Septic Permits by County in Washington: Find Your Health Jurisdiction

Sourced from the Washington State Department of Health, chapter 246-272A WAC, and the published fee schedules and program pages of individual county health jurisdictions — last checked August 2026. Where a county is not covered below, we say so rather than guess.

Why 39 counties make only 35 jurisdictions

The Department of Health describes Washington’s public health system as 35 local health departments and districts serving 39 counties, made up of 30 county health departments, three multi-county health districts and two city-county health departments.

The multi-county districts are the reason the arithmetic works. The ones we can identify are:

• Benton-Franklin Health District — Benton and Franklin counties
• Chelan-Douglas Health District — Chelan and Douglas counties
• Northeast Tri County Health District — Ferry, Pend Oreille and Stevens counties

And the two city-county departments are Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and Public Health – Seattle & King County.

We have not independently verified the full 39-to-35 mapping against a Department of Health list, so treat the groupings above as the ones we could identify rather than an exhaustive account. If you are unsure which jurisdiction covers you, search for your county name plus “health district on-site sewage” — the permitting office is always part of environmental health.

County guides

Where we have written a county up in full, it is linked here. The tables below cover the rest.

• Spokane County — $1,890 to permit a new system, and the only $0 transfer-report filing fee published in the state
• Benton and Franklin counties — one shared health district, $1,000 to permit a new system, and a $500 evaluation with a pumping condition attached
• Grant County — $1,044 to permit, and an evaluation that costs $85 less when you ask for the bundled version
• Okanogan County — $550 to permit, a two-office process, and site visits on fixed days for each half of the county
• Asotin County — one of the four counties that already requires a sale inspection, and the cheapest site evaluation in the state at $95
• Whitman County — already requires a transfer assessment, and the routine three-year form doubles as the sale paperwork
• Grays Harbor County — publishes an explicit “no inspection at sale” and never mentions that 2027 changes it; $1,032 to permit, fees CPI-indexed
• Skamania County — says transfer inspections will be REQUIRED in 2027, by a county-licensed inspector, and its list of those inspectors is empty; cheapest permit in the state at $195
• Kittitas County — $915 to permit, but the county fee-schedule link is dead and the lot-size rules that decide whether you can build at all are from 1972
• Walla Walla County — bans homeowner design on new systems, but lets the Health Officer design a simple gravity repair for you and waives the site evaluation fee on replacements
• Klickitat County — the most permissive county in the state: design and install your own gravity system after an exam, and a soil log is worth $350 off a drainfield replacement
• Chelan & Douglas Counties — the strictest district in the state, licensed professionals at every stage, and the only one that has publicly committed to time-of-sale inspections by February 2027
• Yakima County — already runs the 2027 inspection as an optional Mortgage Review, and will require it from February 1, 2027; also the 200-foot sewer connection test
• Columbia County — the cheapest complete package in the state at $395 including the site evaluation, and an evaluation requirement attached to plats and certificates rather than sales
• Garfield County — $558 for a new system, $167 to repair one, and every application is reviewed by the Environmental Health Administrator in Asotin County

What your county charges

These are counties whose fee schedules we could retrieve and date. The spread is the point: the same soil evaluation costs $95 in Asotin and $790 in Kittitas.

Full detail, including repair fees, renewals and what each figure includes, is on our Washington septic permit fees page.

Counties that already require an inspection to sell

The statewide requirement starts February 1, 2027. These are not waiting:

Clallam is worth studying wherever you live, because its O&M-contract exemption is the same trade the statewide rule makes. See the inspection-at-sale rule and whether your county can waive it.

What your county charges to file the transfer report

Separate from the inspector’s fee, and it varies more than you would expect:

Counties that will help pay

Assistance is entirely local and the eligibility basis differs in every one — Thurston uses a flat income figure, Snohomish uses state median income, Tacoma-Pierce uses no income test at all.

• Clallam — up to 75% of repair or replacement. The most substantial in the state.
• Thurston — up to $2,000, maintenance only
• Snohomish — up to $599 preventative, plus a replacement grant
• Skagit — up to $500 a year, no income test
• Whatcom — rebate to $500 for low-income households
• Tacoma-Pierce — discounts by watershed, no income test
• King — rebate plus an interest-free housing repair loan
• 🔴 Jefferson — closed since January 2022, listed because it may reopen

Craft3 lends in all 39 counties regardless of where you are. Full detail on our financial assistance page.

Counties where operational permits or annual fees apply

• Spokane — operational permits required, including for holding tanks
• Thurston — operational certificate renewal $180 ($95 senior/disabled) plus a $25 annual fee
• Benton-Franklin — $325 permit renewal, due 30 days before expiry
• Snohomish — operational permit renewal $410–430 (draft)
• Whatcom $19/yr, San Juan $10/yr collected with property tax, and Thurston watershed districts $35–$135 — all four from a 2014 Department of Health assessment reflecting fees adopted 2012–2013. Twelve years old; confirm before relying on them.

More on the obligation itself: Washington septic inspection and maintenance requirements.

Counties we could not source

We would rather name the gaps than fill them with guesses. As of August 2026 we could not retrieve a published fee schedule for:

King (publishes one, not at a retrievable address — the largest jurisdiction in the state and a real gap) · Klickitat (county site unreachable throughout; we have seen roughly $500 quoted elsewhere and could neither confirm nor refute it) · Clark · Kitsap · Cowlitz (directs inquirers to phone) · Island · Jefferson · Grant · Okanogan.

No published schedule found at all for Chelan-Douglas, Yakima, Whatcom, Skagit, Lewis, Stevens, Adams, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Pacific, Wahkiakum, Columbia, Garfield, Skamania and San Juan.

If your county is on either list, the schedule almost certainly exists — it is simply not published where a search engine can reach it. Phone the environmental health desk and ask for the current on-site sewage fee schedule. It is a one-call question, and we would be glad to hear what they tell you so we can add it here.

One thing worth knowing wherever you are

Twenty-eight of Washington’s 39 counties sit outside the Puget Sound basin, and the rules there are often simpler and cheaper — but the information is far harder to find, because most septic content published about Washington is written about the twelve Puget Sound counties. Marine Recovery Areas, for instance, exist only in those twelve and cannot apply anywhere else in the state, whatever a general article implies.

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 any county health department. Fee schedules change annually and several of those above adjust automatically for inflation. Where this page and your jurisdiction disagree, your jurisdiction is right.

Sources

• WA Dept of Health, Washington’s Public Health System (35 jurisdictions, 39 counties) — page
• Chapter 246-272A WAC, On-site Sewage Systems — rule text
• Asotin County Health District fee schedule — PDF
• Spokane Regional Health District 2026 fee schedule — PDF
• Thurston County PHSS 2025 fee schedule — PDF
• Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department fees — page
• Grays Harbor County 2026 EH fee schedule — PDF
• Whitman County Public Health permit fees — page
• Mason County 2026 EH fee schedule — PDF
• Kittitas County site evaluation application — PDF
• Clallam Conservation District septic repair assistance — page
• WA DOH, Puget Sound Septic Financing Assessment (Oct 2014) — PDF
• Lynnwood Times, Snohomish County Board of Health septic action (Apr 2026) — report

Last reviewed August 2026. We add counties to this page as we source their schedules — if you have dealt with a jurisdiction that is missing above, tell us what they charge.