What a Septic Permit Costs in Washington, County by County

Sourced from the published fee schedules of Asotin, Spokane, Thurston, Tacoma-Pierce, Benton-Franklin, Grays Harbor, Whitman, Mason, Snohomish, Walla Walla and Kittitas health jurisdictions, chapter 246-272A WAC, chapter 18.210 RCW and the Washington State Department of Health — last checked August 2026.

There is no such thing as a Washington septic permit fee. There are thirty-five of them, and they do not agree. The same soil log costs $95 in Asotin County and $790 in Kittitas County — the same service, both figures published by the county itself, an eight-fold difference across a state line that does not exist.

Chapter 246-272A WAC is written by the Washington State Department of Health, but it is administered by 35 local health jurisdictions serving 39 counties — 30 county health departments, three multi-county health districts and two city-county health departments. Those jurisdictions set their own fee schedules, adopt them on their own timetables, and publish them in their own formats. What you owe depends on which side of a county line your septic tank sits on.

Everything below is taken from a published fee schedule or permit application, with the effective date and a link to the source. Where a county does not publish its fees, this page says so rather than guessing.

The short version

Service	Cheapest sourced	Dearest sourced	Spread
Site / soil evaluation	Asotin $95	Kittitas $790	8.3×
New residential permit, all-in	Asotin $785	Spokane $1,890	2.4×
County fee to file a property-transfer report	Spokane $0	Pierce $480	—

Those are the extremes among the counties that publish. The true statewide spread is probably wider, because several large jurisdictions do not publish a schedule we could retrieve.

New system: what the county charges

Read this as the government cost of getting permission. It is not the cost of the system. See what a septic system actually costs to install in Washington for that, and be aware the two are frequently confused in quotes.

Asotin County Health District

Site and soil evaluation $95 (up to one hour and four test pits; $95 per hour beyond that). Application, plan review and final inspection $240. New OSS permit $450 where a licensed designer prepared the design, $650 where the homeowner did. Repair or modification $450. Replacement or reserve $500. Tank repair or replacement $275.

All-in for a new system: about $785 with a licensed designer, $985 with a homeowner design. No operational permit is listed. Source: Asotin County Health District, Permit Process and Fees 2024.

Spokane Regional Health District

Residential OSS application $1,000, which includes one plan resubmittal. Residential OSS permit $890. All-in: $1,890. Limited modification or repair is $370 application plus $370 permit. Plan resubmittal or revision $360. Test-hole inspection beyond two hours $360 per hour. Pumper permit $345 per truck.

Spokane publishes no separate site-evaluation line item. Source: SRHD 2026 Approved Fee Schedule, effective January 1, 2026. One caveat we could not resolve: the schedule does not state whether the $890 permit fee is one-time or annual. Call before budgeting.

Thurston County Public Health and Social Services

New OSS permit — site application plus design review — $1,275. Site evaluation on its own $615. Repair permit $1,275. Operational certificate renewal $180, reduced to $95 for seniors and people with disabilities. Annual operation and maintenance fee $25. Time-of-transfer fee $290. Loan certification inspection $460.

Source: Thurston County PHSS fee schedule, effective January 1, 2025. Thurston’s schedule carries an annual CPI adjustment, and the year-on-year movement is visible: the same new-permit package was $1,230 in 2024.

Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department

Single-family design review $1,020. Single-family repair design $960. Standard installation permit $480. Repair installation permit $480. Tank-only installation $240. Septic or pump tank replacement $720. Decommissioning certification $360. Variance or waiver review $720, three-hour minimum. Reinspection $360. Hourly rate $240.

Source: Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026.

Benton-Franklin Health District

New single-family home $1,000. Repair or replacement of a system $600. Replacement of the septic tank only $350. Alteration to an existing system that has not failed $900. Permit renewal $325, required 30 days before the permit expires. Plan review for an alternative-type system adds $350. Plan re-review or permit revision $250. Homeowner design review $150.

Source: BFHD On-Site Sewage Construction Permit Application, form revision July 2025. The site and soil evaluation fee is on a separate form we could not retrieve — ask when you call.

Grays Harbor County Environmental Health

New residential permit $1,032 conventional, $1,342 alternative. Property and soils profile determination on its own $258. Existing system evaluation, septic only, $310. Plan review revision $238. Reinspection $176. Design review $124 per hour. Extensions $310 per year.

A repair permit is half the base permit fee where the failure is verified and the work is completed within six months — one of the more homeowner-friendly provisions we found. The schedule adjusts annually by CPI-W, capped at 3.5%. Source: Grays Harbor County 2026 EH Fee Schedule, per Board of Health Resolution 2024-02.

Whitman County Public Health

Residential review $1,000 gravity, $1,100 alternative. Commercial review $1,200. Simple repair of an OSS $250. Standalone or additional site evaluation $300. Annual licenses: installer $250, pumper $250, evaluator $250.

Source: Whitman County Public Health, 2026 permit fees. Whitman is one of the four counties that already require an inspection when property changes hands.

Mason County Public Health

Individual permit $570. Installation $275. Homeowner installation adds $235. Tank only $275. Property evaluation, site and soil, $380. Community or commercial $1,320, plus $170 per connection. Re-inspection or re-submittal $170. Winter observation $625. Environmental health development review, non-refundable: septic $275, water $275, or $465 for both.

Source: Mason County 2026 Environmental Health Fee Schedule. The document is headed 2026 but carries no internal effective date — confirm before relying on it.

Snohomish County Health Department

We have figures for Snohomish, but they come from a draft fee-adjustment comparison dated August 2025, shown as current-to-proposed ranges rather than an adopted schedule. Application review $365–385. Gravity or pressure distribution permit $1,075–1,130. All other Department of Health approved systems $1,230–1,290. Repair permit $370–390. Operational permit renewal $410–430. Holding tank annual monitoring $450–470.

Treat these as indicative only. We have not been able to retrieve Snohomish’s adopted 2026 schedule, and a draft is not a fee.

Walla Walla County

New system OSS permit $900. Replacement of a total system or drainfield $500. Replacement of the septic tank only $150. Site visits and test holes for a new permit application $200 for the first two hours, then $100 per hour. Holding tanks and pit privies $350. Winter observation $500. Fees are doubled where work was done without a required permit.

This schedule is stale. The most recent amendment we could source is Ordinance 431, dated April 27, 2015. Walla Walla County Code chapter 8.32. Call before you rely on any figure here.

The alternative-system premium is real, and it is written into the fee schedules

Four jurisdictions charge measurably more to permit an alternative or advanced system than a conventional gravity one:

Jurisdiction	Gravity	Alternative / advanced	Difference
Grays Harbor	$1,032	$1,342	+$310 (+30%)
Benton-Franklin	base $1,000	+$350 plan review	+$350
Whitman	$1,000	$1,100	+$100 (+10%)
Snohomish (draft)	$1,075–1,130	$1,230–1,290	+$155–160

This matters more than the money involved, because you often do not choose which category you are in. Table VI of WAC 246-272A-0230 sets the required treatment level and distribution method from your vertical separation and soil type. On a shallow or wet site the rule requires a higher treatment level with pressure distribution and timed dosing — and the county then charges you the alternative-system rate to permit it.

So a site condition you cannot change decides both the system you must install and the fee you pay to be allowed to install it.

What your county charges to file a property-transfer report

From February 1, 2027, WAC 246-272A-0270 will require an inspection by a third-party inspector authorized by the local health officer when a property with a septic system changes hands. Several counties already run a version of this. The fee below is the county’s administrative charge for handling the report — it is on top of whatever the inspector charges you.

Jurisdiction	Fee	What it is called
Spokane	No charge	Property Transfer Inspection Report Submittal
Snohomish	$245 (2026–27), $255 (2027–28)	Report of Property Transfer
Thurston	$290	Time of transfer fee
Grays Harbor	$310	Existing System Evaluation (septic only)
Tacoma-Pierce	$480, or $240 filed concurrently	Real estate transaction report

Spokane charges nothing. Pierce charges $480, halved if you file it alongside another application — worth knowing before you file separately. Grays Harbor has no line item named for property transfer; the $310 existing-system evaluation is the nearest published equivalent, so confirm it is the right fee for your situation.

Snohomish County is moving early. Reporting of the Board of Health’s April 2026 action indicates Snohomish adopted its own transfer requirement effective November 1, 2026 — three months ahead of the state — with the inspection valid for 12 months and systems installed within 12 months of sale exempt. We have this from news coverage of the board action rather than from the adopted schedule itself, so treat the date as reported rather than confirmed, and check with Snohomish Health directly if you are selling this year.

Before you assume you need one at all, read whether your county can waive the 2027 inspection. The waiver exists, but the conditions are stricter than most summaries suggest.

Annual fees some counties charge just for having a septic system

A handful of jurisdictions levy a small recurring per-system fee. The figures we can source are dated and should be re-checked, but the mechanism is worth knowing about:

• Whatcom County — $19 per year on all OSS owners
• San Juan County — $10 per year, collected with property tax
• Thurston County, Henderson Watershed Protection Area — $35 per year low-risk, $96 per year high-risk
• Thurston County, Nisqually Reach Shellfish Protection District — $60 low-risk, $135 high-risk
• Thurston County generally — $25 annual O&M fee on the current schedule

The first four come from a Department of Health financing assessment published in October 2014 and reflect fees adopted between 2012 and 2013. They are twelve years old. San Juan’s $10 is separately confirmed on the county’s own site. Treat all of them as a prompt to ask, not as current figures.

Counties we could not source, and why

We would rather tell you we do not know than publish a number we cannot stand behind. As of August 2026 we could not retrieve a published fee schedule for the following, despite looking:

• King County — publishes an OSS fee document but it is not retrievable at a stable public address. The largest jurisdiction in the state, and a real gap.
• Klickitat County — county site unreachable to us throughout. We have seen a figure of roughly $500 quoted for a permit elsewhere and we could neither confirm nor refute it, so we are not repeating it as fact.
• Clark County — fee schedule blocked to automated retrieval.
• Kittitas County — publishes the $790 site evaluation but no permit, repair or operational fees.
• Kitsap Public Health District — a 2026 schedule was adopted effective January 1, 2026, but we could not retrieve it.
• Cowlitz County — the county directs inquirers to phone for fees.
• Island, Jefferson, Grant and Okanogan — schedules exist but were not retrievable.
• No published schedule found at all for Chelan-Douglas, Yakima, Whatcom, Skagit, Lewis, Stevens, Adams, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Pacific, Wahkiakum, Columbia, Garfield, Skamania or Douglas.

If your county is on that list, the fee schedule almost certainly exists — it simply is not published where a search engine can reach it. Phone the environmental health desk at your local health jurisdiction and ask for the current on-site sewage fee schedule. It is a one-call question.

One live example of why dates matter

Kittitas County’s site evaluation application shows $790 on the current form, marked version 7, adopted January 9, 2025. Search results were still surfacing $770 from the superseded version 6 while we were compiling this page.

That is a $20 difference and it does not matter much on its own. It matters as a warning: septic fee figures circulate long after they stop being true, on aggregator sites, in old forum posts, and in search snippets. Every figure on this page carries the date of the document it came from, so you can see how old it is. Check the source before you write a check.

What these fees do not cover

The county fee buys you review and permission. It does not buy you a septic system. Budget separately for:

• The designer. Washington licenses septic designers at state level under chapter 18.210 RCW — it is unlawful to design a system here without that license or a professional engineer license. Some counties charge less to review a licensed designer’s work than a homeowner’s, as Asotin does.
• The installer. Installers are not state-licensed. They are approved locally by the health officer under WAC 246-272A-0340. That is the reverse of how most states do it.
• The system itself, which is the large number.
• Ongoing inspections at the frequency your system type requires, plus any operational permit your county runs.

This site is an independent information resource. We are not a health jurisdiction and we are not affiliated with the Washington State Department of Health or with any county health department. The fee schedule your jurisdiction publishes is the authority; where this page and a county document disagree, the county document is right and we would like to hear about it so we can correct this page.

Sources

• Asotin County Health District, Permit Process and Fees 2024 — fee schedule (PDF)
• Spokane Regional Health District, 2026 Approved Fee Schedule, effective January 1, 2026 — fee schedule (PDF)
• Thurston County PHSS, 2025 Fee Schedule, effective January 1, 2025 — fee schedule (PDF)
• Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, fee schedule effective January 1, 2026 — fee schedule
• Benton-Franklin Health District, On-Site Sewage Construction Permit Application, rev. July 2025 — application (PDF)
• Grays Harbor County, 2026 Environmental Health Fee Schedule — fee schedule (PDF)
• Whitman County Public Health, 2026 permit fees — permit fees
• Mason County Public Health, 2026 Environmental Health Fee Schedule — fee schedule (PDF)
• Snohomish County Health Department, fee adjustment comparison, August 2025 (draft) — comparison document
• Walla Walla County, Environmental Health fee ordinance (Ord. 431, 2015) — ordinance (PDF)
• Kittitas County Public Health, Application for Site Evaluation, v.7 adopted January 9, 2025 — application (PDF)
• Washington State Department of Health, Puget Sound Septic Financing Assessment, October 2014 — financing analysis (PDF)
• San Juan County, On-Site Sewage Program — program page
• Washington State Department of Health, Washington’s Public Health System (the 35 jurisdictions figure) — public health system
• WAC 246-272A-0230, design requirements and Table VI — rule text
• WAC 246-272A-0270, operation and maintenance and property transfer — rule text
• WAC 246-272A-0340, approval of installers, pumpers and maintenance service providers — rule text
• Chapter 18.210 RCW, on-site wastewater treatment system designer licensing — statute

Last reviewed August 2026. Fee schedules change annually and several of the counties above adjust automatically for inflation. If you find a figure here that no longer matches your county’s published schedule, tell us and we will correct it.