Free Washington Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Washington residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act — the RCW 59.18.700 rent-increase limit, ninety-day increase notice, a thirty-day deposit accounting, and the fee clause Washington prohibits.

Washington RCW ch. 59.18 Rent Increase Cap Just Cause Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Washington residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Washington Residential Landlord-Tenant Act at RCW chapter 59.18, with eviction handled separately under chapter 59.12. Washington has moved further and faster than almost any state in this series, and the pace is the problem: three separate 2025 and 2026 acts have rewritten what a compliant Washington lease has to say, and every free template currently ranking for this query was written before at least one of them. Since 7 May 2025 a landlord may not raise the rent at all in the first twelve months and may not raise it later by more than seven per cent plus the consumer price index, or ten per cent, whichever is less — a figure the Department of Commerce publishes each July rather than one written into any statute. Since the same act, the rent-increase notice is ninety days, not sixty, and it has to be given on a prescribed statutory form. Since 11 June 2026, RCW 59.18.740 stops a landlord banning a tenant’s portable air conditioner and, where window-mounted units are restricted, requires the lease itself to say so. And a 2026 act quietly renumbered the disclosure subsections, so every page still citing RCW 59.18.060(13) for mold is now citing the flood disclosure instead. Every figure below was verified on 6 August 2026 against the Washington State Legislature’s own codification, the enrolled session-law PDFs, the Code Reviser’s sections-affected tables for both years of the biennium, and the Department of Commerce’s own published rates.

Complete the fields below to generate a Washington residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document — the utility allocations, the rent-cap branch, the cooling branch and each disclosure you check — and the generated lease cites the controlling RCW section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening; the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a Washington move-in / move-out checklist, because in Washington that checklist is not merely good practice — it is the statutory precondition to holding a deposit at all.

Washington recognises the same broad families of residential agreement as other states, but chapter 59.18 changes what each of them means in practice, because the just-cause rules in RCW 59.18.650 attach different consequences to different term lengths.

• Fixed-term residential lease. The ordinary twelve-month agreement. If it is written to roll into a month-to-month tenancy at the end, RCW 59.18.650(1)(b) gives the landlord one chance to end it without cause — at the close of the initial period, on sixty days notice, and only if that initial period was between six and twelve months. After that the tenancy can only be ended for cause.
• Fixed term that expires without continuing. RCW 59.18.650(1)(c) permits a no-cause expiry only where the agreement at the inception of the tenancy was for twelve months or more for a specified period, or the parties have entered successive specified-period agreements of six months or more continuously and without interruption since the tenancy began, and the tenancy has never been periodic at any point. Sixty days notice is still required. Miss any limb and the tenancy simply becomes month-to-month under RCW 59.18.650(1)(d).
• Month-to-month rental agreement. Governed by RCW 59.18.200(1)(a) and the just-cause rules together. The tenant may end it on twenty days written notice preceding the end of a month or period; the landlord may not end it at all without a listed cause.
• Sublease. A tenant’s onward letting, which does not displace the head lease. Where the lease contains a covenant not to sublet, RCW 59.12.030(4) treats a breach as a curable ten-day matter, not an immediate forfeiture.
• Room rental or roommate agreement. Note RCW 59.18.650(2)(i), which lets an owner or lessor who shares the dwelling unit or access to a common kitchen or bathroom area with the tenant end the tenancy on twenty days notice — and RCW 59.18.710(1)(e), which exempts the same arrangement from the rent-increase limit where the owner keeps a principal residence at the property.
• Manufactured or mobile home lot rental. A different act entirely. Chapter 59.20, not chapter 59.18, governs the rental of a lot within a manufactured housing community. This matters more in Washington than in most states, because the one-month and two-month move-in ceiling created in 2025 was enacted into that act at RCW 59.20.170, and is regularly reported as though it capped an ordinary residential deposit.
• Commercial lease. Outside chapter 59.18 altogether. None of the protections or the prohibitions described on this page apply to it.

RCW 59.18.040 lists the living arrangements exempted from the whole chapter, including certain institutional, transient-hotel, employment-linked and seasonal-farmworker occupancies. If an arrangement falls in that list, the chapter’s rules — including the rent-increase limit, the just-cause requirement and the deposit machinery — do not attach.

No increase at all is permitted during the first twelve months of a tenancy, and any later twelve-month increase is limited to seven per cent plus the consumer price index, or ten per cent, whichever is less. That is RCW 59.18.700(1)(a), created by 2025 c 209 and in force since 7 May 2025.

The single most important thing to understand about this rule is that the statute does not contain the number. RCW 59.18.700(1)(c) provides that, beginning 1 June 2025 and annually thereafter, the Department of Commerce shall calculate the maximum annual rent increase percentage for the following calendar year and publish it on its website and in a press release. The statute then defines the input precisely: “consumer price index” means the June twelve-month percent change in the consumer price index for all urban consumers, all items, for the Seattle area, as published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. In practice Commerce publishes shortly after the Bureau releases the June data in mid-July.

So the correct way to state Washington’s rent cap is as a mechanism: who publishes it, on what date, from which index. The figures follow from the mechanism and change annually. As at 6 August 2026, the Department of Commerce has published:

The 2027 figure lands at exactly ten per cent because that is the statutory ceiling: seven per cent plus the Seattle-area index exceeded ten, and the statute takes whichever is less. Read the currently published figure before you serve any notice, and read the figure for the calendar year in which the increase takes effect, not the year in which you write the notice.

Two further limbs of RCW 59.18.700 belong in any competent summary and appear in none of the ranking pages. Subsection (1)(b) makes clear that nothing stops a landlord adjusting the rent by any amount after a tenant vacates and the tenancy ends — the cap governs increases within a tenancy, not the price of the next tenancy. And subsection (4) creates a parity requirement between lease types: a landlord may not impose terms of payment or other material conditions that are more burdensome for a month-to-month agreement than for one of another length or the reverse, and for a specific dwelling unit may not charge more than a five per cent difference in rent depending on which type of agreement is offered. That five per cent differential may not itself push the rent past the increase limit. The old practice of pricing a month-to-month option far above a twelve-month one is now bounded by statute.

Finally, RCW 59.18.700(8) provides that the section expires on 1 July 2040, as do RCW 59.18.710 and RCW 59.18.720. They were enacted together and they lapse together.

Seven categories, listed exhaustively in RCW 59.18.710(1), and three of them fall away if the owner is a corporate entity. A landlord who increases rent above the limit in reliance on an exemption must, under RCW 59.18.700(2), include facts supporting the claimed exemption in the written notice of the rent increase. An unsupported claim is not an exemption; it is an unlawful increase with a three-months-rent damages exposure attached.

RCW 59.18.710(2) then removes the last three of those — the shared-facility, owner-occupied single-family and owner-occupied plex exemptions — wherever the owner is a real estate investment trust as defined in section 856 of the Internal Revenue Code, a corporation, or a limited liability company in which at least one member is a corporation. That is a trap for the small investor who holds a duplex in a single-member limited liability company: whether the exemption survives depends on whether that member is itself a corporation.

An exemption removes the percentage ceiling and nothing else. It does not remove the ninety-day notice period in RCW 59.18.140(3), it does not remove the obligation to use the prescribed form in RCW 59.18.720, and it does not remove the tenant’s other rights under the chapter.

Ninety days written notice, not sixty. RCW 59.18.140(3)(a) requires a minimum of ninety days prior written notice of an increase in the amount of rent to each affected tenant, and provides that no increase may become effective before the completion of the term of the rental agreement. The figure was sixty days from 2019 until 2025 c 209 rewrote the subsection, which is why so many Washington templates and guides still print sixty.

There are two carefully bounded departures from ninety days, and they are worth stating precisely because they are the only ones:

• Thirty days for an income-based subsidized tenancy. RCW 59.18.140(3)(b) applies where the rental agreement governs a subsidized tenancy in which the amount of rent is based on the income of the tenant or circumstances specific to the subsidized household. Note the limit of that carve-out: RCW 59.18.720(2) expressly says a subsidized tenancy for these purposes does not include a tenancy where some or all of the rent comes from a portable tenant-based voucher or similar portable assistance, nor other affordable housing where unit rents are limited by area median income but the tenant’s base rent does not move with the tenant’s income. A voucher holder is not, on that account, on thirty days.
• A one-off sixty-day transitional rule. RCW 59.18.140(3)(c) applies only to a lease entered into or renewed before 7 May 2025, for a specified time, which as at 7 May 2025 had more than sixty but fewer than ninety days left to run. Those tenancies took sixty days. By 2026 that rule is spent; any Washington guide still printing sixty days as the general figure has simply not been updated.

Separately, RCW 59.18.140(2) governs rules rather than rent: except for termination of tenancy and an increase in rent, a new rule of tenancy may become effective only after thirty days written notice to each affected tenant, and then only on completion of the term of the rental agreement or sooner by mutual consent. So a landlord changing a parking or guest policy mid-term cannot simply post a notice and enforce it.

Yes. RCW 59.18.720(1)(a) requires the notice to be in a form substantially the same as the statutory form set out in subsection (3), which is titled “RENT AND FEE INCREASE NOTICE TO TENANTS”. No page currently ranking for this query mentions the form at all, which means a landlord following any of them will serve a notice that does not comply.

The prescribed form is not a courtesy. It opens by telling the tenant that the notice is required by Washington state law, that the rental amount includes all recurring and periodic charges identified in the rental agreement for the use and occupancy of the unit, and that state law limits how much those charges may rise. It then requires the landlord to state the effective date, the percentage, the additional dollar amount per month, and the new total per month for rent and other recurring or periodic charges — and to tick one of three boxes declaring whether the increase is below the maximum allowed by state law, at the maximum, or authorized by an exemption under RCW 59.18.710. Where an exemption is claimed, the form contains a second certification block naming the specific exemption and requiring the landlord to attach supporting facts or documents.

Three consequences follow, and they are the practical point of the section. Because the form covers rent and all other recurring or periodic charges, a landlord who leaves the rent alone but raises a monthly parking, storage, pet or utility-administration charge is still increasing the regulated amount and still owes the notice. Because the exemption must be certified on the notice, an exemption discovered later in litigation is worth much less than one stated at the time. And because RCW 59.18.720(1)(b) requires the notice to comply with the RCW 59.18.140 timing and to be served in accordance with RCW 59.12.040, a notice that is emailed to a tenant who never agreed to electronic service is vulnerable on service as well as on form.

The tenant must first give a written demand to cure, and then has a choice between leaving and suing — and the Attorney General may sue without waiting for either. RCW 59.18.700(3) and (5) are among the strongest enforcement provisions in this whole series.

If the increase exceeds the limit and is not authorized by an exemption, the tenant must offer the landlord an opportunity to cure by providing a written demand to reduce the increase to a complying amount. Alongside every other remedy, the tenant may terminate the rental agreement at any time before the effective date of the increase, on at least twenty days written notice. A tenant who does so owes rent for the full month in which they vacate, and the landlord may not charge any fine or fee for that termination.

Where a court finds a violation of RCW 59.18.700, 59.18.710, 59.18.720 or 59.18.140, it shall award the tenant: damages in the amount of any excess rent, fees or other costs paid; damages of up to three months of any unlawful rent, fees or other costs charged; and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. Note that the second head runs on amounts charged, not only amounts paid, so a tenant who refused to pay an unlawful increase is not left without a remedy.

RCW 59.18.700(5)(b) then adds a public enforcer. The Attorney General may bring an action notwithstanding whether the tenant has offered the landlord an opportunity to cure, may recover civil penalties of not more than seven thousand five hundred dollars for each violation in addition to the tenant’s remedies, and may issue written civil investigative demands for documents, written interrogatory answers or oral testimony to investigate. A portfolio landlord who applies one non-compliant increase across a building is exposed per violation.

Two smaller provisions complete the picture. RCW 59.18.700(6) preserves every other remedy available at law. And RCW 59.18.700(7) provides that a landlord may not report the tenant to a tenant screening service provider for failure to pay the portion of rent that was unlawfully increased — a point of direct relevance to anyone running screening reports, because it means a Washington file can carry a lawful non-payment that must not appear.

There is no limit. Chapter 59.18 contains no residential security deposit maximum anywhere in it. Washington regulates the conditions under which a deposit may be taken, where it must be held and what may be withheld — but not the amount.

This is where the deepest page currently ranking for this query goes wrong, and the error is instructive rather than merely careless. It states that Washington landlords “may charge no more than one month’s rent if the property is a non-rent control unit”. There is no such rule and no such category. The most likely source of the error is real: 2025 c 209, the same act that created the rent-increase limit, did create a ceiling of one month’s rent on combined move-in fees and security deposits, rising to two months where the tenant brings pets, for agreements entered into on or after 7 May 2025 — but it enacted that ceiling as RCW 59.20.170(1), in the Manufactured and Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act at chapter 59.20, which governs the rental of a lot in a manufactured housing community. It does not reach a dwelling unit governed by chapter 59.18. Anyone summarising the act from its title rather than its section numbers will import a mobile-home rule into a residential page, and that appears to be exactly what happened.

Two further Washington rules do bound what a landlord can take at move-in, and both are worth knowing:

• The holding fee is capped at twenty-five per cent of the first month’s rent. RCW 59.18.253(3) forbids a landlord requesting a fee or deposit to hold a dwelling unit or secure that a prospective tenant will move in that exceeds that proportion. RCW 59.18.253(1) makes it outright unlawful to require a fee or deposit merely for the privilege of being placed on a waiting list. RCW 59.18.253(2) requires a receipt together with a written statement of the conditions under which the fee may be retained, given immediately on payment. If the prospective tenant does occupy, RCW 59.18.253(4)(a) requires the fee to be credited to the first month’s rent or to the security deposit. A violation exposes the landlord to the fee plus up to twice the fee, with costs and fees to the prevailing party.
• A fee that is not clearly labelled nonrefundable becomes a deposit. RCW 59.18.285 is dealt with in its own section below, but its practical effect at move-in is that a landlord cannot enlarge the take by relabelling money as a “fee”; the label only works if the written agreement says in terms that it is nonrefundable.

Because RCW 59.18.260(2) says so in terms: no deposit may be collected by a landlord unless the rental agreement is in writing and a written checklist or statement is provided at the commencement of the tenancy. This is the single most under-reported rule in Washington residential tenancy, and it is a precondition rather than a best practice.

The checklist must specifically describe the condition and cleanliness of, or existing damages to, the premises, fixtures, equipment, appliances and furnishings, and the statute names four categories that must be covered: walls, including wall paint and wallpaper; carpets and other flooring; furniture; and appliances. RCW 59.18.260(3) requires it to be signed and dated by the landlord and the tenant, with a copy of the signed document provided to the tenant, and gives the tenant the right to request one free replacement copy during the tenancy.

The consequences run in two directions, and most summaries miss the second one entirely:

• Collecting without a checklist costs the deposit. RCW 59.18.260(5) provides that if the landlord collects a deposit without providing a written checklist at the commencement of the tenancy, the landlord is liable to the tenant for the amount of the deposit, with court costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party — and that this does not limit the tenant’s separate right to recover under RCW 59.18.280.
• An incomplete checklist silently disarms the deduction. RCW 59.18.280(1)(c)(iii) forbids withholding any portion of the deposit for the costs of repair or replacement of fixtures, equipment, appliances and furnishings if their condition was not reasonably documented in the written checklist. So a checklist that lists rooms rather than items, or that skips the appliances, does not merely weaken the landlord’s evidence — it removes the entitlement.

RCW 59.18.260(1) adds the drafting requirement that pairs with it: the written agreement must include the terms and conditions under which the deposit may be withheld, and if any part may be withheld to indemnify the landlord for damage to the premises for which the tenant is responsible, the agreement must so specify. A lease that takes a deposit but never says what it can be applied to has not met that condition.

In a trust account at a financial institution or licensed escrow agent located in Washington, maintained for the purpose of holding security deposits for tenants. RCW 59.18.270 is a segregation duty of a kind many states do not impose at all, and it comes with disclosure and transfer obligations attached.

The section requires the landlord to place all deposit money promptly in that trust account; to provide the tenant with a written receipt for the deposit; and to provide written notice of the name, address and location of the depository and of any subsequent change to it. Interest paid on the trust account belongs to the landlord unless otherwise agreed in writing, which is the reverse of the position in several other states and is worth stating expressly in the lease either way.

Three further limbs matter and appear in no ranking page:

• Transfer on sale. If during the tenancy the status of landlord is transferred, the sums in the deposit trust account must be transferred simultaneously to an equivalent trust account of the successor landlord, who must promptly notify the tenant of the transfer and of the new depository.
• Foreclosure. If the dwelling unit is foreclosed upon and the deposit is not transferred to the successor after the sale, the foreclosed-upon owner must promptly refund the full deposit to the tenant immediately after the sale or transfer — and failing that is liable to the tenant for damages of up to twice the amount of the deposit.
• Priority over creditors. The tenant’s claim to money paid under the section is prior to that of any creditor of the landlord, including a trustee in bankruptcy or a receiver, even if the money has been commingled. In any action to recover the deposit the prevailing party recovers costs of suit or arbitration including reasonable attorneys’ fees.

Thirty days, not twenty-one. RCW 59.18.280(1)(a) requires the landlord, within thirty days after the termination of the rental agreement and vacation of the premises — or within thirty days after the landlord learns of an abandonment as defined in RCW 59.18.310 — to give a full and specific statement of the basis for retaining any of the deposit, together with the documentation required by subsection (1)(b) and the payment of any refund due.

The twenty-one-day figure printed by the deepest ranking page and by several Washington law summaries was correct until 2023, when 2023 c 331 extended the period to thirty days. The landlord complies by delivering the statement, documentation and refund to the tenant personally, or by depositing them in the United States mail properly addressed to the tenant’s last known address with first-class postage prepaid, within the thirty days.

Documentation is part of the duty, not an optional extra. RCW 59.18.280(1)(b) requires the landlord to include copies of estimates received or invoices paid reasonably substantiating damage charges. Where repairs are performed by the landlord or the landlord’s employee and a deduction is made for materials or supplies, the landlord must provide a copy of the bill, invoice or receipt; the cost of materials already in the landlord’s possession or bought on an ongoing basis may be documented with a vendor price list or other vendor document reasonably documenting the cost of the item used. And where the landlord or an employee does the work, the landlord must include a statement of the time spent performing repairs and the reasonable hourly rate charged. A statement listing a lump sum for “repairs” does not satisfy the subsection.

Four things may never be withheld, under RCW 59.18.280(1)(c):

• Anything for wear resulting from ordinary use of the premises.
• Anything for carpet cleaning, unless the landlord documents wear to the carpet that is beyond wear resulting from ordinary use. Routine end-of-tenancy carpet cleaning is not chargeable to the deposit.
• Anything for repair or replacement of fixtures, equipment, appliances and furnishings whose condition was not reasonably documented in the move-in checklist.
• Anything in excess of the cost of repair or replacement of the damaged portion, where the item as a whole is not damaged. A scorch mark on one counter section does not fund a new countertop.

The landlord becomes liable for the full amount of the deposit and is barred from arguing about it, and the court may add up to twice the deposit again. RCW 59.18.280(2) is unusually severe, and it operates in three separate ways.

First, the landlord shall be liable to the tenant for the full amount of the deposit. That is not a penalty on the withheld portion; it is the whole sum. Second, the landlord is barred, in any action brought by the tenant to recover the deposit, from asserting any claim or raising any defense for retaining any of the deposit. The claim that the tenant wrecked the unit simply cannot be advanced in that action. Third, the court may in its discretion award up to two times the amount of the deposit for the intentional refusal of the landlord to give the statement, documentation or refund due.

There are exactly two escapes from the first two limbs: the landlord shows that circumstances beyond the landlord’s control prevented compliance within the thirty days, or shows that the tenant abandoned the premises as defined in RCW 59.18.310. In any action by the tenant to recover the deposit, the prevailing party is additionally entitled to the cost of suit or arbitration including a reasonable attorneys’ fee.

RCW 59.18.280(3) then deals with claims that exceed the deposit, and contains two provisions of direct relevance to anyone who runs or reads a screening report. The landlord may proceed against the tenant to recover sums exceeding the deposit for damage for which the tenant is responsible, together with reasonable attorneys’ fees. But damages for ordinary wear, or damages not substantiated by the documentation described above, may not be charged to the tenant, reported to any consumer reporting agency, tenant screening service or prospective landlord, or submitted for collection by any third-party agency. And for tenancies with rental agreements initiated on or after 23 July 2023, any lawsuit against the tenant to recover sums exceeding the deposit must be commenced within three years of termination or abandonment. Finally, RCW 59.18.280(4) makes clear that the checklist and documentation requirements do not apply where a deposit is withheld for reasons unrelated to damage, such as unpaid rent.

A nonrefundable fee is only nonrefundable if the written rental agreement clearly says so. RCW 59.18.285 provides that no money paid to the landlord which is nonrefundable may be designated as a deposit or as part of any deposit, and that where money is paid as a nonrefundable fee the rental agreement must be in writing and must clearly specify that the fee is nonrefundable.

Two failure modes carry different consequences. If the landlord fails to provide a written rental agreement at all, the landlord is liable to the tenant for the amount of any fees collected as nonrefundable fees. If there is a written agreement but it fails to specify that the fee is nonrefundable, the fee must be treated as a refundable deposit under RCW 59.18.260, RCW 59.18.270 and RCW 59.18.280. The second outcome is the one landlords underestimate: a move-in fee that quietly becomes a deposit has to have been placed in the Washington trust account, has to have been covered by the move-in checklist, and has to be accounted for within thirty days like any other deposit money — retrospectively, and by a landlord who did none of those things.

RCW 59.18.130(10) supplies a companion rule that appears in no ranking template. The tenant must, on termination and vacation, restore the premises to their initial condition except for wear resulting from ordinary use and conditions caused by the landlord’s own failure to comply with the chapter — but the tenant shall not be charged for normal cleaning if the tenant has paid a nonrefundable cleaning fee. A landlord who takes a nonrefundable cleaning fee at move-in and then deducts cleaning from the deposit at move-out is charging twice for the same thing, and the statute forbids it.

At least two days written notice, and one day to show the unit — but the notice has required contents, and that is where most Washington leases fail. RCW 59.18.150(6) is more prescriptive than almost any other entry statute in this series.

The landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant. Except in the case of emergency or where it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least two days written notice of intent to enter, and shall enter only at reasonable times. The notice must then do two further things:

• State the exact time and date or dates of entry — or specify a period of time during that date or dates in which the entry will occur, in which case the notice must specify the earliest and latest possible times of entry. A notice saying “sometime Tuesday” does not comply.
• Specify the telephone number to which the tenant may communicate any objection or request to reschedule the entry. A notice without a phone number does not comply, however much warning it gives.

Showings take only one day. The same subsection provides that the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to enter at a specified time where the landlord has given at least one day’s notice of intent to enter to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers or tenants — and that the landlord shall not unreasonably interfere with the tenant’s enjoyment of the unit by excessively exhibiting it.

RCW 59.18.150(1) sets out the permitted purposes: to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent for those purposes. RCW 59.18.150(5) permits entry without consent in case of emergency or abandonment, and RCW 59.18.150(7) is the sentence that closes the door on everything else: the landlord has no other right of access except by court order, arbitrator or by consent of the tenant.

The penalty is per-violation and runs both ways. RCW 59.18.150(8) provides that a landlord or tenant who continues to violate the other’s rights under the section after being served with one written notification alleging in good faith violations of the section, listing the date and time of the violation, shall be liable for up to one hundred dollars for each violation after receipt of the notice. The prevailing landlord or tenant may recover costs of the suit or arbitration and may also recover reasonable attorneys’ fees. The first notification is therefore the operative document: without it there is no per-violation liability, and with it every subsequent entry is separately chargeable.

Two other parts of RCW 59.18.150 are frequently mistaken for the entry rule and are not. Subsections (2) and (3) govern fire officials seeking a search warrant for a dwelling unit or common areas where entry is refused. Subsection (4) governs code enforcement officials obtaining an inspection warrant, and carries its own protections: written notice of the warrant application to the owner and the tenant, a posted copy on the property, the right of both to appear and be heard, a ten-day maximum life for the warrant, no execution between seven in the evening and eight in the morning or at weekends or on legal holidays unless the occupant prefers otherwise, and no forcible entry except on express judicial authorisation. Subsection (4)(b) also forbids the landlord retaliating against a tenant who consents to a code enforcement inspection. None of that is authority for a landlord to enter.

Washington caps no late-fee amount, but it forbids charging one at all for rent paid within five days after its due date — and putting a shorter window in the lease is itself a prohibited provision.

RCW 59.18.170(2) provides that the landlord may not charge a late fee for rent that is paid within five days following its due date, and that if rent is more than five days past due the landlord may charge late fees commencing from the first day after the due date until paid. So the five days is a threshold, not a free period: once crossed, the fee can be calculated from day one. Nothing in the subsection prevents the landlord serving a notice to pay or vacate at any time after rent becomes due.

The reason to get this right in the lease rather than only in practice is RCW 59.18.230(2)(i), which makes a rental agreement term providing that the tenant agrees to pay late fees for rent that is paid within five days following its due date one of the ten prohibited provisions. A lease with a three-day late fee is not merely unenforceable as to that fee; under RCW 59.18.230(3) a landlord who knowingly uses it is exposed to actual damages, statutory damages of up to two times the monthly rent, costs and the tenant’s attorneys’ fees.

RCW 59.18.170(3) adds a rule that no ranking template carries. Where late fees may be assessed after rent becomes due, the tenant may propose in writing that the rent due date be altered, and the landlord shall agree if the tenant can demonstrate that their primary source of income is a regular, monthly source of governmental assistance that is not received until after the due date in the agreement. The proposed date may not be more than five days after the contractual due date, and nothing in the subsection prevents a request for reasonable accommodation under federal, state or local law.

Where the widely quoted late-fee cap actually comes from. Several Washington lease pages state a maximum of twenty dollars or twenty per cent of the monthly rent, whichever is greater, and cite RCW 19.150.150. That section is real, but chapter 19.150 is the Self-Service Storage Facilities act. Its text speaks of an “owner” imposing a late fee on an “occupant” who does not pay rent for a storage space when due. It has no application to a residential tenancy, and Washington has no equivalent residential ceiling.

Dishonoured checks are governed by the Uniform Commercial Code, not by chapter 59.18. RCW 62A.3-515 permits the payee of a dishonoured check to collect a reasonable handling fee, and, if the check is not paid within fifteen days after a notice of dishonor is sent under RCW 62A.3-520, interest at twelve per cent per annum from the date of dishonor plus a cost of collection not exceeding forty dollars or the face amount of the check, whichever is less. In a court action after that fifteen-day period the court shall award reasonable attorneys’ fees and treble the face amount up to three hundred dollars. That section binds any payee, not landlords specifically, and the fifteen-day notice step is a precondition that Washington lease guides routinely drop. Note also RCW 59.18.063(1): a landlord need not accept a personal check from a tenant who has had a check returned for nonsufficient funds or account closure within the previous nine months, but must still accept a cashier’s check or money order.

By personal check, cashier’s check or money order, with a mail option, and never by electronic means only. RCW 59.18.063(1) requires the landlord to accept a personal check, cashier’s check or money order for any payment of rent, and to allow the tenant to submit a rental payment by mail unless the landlord provides an accessible, on-site location. The single exception is the nine-month returned-check rule described above, which removes only the personal-check option.

RCW 59.18.063(2) permits the landlord to refuse cash, but requires a receipt for any cash payment accepted. Subsection (3) requires a written receipt, on the tenant’s request, for any payment made in a form other than cash. And RCW 59.18.230(2)(j) — a prohibited provision — forbids a rental agreement providing that the tenant agrees to make rent payments through electronic means only. A lease that names an online portal as the sole method of payment contains a prohibited provision.

Every payment goes to rent first. RCW 59.18.283(1) requires the landlord to apply any payment made by a tenant toward rent before applying it toward late payments, damages, legal costs or other fees, including attorneys’ fees. This is the provision that stops a landlord converting a paid-in-full rent payment into a partial payment by first deducting a late fee, and then serving a fourteen-day notice on the resulting shortfall. RCW 59.18.283(2) goes further: except as RCW 59.18.410 allows, the tenant’s right to possession may not be conditioned on payment or satisfaction of any monetary amount other than rent. The landlord may still pursue other lawful remedies to collect non-rent charges, but RCW 59.18.230(1)(b) makes it explicit that a landlord may not threaten a tenant with eviction for failure to pay nonpossessory charges limited under RCW 59.18.283. RCW 59.18.283(3) supplies the one qualification: where the landlord provided an instalment payment plan at the commencement of the tenancy for nonrefundable fees or deposits and the tenant defaults on it, the landlord may treat that default as rent owing.

RCW 59.18.060 opens by requiring the landlord to keep the premises fit for human habitation at all times, then lists sixteen particular duties. The list is longer than most and contains at least two duties no imported template carries.

The landlord must maintain the premises to substantially comply with any applicable code, statute, ordinance or regulation governing their maintenance or operation, where a condition endangers or impairs the tenant’s health or safety; maintain the structural components, including roofs, floors, walls, chimneys, fireplaces and foundations, in reasonably good repair so as to be usable; keep shared or common areas reasonably clean, sanitary and safe from defects increasing the hazards of fire or accident; provide a reasonable program for the control of infestation by insects, rodents and other pests at the initiation of the tenancy and, except in the case of a single-family residence, control infestation during the tenancy except where caused by the tenant; make repairs to put and keep the premises in as good condition as they should have been at the commencement of the tenancy, except where the condition is attributable to ordinary wear; provide reasonably adequate locks and furnish keys to the tenant; maintain and safeguard with reasonable care any master or duplicate keys; maintain all electrical, plumbing, heating and other facilities and appliances supplied by the landlord in reasonably good working order; maintain the dwelling unit in reasonably weathertight condition; except in the case of a single-family residence, provide and maintain appropriate receptacles in common areas for ashes, rubbish and garbage and arrange for their reasonable and regular removal; and provide facilities adequate to supply heat and water and hot water as reasonably required by the tenant.

The heat-alert utility rule is the most recent addition and appears in no ranking page. RCW 59.18.060(11)(a) forbids the landlord effecting an involuntary termination of electric utility or water service due to lack of payment on any day for which the National Weather Service has issued, or announced that it intends to issue, a heat alert — an excessive heat warning, a heat advisory, an excessive heat watch or a similar alert — for the area in which the tenant’s address is located. Subsection (11)(b) then gives a tenant already disconnected the right to request reconnection on such a day, and requires the landlord to inform all tenants of that right in the notice of disconnection, with clear and specific instructions on how to make the request and how to contact the landlord. On receipt of a request the landlord must promptly make a reasonable attempt to reconnect. The landlord may require a repayment plan first, but subsection (11)(c) constrains it: the plan must be designed to pay the past due bill by the following 15 May, or as soon after as is needed to keep monthly payments at no more than six per cent of the tenant’s monthly income, and may not require monthly payments above that six per cent. A tenant may agree to pay more but is not in default for paying only the six per cent.

The tenant’s list is in RCW 59.18.130. The tenant must pay rent when due and comply with all obligations imposed on tenants by applicable codes, and in addition must keep the occupied part as clean and sanitary as its condition permits; properly dispose of rubbish, garbage and other organic or flammable waste and assume all costs of extermination and fumigation for infestation caused by the tenant; properly use and operate all fixtures and appliances supplied by the landlord; not intentionally or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the structure or dwelling, or permit a family member, invitee, licensee or person under the tenant’s control to do so; not permit a nuisance or common waste; not engage in or permit drug activity at the premises; maintain the smoke detection device in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations, including replacing batteries, as RCW 43.44.110(3) requires; not engage in activity that is imminently hazardous to the physical safety of other persons on the premises and entails a physical assault resulting in an arrest, or the unlawful use of a firearm or other deadly weapon resulting in an arrest; not engage in or permit gang activity as defined in RCW 59.18.030; and on termination and vacation restore the premises to their initial condition except for wear resulting from ordinary use and conditions caused by the landlord’s own noncompliance.

Two limits on the landlord’s duty sit in the closing paragraph of RCW 59.18.060 and are easy to miss because they are unnumbered. No duty to repair devolves on the landlord, and no defence or remedy is available to the tenant, where the defective condition was caused by the conduct of the tenant, the tenant’s family, an invitee or another person under the tenant’s control — or where the tenant unreasonably fails to allow the landlord access to the property for purposes of repair. The second is the practical answer to a tenant who complains of a defect and then refuses entry.

Twenty-four hours, seventy-two hours or ten days, depending entirely on which service is affected. RCW 59.18.070 is a three-tier clock and it starts with the tenant’s written notice, not with the landlord’s knowledge.

The tenant delivers written notice to the person designated as landlord, or to the person who collects the rent, specifying the premises involved, the name of the owner if known, and the nature of the defective condition. The landlord must then commence remedial action as soon as possible and not later than:

• Twenty-four hours where the defective condition deprives the tenant of hot or cold water, heat, or electricity, or is imminently hazardous to life.
• Seventy-two hours where it deprives the tenant of the use of a refrigerator, range and oven, or a major plumbing fixture supplied by the landlord.
• Ten days in all other cases.

In each instance the burden is on the landlord to see that the work is completed promptly. Where completion is delayed by circumstances beyond the landlord’s control, including the unavailability of financing, the landlord must remedy the condition as soon as possible — a qualification, not an exemption.

A codification note worth stating honestly: RCW 59.18.070 still directs the tenant’s notice to “the person designated in RCW 59.18.060(14)”. That is a stale cross-reference. The Code Reviser has appended a note to the section recording that RCW 59.18.060 was amended by 2013 c 35 and again by 2026 c 234, so the identification duty is now subsection (16). The substance is unaffected: notice goes to the designated landlord or to whoever collects the rent.

No. Washington gives a repair-and-deduct right, not a withholding right, and it comes with two separate ceilings and two separate twelve-month aggregates. Several ranking pages describe RCW 59.18.100 as a right to “withhold up to one month’s rent” or “withhold up to two months’ rent”. That is the wrong mechanism: the money has to be spent on the repair first, and only the cost actually incurred comes off the rent.

Once the tenant has given RCW 59.18.070 notice and the applicable period has expired without the landlord commencing remedial action, two routes open:

• Work needing a licensed or registered person — two months’ rent. Under RCW 59.18.100(1) the tenant submits to the landlord, by first-class mail or in person, a good faith estimate of the cost of the repairs, which may be submitted at the same time as the RCW 59.18.070 notice. If the landlord then fails to commence remedial action within the applicable period after receiving the notice and the estimate, the tenant may contract with a licensed or registered person and, on completion and after an opportunity for the landlord to inspect, deduct the cost from rent up to the sum representing two months’ rental of the unit per repair. RCW 59.18.100(2) caps total deductions under that subsection in any twelve-month period at the same two months’ rent.
• Work the tenant may lawfully do — one month’s rent. Under RCW 59.18.100(3), where the cost of repair including materials and labour does not exceed one month’s rent, and the work need not by law be performed only by a licensed or registered person, and the tenant has given RCW 59.18.070 notice, no estimate is necessary. The tenant may repair the condition in a workmanlike manner and, on completion and after an opportunity to inspect, deduct the cost. Repairs under that subsection are limited to defects within the leased premises, the cost per repair may not exceed one month’s rent, and total deductions in any twelve-month period may not exceed one month’s rent.

Three details complete the section and are omitted by every ranking page. Where the ten-day period applies, RCW 59.18.100(2) provides that the tenant cannot contract for repairs for ten days after the notice or two days after the landlord receives the estimate, whichever is later. The remedy is not available for the landlord’s failure to carry out the receptacle duty or the identification duty. And if the tenant uses the section to change locks under the landlord’s key-and-lock duty, the tenant must promptly provide the landlord with a key to any new or replaced locks. Repairs must comply with any applicable code, and a landlord whose property is damaged by negligently performed repairs may recover actual damages from the tenant. Nothing in the section prevents the parties agreeing that the tenant will do the work in return for cash or a reasonable rent reduction, and such an agreement does not alter the landlord’s statutory obligations.

What the tenant may do instead. RCW 59.18.090 gives the tenant, after notice and expiry of the applicable period, three alternatives: terminate the rental agreement and quit the premises on written notice without further obligation, discharged from rent for any period after the quitting date, entitled to a pro rata refund of prepaid rent and to the RCW 59.18.280 deposit accounting; bring an action in court or at arbitration for any remedy under the chapter or otherwise at law; or pursue other remedies under the chapter. RCW 59.18.110 lets a court or arbitrator determine the diminished rental value of defective premises and enter judgment against the landlord for the difference between the rent paid and that value, and reduce the rent until the defect is cured. RCW 59.18.115 supplies a separate route for certified substandard and dangerous conditions, under which rent may be deposited with a court clerk or an approved escrow agent rather than paid to the landlord. And RCW 59.18.080 supplies the precondition that governs all of them: the tenant must be current in rent to exercise the chapter’s remedies, subject to the exceptions stated in that section.

Generally no, and this is the newest lease-drafting duty in Washington. RCW 59.18.740, created by 2026 c 184 (Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6200, approved 24 March 2026) and in force since 11 June 2026, provides that a landlord may not prohibit or restrict a tenant from installing a portable cooling device of the tenant’s choosing, and may not require a fee for the use, inspection or installation of one. The landlord may still charge for renting a device to the tenant, and for damages arising out of the tenant’s use of one.

The definitions do real work. A portable cooling device is an air conditioner or portable heat pump, including a device mounted in a window or designed to sit on the floor, but excludes devices whose installation or use requires excessive alteration to the dwelling unit. A saddle-mounted device hangs over the windowsill with interior and exterior components rather than sitting on top of it, so the window view is not fully obstructed and the device will not fall when the window is opened; u-shaped devices are included in that definition. A window-mounted device is one installed to sit in the window, and expressly excludes saddle-mounted devices, u-shaped devices and floor-mounted devices connected to a window for air exchange or ventilation. That matters because only window-mounted devices can be restricted on the five specific grounds.

Restriction is permitted in two situations. Under RCW 59.18.740(3) a device of any type may be restricted where the dwelling already has a permanently installed and fully operational heat pump, or where installation would violate state or local building codes or state or federal law, would violate the device manufacturer’s written safety guidelines, would cause unreasonable damage to the premises or render them uninhabitable, or would require an electrical supply that the existing power service to the building, unit or circuit cannot accommodate. Under RCW 59.18.740(4)(a) a window-mounted device may be restricted where the window is a necessary egress and the device would interfere with that use; where the device would stop the tenant locking a window accessible from outside; where installation needs excessive brackets or hardware that would damage or void the warranty of the window or frame, puncture the exterior wall, or otherwise cause significant damage; where the device cannot be secured so as to prevent it falling out of the window; or where the landlord’s insurance policy expressly restricts or prohibits window-mounted cooling devices and the landlord has provided written evidence of that restriction to the tenant.

The lease-content duty is subsection (8), and it is the reason this section appears in the generator above. Where a landlord restricts or prohibits installation of window-mounted portable cooling devices, the landlord must notify tenants in their leases of their rights, responsibilities and any restrictions or prohibitions relating to installation, as specified in subsection (4)(a)(i) to (v). A Washington lease that restricts window units and says nothing about it does not comply.

The remaining subsections allocate risk. The landlord may require the device to be adequately drained to prevent damage, and may require inspection or servicing after installation to verify compliance. The tenant must give at least two days notice before installing a window-mounted device. The landlord is immune from liability for any claim for damages, injury or death caused by a portable cooling device installed by the tenant, and is not responsible for an interruption in electrical service resulting from installation that the landlord did not cause. Nothing in the section limits the landlord’s obligation to provide reasonable accommodations under existing law, or prevents the landlord retaining part of the deposit for a lawful purpose under RCW 59.18.280. The companion section for manufactured housing communities is RCW 59.20.070, amended by section 2 of the same act.

Washington is a just-cause state. RCW 59.18.650(1)(a) bars a landlord from evicting a tenant, refusing to continue a tenancy, or ending a periodic tenancy except for the causes enumerated in subsection (2). Only two no-cause windows survive, and both are narrow.

The first is RCW 59.18.650(1)(b). Where the agreement provides for the tenancy to continue month-to-month or periodically after it expires, the landlord may end it at the end of the initial period without cause only if the agreement entered into at the inception of the tenancy was for between six and twelve months, and the landlord gives at least sixty days advance written notice before the end of that initial period, served consistently with RCW 59.12.040. The second is RCW 59.18.650(1)(c). Where the agreement is for a specified period that does not continue periodically afterwards, the landlord may let it expire without cause only if the agreement at the inception of the tenancy was for twelve months or more for a specified period (or the parties have continuously and without interruption entered into successive agreements of six months or more for a specified period since the inception of the tenancy), the landlord gives at least sixty days advance written notice, and the tenancy has not been periodic at any point since it began. Fail any limb of either and RCW 59.18.650(1)(d) applies: the tenancy may be ended only for cause, and on the end date of a specified period it simply becomes a month-to-month tenancy.

The tenant’s position is straightforward by comparison. RCW 59.18.200(1)(a) lets a tenant end a month-to-month or other periodic tenancy by written notice of twenty days or more preceding the end of any of the months or periods of tenancy. RCW 59.18.650(1)(f) lets a tenant end a tenancy for a specified time by written notice not less than twenty days before the ending date.

The enumerated causes, with the notice each requires. RCW 59.18.650(2) lists them, and the notice periods differ sharply:

The four-violation route has its own machinery and is easy to get wrong. RCW 59.18.650(2)(n) requires that the tenant have committed four or more qualifying violations within the preceding twelve months, that the tenant have remedied or cured each of them, and that the landlord have given a written warning notice at the time of each violation. Each warning notice must specify the violation, provide an opportunity to cure, state that the landlord may choose to end the tenancy at the end of the rental term if there are four violations within twelve months, and state that correcting the fourth or subsequent violation is not a defence. The sixty-day notice to vacate must state the ending date, specify the reason and supporting facts, be served concurrently with or after the fourth warning, and include all the supporting notices. The notices must pertain to four or more separate incidents or occurrences, and subsection (2)(n)(vi) preserves the landlord’s burden of demonstrating by admissible evidence that each would have been a substantial breach had it not been cured.

Two rebuttable presumptions of bad faith. Under RCW 59.18.650(2)(d), there is a rebuttable presumption that the owner did not act in good faith if the owner or immediate family fails to occupy the unit as a principal residence for at least sixty consecutive days during the ninety days immediately after the tenant vacated. Under (2)(e), there is a rebuttable presumption that the owner did not intend to sell if, within thirty days after the tenant vacated, the owner does not list the dwelling for sale at a reasonable price with a realty agency or on the multiple listing service; or if, within ninety days after the tenant vacated or the listing date, whichever is later, the owner withdraws it from the market, re-rents it to someone other than the former tenant, or otherwise indicates no intention to sell.

Every notice must say why. RCW 59.18.650(6) requires all written notices under subsection (2) to be served consistently with RCW 59.12.040 and to identify the facts and circumstances known and available to the landlord at the time of issuance that support the cause, with enough specificity to enable the tenant to respond and prepare a defence. The landlord may present further facts later only if they were unknown or unavailable when the notice issued.

The remedy for getting it wrong is severe. RCW 59.18.650(4) provides that a landlord who removes a tenant, or causes a tenant to be removed, in any way in violation of the section is liable for wrongful eviction, and the prevailing tenant is entitled to the greater of their economic and noneconomic damages or three times the monthly rent of the dwelling at issue, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and court costs.

Two further limbs complete the section. RCW 59.18.650(5) provides that the owner-occupancy, sale and change-of-use causes do not permit ending a tenancy for a specified period before the term completes unless both parties consent in writing and the tenant is given at least sixty days to vacate. And RCW 59.18.650(3) creates a remaining-occupant procedure no ranking page carries: where a tenant permanently vacates for reasons other than a landlord ending the tenancy, the landlord must serve a notice on any remaining occupants who had co-resided with the tenant for at least six months before the tenant left, requiring them either to apply to become a party to the rental agreement or to vacate within thirty days. The landlord may apply the same screening and financial criteria as to any prospective tenant, and if the occupant becomes a party, the tenancy is then protected by the just-cause rules.

For unpaid rent, a fourteen-day notice to pay or vacate on a form the statute prescribes word for word. RCW 59.12.030(3) makes a tenant liable in unlawful detainer for nonpayment only after a written notice requiring, in the alternative, payment of the rent or surrender of the premises has remained uncomplied with for the period of three days after service, or for the period of fourteen days after service for tenancies under chapter 59.18. The three-day figure is the general rule for tenancies outside the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act; a residential tenant gets fourteen. The notice may be served at any time after the rent becomes due.

RCW 59.18.057(1) then sets out the required form in full, and it is far more than a demand for money. Every fourteen-day notice must be substantially in that form, which requires the landlord to:

• Head the document FOURTEEN-DAY NOTICE TO PAY RENT OR VACATE THE PREMISES and state that the landlord alleges non-compliance by failing to pay rent, utilities or recurring or periodic charges that are past due.
• Itemise the amounts separately and by month — monthly rent due for listed months, utilities due for listed months, and other recurring or periodic charges identified in the lease for listed months — and then give a total amount due.
• State that payment must be made pursuant to the terms of the rental agreement or by nonelectronic means including, but not limited to, cashier’s check, money order or other certified funds.
• State that the tenant has fourteen days after service to pay or vacate, and that any payment made must first be applied to the total amount due as shown.
• Carry the Attorney General’s landlord-tenant web address and the statement that the notice is available there in multiple languages together with rental-assistance information.
• Carry the right-to-counsel paragraph: that state law provides the right to legal representation and the court may appoint a lawyer without cost to a qualifying low-income renter, with the Eviction Defense Screening Line telephone number and the online application address.
• Carry the 2-1-1 and Northwest Justice Project CLEAR hotline information, including the separate line for seniors, the washingtonlawhelp address, and the address for locating the nearest dispute resolution centre offering free or low-cost mediation before any judicial proceedings.
• State that state law also provides the right to receive interpreter services at court.
• Name the owner or landlord, the date, and the place where the total amount due is to be paid.

RCW 59.18.057(2) adds that the form does not abrogate any additional notice requirement imposed by federal, state or local law, and RCW 59.18.058 requires translated versions and legal or advocacy resource information to be made available. No page currently ranking for this query reproduces or even mentions the prescribed form, which means the notice a landlord following those pages would serve is defective on its face.

For a breach that is not rent, ten days to perform or surrender. RCW 59.12.030(4) applies where the tenant neglects or fails to keep or perform any condition or covenant of the lease other than the payment of rent, including any covenant not to assign or sublet. The written notice requires in the alternative the performance of the condition or the surrender of the property, and must remain uncomplied with for ten days after service. Within those ten days the tenant, any subtenant in actual occupation, any mortgagee of the term, or any other person interested in its continuance may perform the condition and thereby save the lease from forfeiture. That saving provision is unusual and is carried by none of the ranking pages.

Three days for waste, an unlawful business or a nuisance, under RCW 59.12.030(5). RCW 59.12.030(7) adds gang activity prohibited by RCW 59.18.130 as a separate ground, and RCW 59.12.030(1) covers holding over after the expiration of the term — though the whole section now opens with the words “Except as limited under RCW 59.18.650”, so the just-cause rules control which of these grounds is actually available against a residential tenant.

RCW 59.12.040 allows exactly three methods, and adds five days when the mail is used. This is a common failure point, because the statute’s second and third methods each require two steps, not one.

• Personal delivery of a copy to the person entitled to it.
• If that person is absent from the premises: leaving a copy there with a person of suitable age and discretion and sending a copy through the mail addressed to the person at their place of residence. Both steps.
• If the person’s residence is not known, or no person of suitable age and discretion can be found: affixing a copy of the notice in a conspicuous place on the premises, and also delivering a copy to a person residing there if one can be found, and also sending a copy through the mail addressed to the tenant at the premises. Posting alone is not service.

Service on a subtenant may be made in the same manner, and service on a corporation may be made by delivering a copy to any officer, agent or person having charge of the business at the premises, or by posting and mailing where none can be found. Proof of service may be made by the affidavit of the person making it.

Two closing provisions matter in practice. Where a copy is sent through the mail, service is deemed complete when the copy is deposited in the United States mail from within Washington state, properly addressed with postage prepaid — but when service is made by mail, five additional days shall be allowed before the commencement of an action based upon the notice. A fourteen-day notice served by mail therefore supports an action only after nineteen days. And a termination notice served under the section must specify the date by which the person to whom it is sent must vacate or, if applicable, comply. The section was last amended by 2026 c 144 and by 2025 c 44.

Note what is not on the list: email, text message and posting to a tenant portal are not statutory methods of service. RCW 59.18.230(2)(j) separately forbids a lease term requiring rent to be paid electronically only, which is a reminder that Washington is deliberately cautious about assuming a tenant is reachable online.

Ten of them, listed in RCW 59.18.230(2), plus a lien provision that RCW 59.18.230(4) declares null and void. No page currently ranking for this query mentions the section at all.

The section opens with a general rule. RCW 59.18.230(1)(a) provides that, except as RCW 59.18.360 allows, any provision of a lease or other agreement, whether oral or written, whereby any section or subsection of chapter 59.18 is waived shall be deemed against public policy and shall be unenforceable — and that this unenforceability does not affect other provisions that can be given effect without it. Then come the ten specific terms. No rental agreement may provide that the tenant:

1. Agrees to waive or forgo rights or remedies under the chapter. RCW 59.18.230(2)(a).
2. Agrees to waive or forgo any right to bring, join or otherwise participate in or maintain any cause of action against the landlord or the landlord’s representatives or agents, including class actions. RCW 59.18.230(2)(b) — inserted in 2025.
3. Signs a nondisclosure agreement relating to the lease agreement or the details of the offer, including rent amount, security deposits or fees, rent concessions, move-in gifts, or lease specials or terms. RCW 59.18.230(2)(c) — inserted in 2025. A landlord who offers a discreet concession and asks the tenant to keep quiet about it is using a prohibited provision.
4. Authorizes any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement. RCW 59.18.230(2)(d).
5. Agrees to pay the landlord’s attorneys’ fees, except as authorized in the chapter and awarded by a court pursuant to a judgment. RCW 59.18.230(2)(e).
6. Agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or the costs connected with it. RCW 59.18.230(2)(f).
7. And the landlord have agreed to a particular arbitrator at the time the rental agreement is entered into. RCW 59.18.230(2)(g).
8. Agrees to arbitrate disputes, unless the landlord pays the entire cost of the arbitration and the agreement is notarized. RCW 59.18.230(2)(h).
9. Agrees to pay late fees for rent paid within five days following its due date. RCW 59.18.230(2)(i).
10. Agrees to make rent payments through electronic means only. RCW 59.18.230(2)(j).

The lettering changed in 2025, and citing the old letters is now wrong. 2025 c 206 (Engrossed Senate Bill 5313), which applies to leases entered into or renewed on or after 27 July 2025, inserted the class-action ban at (2)(b) and the nondisclosure-agreement ban at (2)(c). Everything below shifted by two letters: confession of judgment moved from (2)(b) to (2)(d), attorney fees moved from (2)(c) to (2)(e), exculpation and indemnity moved from (2)(d) to (2)(f), and the particular-arbitrator clause moved from (2)(e) to (2)(g) — a shift the Code Reviser confirms in a note appended to RCW 59.18.320. Any source citing RCW 59.18.230(2)(c) for the attorney-fee prohibition is quoting the pre-2025 lettering.

The penalty triggers on use, not on enforcement. RCW 59.18.230(3) provides that a prohibited provision is unenforceable, and that if a landlord knowingly uses a rental agreement containing provisions known by him or her to be prohibited, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained, statutory damages not to exceed two times the monthly rent charged for the unit, costs of suit, and reasonable attorneys’ fees. The landlord does not need to have tried to rely on the clause. Handing over the lease is the act.

No lien on the tenant’s belongings, and no distress for rent. RCW 59.18.230(4) abolishes the common law right of distress for rent for property covered by the chapter, and provides that any provision in a rental agreement creating a lien upon the personal property of the tenant or authorizing a distress for rent is null and void and of no force and effect. A landlord who takes or detains a tenant’s personal property without the tenant’s specific written consent and, after written demand for its return, refuses to return it promptly is liable for the value of the property retained and actual damages — and where the refusal is intentional, may also be liable for damages of up to five hundred dollars per day, not to exceed five thousand dollars, for each day or part of a day the tenant is deprived of the property. The prevailing party may recover costs of suit and a reasonable attorneys’ fee, and the court may waive or reduce bond requirements where the tenant is proceeding in good faith on a prima facie meritorious claim.

This is worth pausing on, because the deepest page currently ranking for this query generates a Washington lease whose landlord-access clause lists “exercise a contractual or statutory lien” among the purposes for which the landlord may enter. That clause is not merely unnecessary in Washington. Its subject matter has been statutorily abolished, and the provision creating it is null and void.

Agreements made inside an eviction case are separately controlled. RCW 59.18.230(1)(b) provides that any agreement between landlord and tenant entered into pursuant to an unlawful detainer action that requires the tenant to pay any amount in violation of RCW 59.18.283, or in violation of the statutory judgment limits in RCW 59.18.410(1) or (2), or that waives rights under RCW 59.18.410 or any other right under the chapter, is void and unenforceable — and that a landlord may not threaten a tenant with eviction for failure to pay nonpossessory charges limited under RCW 59.18.283.

No — and the exception in the statute is the opposite of the one landlords assume. RCW 59.18.230(2)(e) forbids a rental agreement providing 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.

Read quickly, that looks like the Arizona pattern, where a statute bans a one-sided fee clause but expressly permits a written prevailing party clause. It is not. Washington’s exception has two cumulative limbs, and neither of them is a lease term: the fees must be authorized in chapter 59.18 itself, and they must be awarded by a court pursuant to a judgment. It preserves the statutory fee awards the chapter already creates. It does not authorise anything to be written into a lease. And because the prohibition is on the tenant agreeing to pay the landlord’s fees, a reciprocal “prevailing party” wording does not cure it — the tenant is still agreeing to pay the landlord’s fees in the case where the landlord prevails. The safe Washington drafting position is therefore the same as Ohio’s and Kansas’s: no fee field, no fee clause. The generator on this page has neither.

What makes this bearable is that chapter 59.18 awards fees prolifically anyway, in both directions, without any help from the lease. The awards a Washington landlord or tenant may actually reach include:

And there is an express bar on a landlord fee award in the commonest case of all. RCW 59.18.290(3) provides that where the court has entered judgment for the landlord restoring possession, the court may award reasonable attorneys’ fees — but shall not award them where the judgment for possession is entered after the tenant failed to respond to a pleading or other notice requiring a response, or where the total amount of rent awarded is equal to or less than two months of the tenant’s monthly contract rent, or one thousand two hundred dollars, whichever is greater. In other words, the default judgment and the small-arrears case — between them the large majority of residential unlawful detainer outcomes — carry no fee award for the landlord at all. RCW 59.18.290(4) adds that where the tenant has moved to stay a writ of restitution, fees may only be awarded if the tenant is permitted to be reinstated under RCW 59.18.410(3), and are then subject to repayment.

Six under state law at the lease stage, plus the federal lead-paint disclosure — and two of the subsection numbers changed in June 2026.

Start with the renumbering, because it invalidates the citation used by every ranking page. 2026 c 234 — Substitute Senate Bill 6237, approved 27 March 2026 and effective 11 June 2026 — reenacted and amended RCW 59.18.060 to insert a new flood-risk disclosure as subsection (13). Everything below it moved: the mold duty went from (13) to (14), the immunity provision went from (14) to (15), and landlord identification went from (15) to (16). The Code Reviser records the change in notes appended to RCW 59.18.070 and RCW 59.18.100, whose own internal cross-references were left pointing at the old numbers — a good illustration of why a citation should be checked against the section’s own current text rather than against a neighbouring statute’s reference to it.

1. Fire safety and protection information, with the smoke detection notice — RCW 59.18.060(12). A written notice that the dwelling unit is equipped with a smoke detection device as required by RCW 43.44.110, informing the tenant of the duty to maintain it in proper operating condition and of the penalties for failing to comply with RCW 43.44.110(3). The notice must be signed by the landlord or authorized agent and by the tenant, with copies provided to both parties, and must be provided to new tenants at the time the lease is signed. Except for a single-family residence it must also disclose whether the smoke detection device is hard-wired or battery operated, whether the building has a fire sprinkler system, whether it has a fire alarm system, whether it has a smoking policy and what that policy is, and whether it has an emergency notification plan, an emergency relocation plan and an emergency evacuation plan — providing a copy of each that exists. It may be given as a written notice or as a checklist, and a checklist must include a diagram showing the emergency evacuation routes.
2. Indoor mold health hazard information — RCW 59.18.060(14). Information provided or approved by the Washington State Department of Health about the health hazards associated with exposure to indoor mold, detailing how tenants can control mold growth to minimise the health risks. It may be given in writing individually to each tenant or posted in a visible, public location at the dwelling unit property; where given individually it must be provided at the time the lease is signed. A landlord may obtain the material from the Department’s website or ask for it by mail in printed format. RCW 59.18.060(15) then grants the landlord and its agents and employees immunity from civil liability for failing to comply with subsection (14), except where they knowingly and intentionally do not comply — an unusual structure that ranking pages describing this as a strict duty consistently omit.
3. Landlord identification, and an in-county agent where the landlord is out of state — RCW 59.18.060(16). The name and address of the person who is the landlord, given either by a statement in the rental agreement or by a notice conspicuously posted on the premises, with immediate written notification of any change, delivered personally or mailed and conspicuously posted. Where that person does not reside in Washington, a person who resides in the county must also be designated as agent for service of notices and process; where none is designated, the person to whom rent is paid is treated as that agent. An out-of-state owner who violates the chapter is deemed to have submitted to Washington jurisdiction, and process served out of state must allow sixty days to appear and answer.
4. Deposit terms, the written checklist, the receipt and the depository — RCW 59.18.260 and RCW 59.18.270. Covered in full above. In disclosure terms: the written agreement must state the conditions under which the deposit may be withheld and must expressly say so if any part may be withheld for damage; the signed and dated checklist must be given at the commencement of the tenancy; and the tenant must receive a written receipt plus written notice of the name, address and location of the Washington depository and of any change to it.
5. Nonrefundable fees, clearly specified in writing — RCW 59.18.285. Also covered above. The disclosure is the compliance: without the clear written statement, the money is a refundable deposit.
6. Portable cooling device rights and any window-mounted restriction — RCW 59.18.740(8). Conditional. Where the landlord restricts or prohibits window-mounted devices on one of the five permitted grounds, the lease must notify tenants of their rights, responsibilities and the restriction. In force since 11 June 2026.
7. Federal lead-based paint — 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 24 C.F.R. Part 35. Federal, not Washington. Applies to any dwelling built before 1978. Washington has no state lead-paint lease disclosure of its own.

One disclosure is on the calendar but not yet in force for most leases. The new RCW 59.18.060(13) requires the landlord to disclose that the property may be located in a special flood hazard area or an area of potential flooding; that the landlord’s insurance does not cover the loss of the tenant’s personal possessions and the tenant should consider purchasing renter’s insurance and flood insurance against loss by fire, flood or other risk; and that information about hazards affecting the property, including flood risk, is available from the county government in which the property is located. But subsection (13)(b) says in terms that the disclosures required by that subsection only apply to leases entered into after 31 December 2026. So a Washington lease signed today does not yet need it, and a Washington lease signed on or after 1 January 2027 does. The form above lets you include it either way, and the generated lease labels it correctly for the commencement date you enter.

A second set arrives on 1 January 2027. 2026 c 55 (Substitute Senate Bill 5937, approved 16 March 2026) creates RCW 59.18.750, RCW 59.18.755 and RCW 59.18.760 for smart access systems, effective 1 January 2027. From that date a landlord must, on request, offer an alternative key that uses neither biometric identifier information nor a software application on the tenant’s phone — a key fob, key card, physical key, keypad code or other physical access method. A landlord of a smart access building must make available any written privacy policy of the entity that developed or operates the system, and must give tenants a plain-language written policy either at the initial signing of a lease agreement or within five days of installation, covering the data elements collected including those relating to guests, the safeguards, the retention schedule, the breach-notification protocol, the destruction or anonymisation guidelines, and the process for temporarily adding a consenting tenant. And RCW 59.18.760 limits collection to a closed list: the user’s name, the unit number and other doors or common areas accessible, the preferred method of contact, biometric identifier information where the system uses it, the card or hardware identifier, passwords and passcodes and usernames and contact information used to grant entry or manage accounts, lease information including move-in and any move-out dates, and the time and method of access solely for security and operational purposes.

What Washington does not require. There is no statewide lease disclosure for radon, bed bug history, asbestos, methamphetamine contamination, ordnance-proximity notices of the kind required in some other states, shared metering, sinkholes, pending demolition, or the offender registry. A Washington template that prints one of those and cites an RCW section for it was written for another jurisdiction. Note in particular that chapter 64.06, the residential real property disclosure chapter, binds a seller completing a disclosure statement for a buyer on a transfer of title; it speaks of transferors and purchasers throughout and has no application to a lease.

Yes, with a ninety-day presumption running to the tenant and three counter-presumptions running to the landlord. Washington’s retaliation provisions are more balanced than most, and no ranking page carries the second half.

RCW 59.18.240 provides that, so long as the tenant is in compliance with the chapter, the landlord shall not take or threaten to take reprisals or retaliatory action because of any good faith and lawful complaint or report by the tenant to a governmental authority concerning the landlord’s failure to substantially comply with a code governing maintenance or operation of the premises where the condition may endanger or impair the tenant’s health or safety, or because of the tenant’s assertion or enforcement of rights and remedies under the chapter. The section then names four things that count as reprisal where intended primarily to retaliate: eviction of the tenant; increasing the rent required of the tenant; reduction of services to the tenant; and increasing the obligations of the tenant. The express inclusion of a rent increase matters more than it once did, now that RCW 59.18.700 also regulates the amount.

RCW 59.18.250 then does four separate things in one long sentence:

• The presumption for the tenant. Initiation by the landlord of any action listed in RCW 59.18.240 within ninety days after a good faith and lawful act by the tenant, or within ninety days after any inspection or proceeding of a governmental agency resulting from such an act, creates a rebuttable presumption affecting the burden of proof that the action is a reprisal or retaliatory action.
• The arrears counter-presumption. If at the time the landlord gives notice of termination under chapter 59.12 the tenant is in arrears in rent or in breach of any other lease or rental obligation, there is a rebuttable presumption that the landlord’s action is neither a reprisal nor retaliatory.
• The bad-faith counter-presumption. If the court finds that the tenant made a complaint or report to a governmental authority within ninety days after notice of a proposed rent increase or other good faith action by the landlord, there is a rebuttable presumption that the complaint or report was not made in good faith.
• The reasoned-increase carve-out. No presumption against the landlord arises at all with respect to a rent increase where the landlord, in the notice of increase, specifies reasonable grounds for it — which may include a substantial increase in market value due to remedial action under the chapter. A landlord who documents the reason for an increase in the notice is in a materially better position than one who does not.

The presumption of retaliation as to an eviction may separately be rebutted by evidence that it is not practical to make necessary repairs while the tenant remains in occupancy. And in any action or eviction proceeding where the tenant prevails on a claim or defence of retaliation, the tenant recovers costs of suit or arbitration including a reasonable attorney’s fee — with the same entitlement running to the landlord where the landlord prevails, except that neither party may recover attorney’s fees to the extent that their legal services are provided at no cost to them. That last clause is unusual and means a tenant represented by a legal aid clinic does not generate a fee award.

RCW 59.18.150(4)(b) supplies a further, narrower retaliation bar: a landlord may not take or threaten reprisal against a tenant who gives consent to a code enforcement official to inspect the dwelling unit for an unsafe building condition or a code violation.

Store it, notify the tenant, and wait either forty-five days or seven — but personal papers, family pictures and keepsakes always take the full forty-five. RCW 59.18.310 governs abandonment, and it opens with a duty rather than a right.

Abandonment under the section requires two things together: the tenant defaults in the payment of rent and reasonably indicates by words or actions the intention not to resume tenancy. Non-payment alone is not abandonment, and an unexplained absence with rent paid is not abandonment either. Where both limbs are met, the tenant is liable as follows — expressly subject to the proviso that, upon learning of the abandonment, the landlord shall make a reasonable effort to mitigate the damages:

• Month-to-month tenancy: liable for the rent for the thirty days following either the date the landlord learns of the abandonment, or the date the next regular rental payment would have become due, whichever first occurs.
• Term greater than month-to-month: liable for the lesser of the entire rent due for the remainder of the term, or all rent accrued during the period reasonably necessary to re-rent at a fair rental, plus the difference between that fair rental and the agreed rent, plus the landlord’s actual re-renting costs together with statutory court costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees.

On abandonment accompanied by a rent default, RCW 59.18.310(2) lets the landlord immediately enter, take possession of any property of the tenant found on the premises, and store it in any reasonably secure place. The landlord must make reasonable efforts to give the tenant a notice containing the landlord’s name and address, the place where the property is stored, notice that a sale or disposal will take place, the date of that sale or disposal, and notice of the tenant’s right under RCW 59.18.230 to have the property returned before it is sold or disposed of. Mailing that notice by first-class mail, postage prepaid, to the tenant’s last known address and to any other address provided in writing by the tenant or actually known to the landlord satisfies the effort requirement. The landlord shall return the property after the tenant has paid the actual or reasonable drayage and storage costs, whichever is less, if the tenant makes a written request before sale or disposal.

Then the two waiting periods. The landlord may sell or dispose of the property, including personal papers, family pictures and keepsakes, after forty-five days from the date the notice of sale or disposal is mailed or personally delivered. Where the property has a cumulative value of two hundred fifty dollars or less, the landlord may sell or dispose of it after seven days from that date — but that shortened route expressly excludes personal papers, family pictures and keepsakes, and still requires the landlord to make reasonable efforts to notify the tenant. One ranking page prints ten days for the low-value route; the statute says seven, and the exclusion is the part that actually matters.

Income derived from a sale may be applied against money due to the landlord, including the lesser of actual or reasonable drayage and storage costs. Any excess income must be held by the landlord for the benefit of the tenant for one year from the date of sale; if no claim is made or action commenced within that period, the balance becomes the landlord’s, including any interest paid on the income. RCW 59.18.310(3) provides that the section does not apply to the disposition of the property of a deceased tenant, which is governed instead by RCW 59.18.595 where the tenant was the sole occupant.

Separately, RCW 59.18.290(1) makes it unlawful for the landlord to remove or exclude the tenant from the premises except under a court order so authorizing. A tenant so removed may recover possession or terminate the rental agreement, and in either case recover the actual damages sustained, with costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. There is no self-help eviction in Washington, and an abandonment determination that turns out to be wrong is an unlawful exclusion.

Five statutory routes, each with its own conditions. A Washington tenant is not confined to negotiating an exit.

• Uninhabitable conditions — RCW 59.18.090(1). After written notice under RCW 59.18.070 and expiry of the applicable twenty-four-hour, seventy-two-hour or ten-day period, if the landlord fails to remedy within a reasonable time the tenant may terminate and quit on written notice without further obligation, is discharged from rent for any period after the quitting date, is entitled to a pro rata refund of prepaid rent, and is entitled to the RCW 59.18.280 deposit accounting.
• Domestic violence, sexual assault, unlawful harassment or stalking — RCW 59.18.575. Where the tenant notifies the landlord in writing that the tenant or a household member was the victim, and either holds a qualifying protection order under chapter 7.105 or one of the listed predecessor provisions, or has reported the incident to a qualified third party acting in an official capacity who has provided a signed written record of the report, then on making a copy available to the landlord the tenant may terminate the rental agreement and quit the premises without further obligation. The critical condition, which several summaries omit: the request to terminate must occur within ninety days of the reported act, event or circumstance that gave rise to the protective order or the report. The statutory record form must state that the tenant reported being a victim, the time, date and location of the acts, a brief description, and that the tenant named the alleged perpetrator to the third party — and the copy given to the tenant must not include the perpetrator’s name, which the third party keeps on its retained copy.
• Military orders — RCW 59.18.220(2). A tenant who is a member of the armed forces, including the national guard and armed forces reserves, or that tenant’s spouse or dependent, may end a tenancy for a specified time on written notice of twenty days or more, enclosing a copy of the official military orders or a signed letter from the commanding officer confirming one of six criteria: permanent change of station orders requiring a move of thirty-five miles or more from the premises; premature or involuntary discharge or release from active duty; release from active duty where the premises were leased while on active duty and are thirty-five miles or more from the home of record before entering active duty; a commanding officer directing a move into government-provided housing after the agreement was entered into; temporary duty, temporary change of station or active duty orders to an area thirty-five miles or more away for a period not less than ninety days; or change of station orders received after leasing but before taking possession. RCW 59.18.200(1)(b) allows a month-to-month tenant in the same position to give less than twenty days where the orders do not allow twenty. Note that the twenty-day Washington route is more generous in timing than the thirty-day federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act route that several ranking pages cite instead.
• An unlawful rent increase — RCW 59.18.700(3). Covered above. Twenty days written notice before the effective date of the increase, rent owed for the full month of vacating, and no fine or fee.
• Certified or condemned premises — RCW 59.18.085. Where a governmental agency condemns the dwelling or declares it unlawful to occupy, the section supplies the tenant’s remedies including relocation assistance and penalties against the landlord.

Our Washington breaking a lease guide covers each route in more detail, including what the landlord may still recover.

No. RCW 64.04.010, as amended by 2024 c 27, provides that leases do not require acknowledgment, witness or seals — and that acknowledgment of both signatures is required only in order to record a lease or a memorandum of lease.

This is a real change and it is why the claim that a Washington lease longer than twelve months must be notarized, which appears on a ranking page, no longer states the law correctly. The proviso in RCW 64.04.010 now reads that leases do not require acknowledgment, witness or seals, but to be recorded, a lease and a memorandum of lease must have the lessee’s and lessor’s signatures acknowledged. Recording is optional; validity does not depend on it.

There is a tension on the face of the code that an honest page should flag rather than smooth over. RCW 59.18.210 has not been amended since 1973 and still reads that tenancies from year to year are abolished except where created by express written contract, and that “leases may be in writing or print, or partly in writing and partly in print, and shall be legal and valid for any term or period not exceeding one year, without acknowledgment, witnesses or seals”. Historically that wording was read as implying that a lease exceeding one year required acknowledgment. The 2024 amendment to RCW 64.04.010 addresses the point directly and generally. Where a Washington lease runs longer than a year and the parties want it recorded, have both signatures acknowledged and take Washington advice; for validity between the parties, no notary is required.

What Washington does require at signature is simpler and more often missed: RCW 59.18.065 requires the landlord to provide an executed copy of a written rental agreement to each tenant who signs it, and gives the tenant a right to request one free replacement copy during the tenancy. The same free-replacement right attaches to the move-in checklist under RCW 59.18.260(3).

There is a statewide statutory limit on rent increases, and a separate statute that stops cities creating their own. The two are not in conflict, and a page that cites only the second is out of date by more than a year.

RCW 35.21.830 has provided since 1981 that the imposition of controls on rent is of statewide significance and is preempted by the state, and that no city or town of any class may enact, maintain or enforce ordinances or other provisions which regulate the amount of rent to be charged for single-family or multiple-unit residential rental structures or sites — other than properties in public ownership or under public management, or properties providing low-income rental housing under joint public-private agreements. It does not prohibit a city entering into agreements with private persons that regulate rent, and a 1981 note preserves local ordinances relating to rents at floating home moorage sites.

The section binds cities and towns. It has never bound the Legislature, which is why RCW 59.18.700 could be enacted in 2025 without touching it. A ranking Washington lease page states flatly that “rent control and stabilization laws do not exist in Washington since 1981, when the state passed legislation prohibiting the enactment of rent control laws” and cites 35.21.830. That was an accurate summary until 7 May 2025. It is now wrong, and a landlord relying on it will serve an increase that exceeds the statutory maximum, on the wrong notice period, on the wrong form.

The practical division is therefore this. The amount of a rent increase is governed by state law only — RCW 59.18.700, with the percentage published annually by the Department of Commerce. Everything else is open to local regulation, and several Washington cities have used that room. Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, Burien, Olympia, Kenmore and Federal Way each impose duties on top of chapter 59.18, covering matters such as tenant selection order, instalment payment of deposits and move-in fees, longer notice periods for increases, and additional disclosure packets. Those are local ordinances, not Washington law, and they are deliberately outside the scope of this statewide page — check the municipal code for the city and the county in which the premises sit before relying on the state minimum alone.

Every claim below was checked against the section’s own text on the Washington State Legislature’s site on 6 August 2026, and against the enrolled session-law PDFs where a recent act was involved. These are not stylistic quibbles; each one would produce a defective Washington lease or a defective Washington notice.

1. “Rent control and stabilization laws do not exist in Washington since 1981.” A ranking page states this and cites RCW 35.21.830. That section preempts cities and towns from regulating the amount of rent. It has never bound the Legislature, and since 7 May 2025 RCW 59.18.700 has imposed a statewide limit: no increase at all in the first twelve months, then seven per cent plus the consumer price index or ten per cent, whichever is less.
2. “Returned to the tenant within twenty-one days.” The deepest ranking page still prints twenty-one. RCW 59.18.280(1)(a) has required the statement, documentation and refund within thirty days since 2023 c 331.
3. “Washington landlords may charge no more than one month’s rent if the property is a non-rent control unit.” There is no such rule and no such category. Chapter 59.18 contains no deposit cap. The one-month and two-month move-in ceiling created in 2025 was enacted as RCW 59.20.170, in the Manufactured and Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act, and governs lot rentals.
4. “Landlords can enter by giving forty-eight hours’ advance notice.” The same page’s own generated lease then says twenty-four hours “will be deemed reasonable”. RCW 59.18.150(6) requires at least two days written notice that states the exact time and date or a specified window and gives a telephone number for objecting or rescheduling — and one day for a showing.
5. Citing RCW 59.18.160 as the landlord’s right of entry. A ranking template’s generated lease does exactly this. RCW 59.18.160 is titled “Landlord’s remedies if tenant fails to remedy defective condition” and says nothing about access. Entry is RCW 59.18.150.
6. Citing RCW 19.02.115 for the landlord-identification disclosure. Another ranking page does this. RCW 19.02.115 is “Licensing information — Authorized disclosure — Penalty”, in the state business-licensing chapter, and governs confidentiality of licensing records. It has nothing to do with tenancy. The identification duty is RCW 59.18.060(16).
7. “Washington limits the late fee to twenty dollars or twenty per cent of the monthly rent, whichever is greater.” A ranking page states this and cites RCW 19.150.150. Chapter 19.150 is the Self-Service Storage Facilities act, and the section speaks of an owner charging an occupant for a storage space. Washington caps no residential late-fee amount; what it does is forbid any fee for rent paid within five days.
8. Citing RCW 59.18.060(13) for mold and (15) for landlord identification. Every ranking page does. Since 2026 c 234 those are (14) and (16), because a flood-risk disclosure was inserted at (13).
9. “Sixty days’ notice to raise the rent.” One ranking template even generates a lease clause promising sixty days. RCW 59.18.140(3)(a) has required ninety days since 2025 c 209 s 104. Sixty survives only as a spent transitional rule for pre-May-2025 fixed terms.
10. No mention of the prescribed rent-increase notice form. RCW 59.18.720(3) sets out the “RENT AND FEE INCREASE NOTICE TO TENANTS” wording that the notice must substantially follow, and RCW 59.18.700(2) requires supporting facts for any claimed exemption. No ranking page mentions it, so no landlord following them serves a compliant notice.
11. A generated Washington lease granting entry to “exercise a contractual or statutory lien”. RCW 59.18.230(4) abolished distress for rent for property covered by the chapter and makes any lease provision creating a lien on the tenant’s personal property null and void.
12. Complete silence on RCW 59.18.230. Not one ranking page mentions the prohibited-provisions section, so none reports that a Washington lease may not contain a class-action waiver, a nondisclosure agreement about rent or concessions, a confession of judgment, an exculpation or indemnity clause, a pre-agreed arbitrator, an electronic-only payment requirement, or an attorney-fee clause — or that knowingly using one costs actual damages plus up to two months’ rent plus the tenant’s fees.
13. “Leases longer than twelve months must be notarized.” RCW 64.04.010, as amended by 2024 c 27, provides that leases do not require acknowledgment, witness or seals, and that acknowledgment of both signatures is needed only to record.
14. “Ten days if the property is worth less than two hundred fifty dollars.” RCW 59.18.310(2) says seven days for property of a cumulative value of two hundred fifty dollars or less — and excludes personal papers, family pictures and keepsakes from the shortened period entirely.
15. “Tenants may withhold up to one month’s rent, or two months’ rent if a professional is needed.” RCW 59.18.100 is repair-and-deduct, not withholding. Each ceiling is per repair, each has a matching twelve-month aggregate, the two-month route needs a good-faith written estimate first, and the remedy is unavailable for the receptacle and identification duties.
16. No mention of the prescribed fourteen-day notice form. RCW 59.18.057(1) sets it out in full, including the separate itemisation of rent, utilities and other recurring charges, the nonelectronic-payment statement, and the Attorney General, right-to-counsel, Eviction Defense Screening Line, 2-1-1, washingtonlawhelp and dispute-resolution-centre information. A notice missing them is defective.
17. No mention of RCW 59.18.740. In force since 11 June 2026, it stops a landlord prohibiting a tenant’s portable cooling device or charging a fee for it, and requires the lease itself to state the tenant’s rights and any window-mounted restriction relied on.
18. Retaliation described as one-directional. Where the ranking pages mention retaliation at all, they give the tenant’s ninety-day presumption and stop. RCW 59.18.250 also presumes the landlord’s action is not retaliatory where the tenant is in arrears at the time of a chapter 59.12 notice, presumes bad faith where the tenant complains within ninety days after a proposed increase, and creates no presumption at all against an increase whose notice specifies reasonable grounds.

• Taking the deposit before the checklist is signed. RCW 59.18.260(2) makes the signed, dated checklist a precondition to collecting the money, and RCW 59.18.260(5) makes a landlord who skips it liable for the amount of the deposit. Sign it the day keys change hands, not the week after.
• A checklist that lists rooms instead of items. RCW 59.18.280(1)(c)(iii) bars withholding for any fixture, equipment, appliance or furnishing whose condition was not reasonably documented in the checklist. “Kitchen: good” does not document the dishwasher.
• Holding the deposit in the operating account. RCW 59.18.270 requires a trust account maintained for tenants’ deposits at a Washington financial institution or licensed escrow agent, plus a written receipt and written notice of the depository.
• Writing a rent-cap percentage into the lease. The number changes annually. Write the mechanism — the RCW 59.18.700 formula and the Department of Commerce publication — and read the published figure before each notice.
• Serving a rent increase on sixty days, or on your own letterhead. Ninety days under RCW 59.18.140(3)(a), on the RCW 59.18.720(3) form, served under RCW 59.12.040, covering rent and every recurring or periodic charge.
• Raising a parking, storage or pet charge without treating it as a rent increase. The statutory form governs “rent and other recurring or periodic charges”. Raising the charge alone still engages the limit, the notice period and the form.
• A three-day or five-day late fee. RCW 59.18.230(2)(i) makes that a prohibited provision, which is a two-months-rent exposure, not merely an unenforceable fee.
• Applying a payment to the late fee first. RCW 59.18.283(1) requires rent first. Doing it the other way manufactures a rent shortfall and a notice that cannot be sustained.
• Naming an online portal as the only way to pay. RCW 59.18.230(2)(j) prohibits an electronic-only requirement, and RCW 59.18.063 requires a personal check, cashier’s check or money order to be accepted with a mail option.
• An entry notice without a phone number, or without a stated window. RCW 59.18.150(6) requires both. Two days is necessary but not sufficient.
• Posting a notice on the door and stopping there. RCW 59.12.040’s third method requires posting and delivery to any person residing there if one can be found and mailing — and mailing adds five days before an action may begin.
• Carrying over an attorney-fee clause from another state’s template. RCW 59.18.230(2)(e) prohibits it, and a reciprocal prevailing-party wording does not save it.
• Deducting cleaning after taking a nonrefundable cleaning fee. RCW 59.18.130(10) forbids charging for normal cleaning where such a fee was paid.
• Charging for carpet cleaning as a matter of routine. RCW 59.18.280(1)(c)(ii) permits it only where the landlord documents wear beyond ordinary use.
• Reporting an undocumented damage claim to a screening service. RCW 59.18.280(3)(b) forbids reporting damages not substantiated by the required documentation to any consumer reporting agency, tenant screening service or prospective landlord, or sending them to a collection agency.
• Assuming a thirty-day notice ends a month-to-month tenancy. It ends nothing on the landlord’s side. Washington is a just-cause state; the tenant’s twenty days is the only bare-notice exit.
• Relying on an exemption from the rent cap without stating the facts. RCW 59.18.700(2) requires the supporting facts in the notice, and three of the exemptions vanish where the owner is a corporation, a real estate investment trust, or a limited liability company with a corporate member.
• Banning window air conditioners in the house rules rather than in the lease. RCW 59.18.740(8) requires the notice to be in the lease, and only five specific grounds permit the restriction at all.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. Washington sharpens that calculation in three specific ways. First, the landlord cannot buy protection with a fee clause: RCW 59.18.230(2)(e) removes it, and RCW 59.18.290(3) then withholds a statutory fee award on a default judgment or where the rent recovered is two months’ contract rent or less. Second, just cause means a difficult tenancy cannot simply be allowed to expire — ending it needs an enumerated ground and a specified notice, and getting that wrong is a three-times-monthly-rent exposure under RCW 59.18.650(4). Third, the deposit is a thinner backstop than it looks: undocumented deductions cannot be charged, reported or collected, and a missed thirty-day accounting forfeits the whole sum.

Washington also regulates screening itself. RCW 59.18.257 requires the prospective landlord to give written notice, before obtaining any information, of what will be accessed, what criteria may lead to denial, the consumer reporting agency’s name and address with the applicant’s rights, and whether a comprehensive reusable screening report will be accepted — and a landlord who skips that notice may not charge for the screening at all. Where the landlord screens in-house, only actual costs may be charged and they may not exceed the customary costs charged by a screening service in the general area. An adverse action needs a written notice in substantially the statutory form. And RCW 59.18.255(3) requires any rent voucher or subsidy to be subtracted from the monthly rent before an income threshold is applied.

Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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