Washington Construction Estimating Services

Washington has one building code. That sounds simple. It isn’t.

The State Building Code Council adopts the code for the whole state, and every city enforces the same edition with its own amendments on top. Right now that’s the 2021 codes — IBC, IRC, mechanical, fire, plumbing and the Wildland-Urban Interface Code — in force since March 15, 2024. Before that the state ran the 2018 editions for three years. So a Seattle job and a Spokane job are on the same book. What changes between them is the amendment list, the plan reviewer and the wage.

The energy code is where Washington stops looking like everywhere else. It isn’t the IECC. It’s the Washington State Energy Code, written in Olympia, and it isn’t a copy of the model code. The 2021 edition came in on the same day as the rest. Price an envelope off a national assembly cost and the insulation, glazing and mechanical lines are wrong before you’ve opened the drawings.

Then there’s the tax. In Washington the contract itself is taxable. A prime contractor building on the owner’s land collects retail sales tax on the full contract amount — labor, materials, permits and every sub’s invoice included — and reports the income under Retailing B&O. Subs bill the prime wholesale and don’t collect. Build on your own land as a spec builder and there’s no sales tax on the sale at all, but real estate excise tax instead. The rate depends on where the job sits, and it changes the bottom line by more than most line items do.

And the license. Washington doesn’t test general contractors. It registers them through L&I with a bond, a business license and liability insurance. Since July 1, 2024, the general contractor bond is $30,000, up from $12,000, and the specialty bond is $15,000. First increase since 2001, phased in as registrations renew. Electrical and plumbing are licensed separately.

Every one of these has cost somebody real money. We see them monthly.

1. Sales tax on the whole job. Not on the materials. On the contract. A $1M custom job for an owner carries sales tax on the full million, and whether that number sits inside your price or gets added on top depends on how you wrote the contract. Leave it out and your margin pays it. It goes on every prime-contract estimate in the state as its own line.

2. The energy code envelope. The Washington State Energy Code is the state’s own document, not the IECC that most cost data assumes. Wall assemblies, window performance, mechanical efficiency and the commercial credit options all move the number. The takeoff has to be built from the Washington assembly, not the one in the catalog.

3. Seattle permit math. Seattle’s 2026 fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026, prices a permit on valuation: $4,859 for the first $500,000 plus $7 per additional $1,000 in the $500K–$750K band, and $8,359 for the first $1M plus $6.75 per $1,000 above that. Then plan review at 100% of the fee index on a standard building permit — so the review costs as much as the permit. That’s General Conditions money, and it has to be in the number before you sign.

4. The public-works wage. School, city and county work in Washington is priced at the state’s prevailing rates, not the rate your crew gets on a private job. The Newport High School estimate on this page was built that way — the title says so. If you price a school bid at private-sector labor, you’re going to find out at the bid opening.

We don’t ask you to take our word for it. Sixteen real Washington estimates are on this page — four in each of the four categories we work in. $168.4M of construction value across 162 pages of takeoff and pricing. Open them. Read the line items. See exactly what you get before you send us a single sheet.

Commercial Buildings — ground-up institutional, hospitality and churches.

• Newport High School, Bellevue – $99.5M (98006)
• Morck Hotel, Aberdeen – $9.6M (98520)
• Spokane Hotel Project – $6.6M (Spokane 99202)
• Vancouver Church – $4.1M (Vancouver 98665)

Multi Family and Apartments — apartments, mid-rise and multi-unit housing.

• Airway Heights – $30.6M (Airway Heights 99001)
• Foster Apts, Vancouver – $6M (98683)
• E James St Apartments, Seattle – $4.1M (98122)
• 614 13th Ave, Seattle – $3.7M (98102)

Residential — custom homes, additions and whole-house remodels.

• Steilacoom Blvd, Lakewood – $1M (98499)
• 2770 Project, Seattle – $866K (98101)
• 423 Bellevue – $662K (Bellevue 98008)
• 17624 Redmond project – $486K (Redmond 98052)

Tenant Buildouts — interior fit-outs in existing buildings.

• Woods Coffee Kent – $430K (Kent 98032)
• Chick-Fil-A Everett – $346K (Everett 98208)
• KeyBank Black Diamond – $220K (Black Diamond 98010)
• Chipotle North Benson, Renton – $164K (98055)

Four building types. Puget Sound to the Inland Northwest, the Columbia to Grays Harbor. From a $164K Chipotle to a $99.5M high school. That range is the whole point — most shops price one lane and call it a service.

Look at Newport High School. $99.5M, thirty-six pages, sitework through electrical, priced at prevailing wage for Bellevue. That’s a public bid where the wage rate is set before you start and the estimate has to carry it on every trade.

Then look at Airway Heights. $30.6M, twenty-five pages, four buildings on one site, each one taken off separately. Same state, same code year, a very different job — and the envelope on every one of those buildings is priced against the Washington energy code, not a national average.

We estimate statewide. Here’s where the volume actually is.

Seattle and King County. Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Kent, Renton, Issaquah and Black Diamond. Seven of the sixteen estimates above are King County jobs. Seattle’s 2026 permit schedule is the one we price General Conditions against, and plan review there costs as much as the permit.

Tacoma and the South Sound. Tacoma, Lakewood, Puyallup, Olympia and Lacey. The Steilacoom Blvd house is a Lakewood job.

Everett and Snohomish County. Everett, Lynnwood, Marysville and Edmonds. The Chick-Fil-A above is an Everett fit-out.

Spokane and the Inland Northwest. Spokane, Spokane Valley, Airway Heights and Deer Park. Two of the sixteen estimates are here — the hotel and the four-building apartment site. East of the Cascades the Wildland-Urban Interface Code starts to matter, and that’s a materials question, not a footnote.

Vancouver and Clark County. Vancouver, Ridgefield and Camas. Two of the sixteen are Vancouver jobs — the Foster apartments and the church. Portland prices don’t apply on this side of the river; the tax rule alone makes sure of that.

The coast and the peninsula. Aberdeen, Bremerton, Silverdale, Port Townsend and Sequim. The Morck Hotel is an Aberdeen job.

Central Washington and the Tri-Cities. Yakima, Ellensburg, Wenatchee, Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. Long hauls over the passes, and that shows up in your durations.

Every one of those cities has its own page with local detail. Start there if you want the county-level specifics.

General contractors bidding hard-bid and negotiated work. Subs who need a takeoff that survives a scope review. Developers who want a real number before they commit capital. Architects who’d rather price a design now than explain a surprise at bid day.

If you’re a GC in Washington turning down invitations because you can’t get numbers out fast enough, you’re going to keep leaving work on the table until somebody else does the takeoff for you. That’s what our Washington construction estimating services are built to fix. You send the plans. We send back a priced estimate with the quantities shown, in a format you can hand straight to a client or an owner.

We’re not a lead service and we’re not a software subscription. A person does the takeoff. Another person checks it. You can call and ask why a number is what it is, and get an answer.

What you’re hiring is a cost estimator who has already priced work under the Washington energy code, with the sales tax on the contract, at the state’s prevailing rates when the job is public. Not a national square-foot average with the word Washington written on top.

Send us your plans. We’ll tell you what it costs.