as reaching renters in buildings with four or more units; SMC 22.205.080.C turns on an owner who owns more than four rental housing units in the City, and adds a moderate-income requirement.
• Registration is treated as a fee, not a precondition. None explains that an unregistered unit cannot lawfully be served with a termination notice.
• The handbook is described without its remedy. SMC 7.24.060.B makes it a termination right plus up to a thousand dollars.
• Neither relocation scheme appears. SMC chapters 22.210 and 22.212 are covered by nobody, so neither the indexed Director’s Rule figure nor the three-times-housing-costs formula reaches a reader.
• The criminal-history position is stated as it was before 2023. The City no longer enforces the inquiry ban, and still enforces the disclosure and adverse-action bans.

Common Mistakes on Seattle Lease Agreements

Using a Washington template and adding a Seattle address. It is the single commonest error, and it is expensive because SMC 7.24.060.A.2 prices the mere inclusion of a non-compliant provision at up to three thousand dollars. A statewide form will typically carry a ninety-day increase clause, a percentage late fee, a notice-preparation charge, a full-deposit-at-signing term and monthly pet rent. That is five exposures in one document.

Registering after serving the notice. SMC 22.205.010 says compliance means the unit is registered before the notice is issued. A landlord who discovers the gap mid-eviction cannot repair it retrospectively.

Treating the renewal window as a formality. The 60-to-90 day offer is worth three months’ rent if missed, and missing it also removes expiry of the term as a ground for eviction. Diarise it on day one of the fixed term, not in the last month.

Offering a renewal nobody could accept. The rebuttable presumption in SMC 7.24.030.J.1 fires where the tenant declines and the unit is relisted within 30 days on materially more favourable terms.

Charging for the notice. A notice-preparation or service fee is prohibited twice over — once by SMC 7.24.034.A’s “no other fee” language and again by SMC 7.24.034.B’s ban on fees associated with issuing a notice.

Screening the roommate harder than the tenant. SMC 7.24.030.I.3 forbids imposing any condition on a non-tenant beyond those imposed on a tenant, and SMC 7.24.030.I.5 forbids excluding a member of the tenant’s immediate family on the basis of a screening report.

Applying a three-times-rent test to the whole rent for a voucher holder. SMC 14.08.040.F requires the subsidy to be subtracted first.

Assuming a signed move-out agreement ends the matter. SMC 22.205.120 lets an unrepresented tenant rescind on a timetable the ordinance does not close.

Printing a relocation figure in a lease or a policy document. The number changes annually by Director’s Rule. Print the mechanism and look up the current rule.

Skipping the handbook because the tenant is renewing. SMC 7.24.080.A applies to a renewal as well as a new agreement, and requires annual redistribution to a month-to-month tenant.

Tenant Screening — the First Line of Defense

Seattle is a jurisdiction where a marginal tenancy is unusually expensive to unwind. A landlord cannot end a tenancy without one of sixteen enumerated causes, cannot end it at all if the unit is unregistered, may be met with a seasonal defence for a third of the year, faces a three-thousand-dollar exposure for a badly drafted clause and a three-months-rent exposure for a missed renewal window, and may not recover attorney fees by contract at all. Every one of those costs is incurred after the tenant moves in. The one decision that is still fully within the landlord’s control is who moves in — and Seattle regulates that decision too, so it has to be made carefully as well as early.

Seattle also regulates what a screening decision may rest on, so it is worth reading the state screening rules in RCW 59.18.257 alongside the city ones; our Washington tenant screening laws guide sets out the state side, and our Washington landlord-tenant laws overview covers the rest of the statutory background.

That means running the same screening criteria against every applicant, publishing those criteria and their minimum thresholds before applications open, timestamping what arrives, and screening in the order it arrived. It also means subtracting any subsidy from the rent before applying an income ratio, and treating a written pledge from a subsidy program as something the ordinance requires you to accept rather than something to negotiate over. Done properly, first-in-time is not an obstacle to good screening; it is a record that the screening was consistent.

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