Benton and Franklin County Septic Permits: Fees, Rules and the 2027 Inspection

Sourced from Benton-Franklin Health District’s own permit and evaluation application forms (rev. 07/2025 and 01/2025), the district’s Board of Health Rules and Regulations No. 2 as revised July 1, 2007, its on-site sewage program pages, and chapter 246-272A WAC — last checked August 2026. Where we could not source something, we say so.

One district, two counties

Washington has 39 counties but only 35 health jurisdictions, and Benton-Franklin is one of the three multi-county districts that make the arithmetic work. It runs on-site sewage for both counties from offices in Kennewick and Pasco.

That is genuinely useful if you own property in the Tri-Cities area: a contractor who has permitted in Richland or Kennewick is working from the same fee schedule and the same rules in Pasco. It also means there is only one phone number to get a straight answer from — 509.460.4205 for on-site sewage.

What BFHD charges

These come off the district’s own construction permit application, revision 07/2025, which prints the fee against each code. Fees are due with the application, and the form says plainly that they are non-refundable and non-transferable.

Two of those are worth pausing on.

The $325 renewal has a deadline attached. The form says renewal is required 30 days before the permit expires. Miss it and you are not renewing, you are re-applying — and a new single-family permit is $1,000, not $325. If your project has stalled, put the expiry date in your calendar now.

Homeowner design is cheap here, and that is unusual. $150 for a homeowner design review, $50 for a revision. Walla Walla banned homeowner design outright in 2023. Benton-Franklin still allows it and prices it at a fraction of a designer’s fee. Whether it is the right choice depends on your soil, but the option exists and it is inexpensive.

Where $1,000 sits statewide

Washington’s published new-system permit fees run from about $500 in Klickitat to $1,890 in Spokane for the same job. Benton-Franklin’s $1,000 is squarely mid-range — the same as Whitman’s gravity permit, below Grays Harbor’s $1,032 conventional, and well under Spokane’s two-part $1,890.

None of those numbers include the system itself, the designer or the installer. They are what the health jurisdiction charges to let the work happen.

The $500 evaluation, and the pumping condition that catches people

If you are adding to the house, putting in a shop or a pool, or paving something near the drainfield, BFHD wants an evaluation of the existing system first — fee code 54.10, $500, on a form last revised January 2025. The evaluation checks three things: that the system is still sized for the house, that whatever you are building respects the setbacks, and that the reserve drainfield area is still there and still usable.

Here is the part that catches people out. The district will not evaluate a tank it cannot see into. The application states that if the tank has not been pumped within the last four years, it must be pumped while a district representative can be present — so the pumping has to be scheduled around their availability, not yours. The district’s web page describes the same requirement as three to four years and asks for pumping receipts. We are quoting both because they do not quite agree; assume four years is the outside limit and call to confirm before you book a pumper.

The district puts the whole process at four to six weeks. That is not a number to discover late in a build schedule.

Selling a home in Benton or Franklin County

This is where the honest answer is more useful than a yes or a no.

There is no blanket requirement to inspect before a sale in these two counties today. Four Washington counties do require one — Clallam, Jefferson, Whitman and Asotin — and Snohomish joins them on November 1, 2026. Benton and Franklin are not among them.

But two things are already true here:

• You must give the buyer your maintenance records at transfer, alongside the seller disclosure statement, where you have them.
• The health officer can require an inspection at transfer — including preparation of a record drawing if the district does not have one on file. That is a discretionary power, not an automatic step, but it exists and it is written into the district’s own rules.

Then on February 1, 2027, WAC 246-272A-0270 makes an inspection before transfer the statewide baseline. The rule carries a waiver: a local health officer may excuse the transfer inspection where the system already complies with routine inspection requirements. In practice that rewards owners who kept their system on schedule and kept the paperwork — which is the same advice as the paragraph above, just with a deadline on it.

⚠️ We could not find the February 2027 requirement described anywhere on the district’s on-site sewage pages as of August 2026. That is a statement about our search, not an accusation about the district — but if you are selling in the Tri-Cities in the next eighteen months, do not wait to be told. Call and ask what they will want.

The 200-foot rule that can turn a repair into a sewer connection

The district’s rules require connection to public sewer where it is available within 200 feet of the property, and that bites hardest on failure: a failing system near a sewer line may not be a repair job at all. It may be a connection.

The cost difference between repairing a drainfield and running a side sewer to the main is not small, and it is not something you want to learn about after the system fails. If you are inside a city limit or on the edge of one in Kennewick, Richland, West Richland, Pasco or Prosser, it is worth knowing where the nearest sewer main is before you need to.

Lot size: half an acre, or a full one

The district sets minimum land area by soil type and by water source:

The practical reading: putting your own well on the lot doubles the land you need. If you are looking at a parcel under an acre with no public water, that is the first question to answer, not the last.

How often the district wants your system inspected

Benton-Franklin follows the standard Washington pattern:

• Septic tank with gravity dispersal only — at least once every three years.
• Every other system type — annually, unless the health officer sets a shorter interval.
• Food service establishments — annual pumping and inspection.

“Every other system type” is broader than most owners assume. Pressure distribution, sand filters, mounds, aerobic treatment units and anything that pumps to a gravity drainfield all fall on the annual side.

What we could not source

• A site or soil evaluation fee. The $500 line covers evaluating an existing system. The fee for a soil log or site evaluation on raw ground sits on a separate form we could not retrieve. Ask when you call.
• What BFHD will charge to file a 2027 transfer inspection report. No such line item is published yet. Elsewhere in the state it runs from $0 in Spokane to $480 in Pierce, so this is not a small unknown.
• A current operation and maintenance provider list. The district publishes a pumper list; we did not find a separate certified O&M list.
• How many on-site systems are in either county. Not published anywhere we could find.
• The age of the rules. The Board of Health rules we are citing are marked as revised July 1, 2007. They are the current published version, but they are nineteen years old, and they predate both the 2027 transfer rule and the current WAC. Treat anything time-sensitive in them as worth a phone call.

Who to call

Sources

• Benton-Franklin Health District, On-Site Sewage Construction Permit Application, BFHD-EHS-OSS-001D rev. 07/2025 — bfhd.wa.gov
• Benton-Franklin Health District, Application to Evaluate an Existing On-Site Sewage System, BFHD-EHS-OSS-002D rev. 01/2025
• Benton-Franklin District Board of Health Rules and Regulations No. 2, as revised July 1, 2007
• Benton-Franklin Health District, Existing System Evaluations and Mortgage Certifications — bfhd.wa.gov
• WAC 246-272A-0270, on-site sewage system inspection at property transfer
• WAC 246-272A-0270 and 246-272A-0280, operation and maintenance requirements