US state regulation
Washington
Every state-level regulation PlainRegWatch tracks for Washington - across data privacy, AI, food chemical bans, right to repair and worker protection, with status, effective dates and official sources.
- Tracker score
- 62/100 Top quartile
- Regulations tracked
- 7 Top quartile
- Enacted into law
- 7
- Categories regulated
- 2/5
Follow Washington regulation updates: RSS feed for this state.
Ceiling tracker band. Portal tracker 62/100 sits in the top third of scored states (#9 of 51).
The verdict
Washington is a dense, high-tracker archive: 7 tracked rows and 62/100, with 7 enacted across 2 of 5 policy areas, led by Employment & Worker Protection.
- 62/100
- tracker (ceiling tercile)
- 7
- tracked rows (dense tercile)
- 7
- enacted into law
- Employment & Worker Protection
- WORKER-LED lead area
Tracker score is a 0–100 portal-derived measure: weighted counts of records marked enacted across five covered categories, normalized to the top result, not enforcement strength, legal burden, or an official state rating.
State archive posture brief
Washington legislative archive posture
Entity-varying stamps from Washington's rows in the five-category PlainRegWatch archive, volume band, enactment share, tracker score, and corpus rank, not a clone nationwide scaffold.
- 7 Tracked rows in archive
- 7 Enacted into law 100% share
- 0 Pending bills tracked
- 62/100 Portal tracker score
- #6 Of 51 by volume
- #9 Of 51 by tracker score
- Connecticut Nearest volume peer 6 rows
- 2 Of 5 policy areas Employment & Worker Protection
Enacted-volume neighbourhood
Enacted statute count among nearest archive-volume peers (snapshot 2026-07-16).
State context
Washington's tracker score vs the tracked state corpus
Ceiling tracker band: Washington is above the peer average for tracked volume and above the peer average for tracker score. Highlighted point = this state.
PlainRegWatch methodology: tracker score is a normalized enacted-count index, not legal burden. Placement method.
Washington enactments by year
Enacted regulations tracked in PlainRegWatch since 2015 · peak 2 in 2025
Policy coverage
Washington enacted mix · WORKER-LED
Worker-protection-led shelf: each card is live from Washington's rows (enacted counts only), with links into the national category hubs.
Washington regulatory footprint index
A single 0-100 index combining Washington's standing on 3 of 3 tracked measures: enacted-law volume, portal tracker strictness, and tracked-category breadth. This describes how extensive Washington's tracked regulatory footprint is, not a judgment of good or bad governance. A missing measure would drop out and redistribute its weight rather than deflating the index.
88/100
Percentile-weighted across 3 of 3 measures
- Enacted volume
- A 7 tracked
90th percentile nationwide
- Tracker strictness
- A 62/100
94th percentile nationwide
- Category breadth
- B 2 categories
76th percentile nationwide
Benchmarked live against every state reporting each measure in the current portal tracker. Not a legal, compliance, or governance-quality score; PlainRegWatch's own weighting (enacted volume 40%, tracker strictness 35%, category breadth 25%).
💼 Employment & Worker Protection
Seattle Secure Scheduling Ordinance
Ordinance 124930 Effective: 2017-07-01Seattle requires 14-day advance schedules for food service and retail. Premium for changes. Extra hours to existing workers first.
Washington Equal Pay and Opportunities Act
SB 5761 Effective: 2023-01-01Pay ranges + benefits for 15+ employee employers.
Washington Minimum Wage
RCW 49.46.020 Effective: 2025-01-01Washington minimum wage $16.66/hr (2025) — highest statewide rate in US. No tipped credit. Annual CPI indexing.
Washington Non-Compete Act
RCW 49.62 Effective: 2020-01-01Washington non-competes void for employees earning under $120,559/year (2025, indexed) or ICs under $301,395.
Washington PFML + Paid Sick Leave
ESHB 1116 / SB 5975 Effective: 2020-01-01Washington PFML: 12 weeks paid family leave, up to 18 total with medical. Sick: 1 hr per 40 hrs worked, all employers.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Read with Washington
Nearest archive-volume peers and tracker-score poles for Washington (DENSE · MID · QUIET), replacing the old fixed Related strip.
DENSE MID QUIET WORKER-LED
Connecticut · FULL
Connecticut tracks 6 rows (fewer by 1 than Washington); tracker stamp MID vs MID.
New York · DENSE
New York tracks 8 rows (more by 1 than Washington); tracker stamp MID vs MID.
Oregon · DENSE
Oregon tracks 8 rows (more by 1 than Washington); tracker stamp MID vs MID.
Colorado · DENSE
Colorado tracks 8 rows (more by 1 than Washington); tracker stamp CEILING vs MID.
Employment & Worker Protection hub · WORKER-LED
Washington's lead category is Employment & Worker Protection (5 enacted) under the WORKER-LED archive stamp.
Regulations by category in Washington
Source: State regulatory filings (IAPP / MultiState aggregation) Washington state-rule registry · 2025 Washington: 7 tracked · 7 enacted · tracker 62/100 (DENSE/MID). Status reflects the latest legislative tracker snapshot.
Counts and tracker score are Washington's rows in the curated five-category archive · as of July 2026.