Washington State Pay Transparency Law: Posting Requirements

The Friday-Afternoon Posting That Could Cost You $5,000

Your hiring manager just sent over the job description for a senior software developer. It's thorough — responsibilities, qualifications, hybrid schedule. One thing is missing: the salary range. You're in Washington State, the role will be posted publicly tomorrow morning, and you know the Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (EPOA) requires a range. You also know the consequences of getting it wrong have recently gotten steeper.

This guide walks you through exactly what Washington's pay transparency law requires you to disclose, who it covers, what the current penalty exposure looks like, and how to build a wage scale that will hold up if Washington's Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) ever asks for your methodology.

By the end, you'll know what to put in the posting, where the number has to come from, and what documentation to keep.

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What the Washington Pay Transparency Law Actually Requires

Washington's Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (EPOA), administered by Washington L&I, requires employers with 15 or more employees to include three elements in every publicly advertised job posting for a role to be performed at least partly in Washington State. The requirement has been in effect since January 1, 2023 (WA L&I, 2025).

Those three required elements are:

1. A wage scale or salary range — a minimum and a maximum. A single number ("$75,000") does not satisfy the requirement; neither does an open-ended phrase ("$30/hr and up"). You need both a floor and a ceiling.
2. A general description of benefits — health coverage, retirement, paid leave, and any other benefits the employer generally makes available to the role.
3. A general description of other compensation — bonuses, commissions, equity, profit-sharing, or similar.

The phrase "wage scale or salary range" matters. Washington L&I has clarified that the range must be stated in good faith — it should reflect what you actually intend to pay the person you hire. A range of $1 to $500,000 for an office manager would not meet that standard, even though it technically contains a min and a max.

For a plain-English explainer of what belongs in a compliant posting beyond the range itself, see our guide on what to include in a salary range posting.

Always verify the current rule. Pay-transparency requirements and enforcement guidance are updated by rulemaking. Confirm Washington's current posting requirements directly with Washington L&I (lni.wa.gov) or with employment counsel before you publish a posting.

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Who the EPOA Covers

The 15-employee threshold applies to total employee count, not just Washington-based headcount. An employer based in California with 200 employees and three in Washington is covered. A six-person startup with all staff in Seattle is not — though given Washington's direction of travel, and the fact that as of 2026 16 states plus Washington D.C. now mandate salary disclosure in job postings (Paycor / Nesco Resource, 2026), building the range-documentation habit early is worth the investment.

The requirement applies to postings — not internal transfers or promotions that are never publicly advertised, though employers with good documentation practices typically extend their methodology to those moves as well for consistency.

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What Happens If You Don't Comply: The 2025 Penalty Update

This is where Washington's law became significantly more consequential. As of the July 27, 2025 amendments to the EPOA (Epstein Becker Green, 2025), the penalty structure now has two layers:

Statutory damages — private right of action. An applicant or employee who was harmed by a non-compliant posting can bring a claim directly. Statutory damages range from $100 to $5,000 per applicant, plus attorney fees.

L&I civil penalties. Washington L&I can also assess civil penalties: up to $500 for a first violation and up to $1,000 for each subsequent violation (Epstein Becker Green, 2025).

A single posting without a range, or with a range that was not posted in good faith, is a separate violation. If the same posting runs on three job boards simultaneously without a compliant range, that may be treated as multiple violations. The math adds up quickly.

For a broader view of how penalties work across jurisdictions — including how Colorado, New York, and Illinois structure their enforcement — see pay transparency penalties explained.

Verify the current penalty amounts and any subsequent rulemaking with Washington L&I (lni.wa.gov) or employment counsel before relying on these figures.

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Building a Defensible Washington Salary Range

Posting a range is the compliance requirement. Posting a defensible range — one you can explain to counsel, to a regulator, or to a candidate who asks — requires a documented methodology. Here is a framework anchored in publicly available BLS OEWS data.

Step 1 — Identify the right BLS occupation code

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program produces wage estimates for over 800 occupations, based on a sample of approximately 1.1 million establishments (BLS, May 2025). Each occupation is identified by a Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code.

Match your role to the closest SOC code. For a senior software developer role, that is SOC 15-1252 (Software Developers). For an HR generalist or HR manager, it is SOC 11-3121 (Human Resources Managers). The BLS publishes both national and state-level estimates; for a Washington posting, you want the Washington State figures.

Two anchors from the BLS OOH, May 2024 national data — use these as an illustration of the framework while confirming current WA-specific state data at bls.gov/oes:

• Software Developers (SOC 15-1252): national median $133,080; 10th percentile $79,850; 90th percentile $211,450 (BLS OOH, May 2024).
• Human Resources Managers (SOC 11-3121): national median $140,030; 10th percentile $83,790; 90th percentile $239,200 (BLS OOH, May 2024).

Note: BLS OEWS produces state-level estimates for Washington separately. The May 2025 OEWS national, state, and metro release was published May 15, 2026 (BLS, 2026). Pull the current Washington State figures directly from bls.gov/oes — state medians often differ meaningfully from the national figure, and Washington's technology and professional-services sectors tend to push local wages above national medians for many occupations.

A percentile is the wage below which a given share of workers in that occupation and geography earn. The 50th percentile (the median) means half of workers in that occupation earn more and half earn less. Using the 25th-to-75th-percentile span as a range anchor is a common methodology; using the 10th-to-90th span is appropriate for senior or highly variable roles.

Step 2 — Apply a range spread

A range spread expresses how wide your band is as a percentage of the midpoint or minimum. A 50% spread on a $90,000 midpoint produces a band of roughly $67,500–$112,500. For individual contributor roles, spreads of 40–60% are common; for senior or management roles, 60–80% or wider is defensible.

Washington does not mandate a specific spread — unlike New Jersey, where proposed regulations cap the spread between min and max at 60% of the minimum (Saiber LLC, 2025). But "good faith" enforcement language means an implausibly wide range will attract scrutiny. Document why your spread is what it is.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of spread methodology, see how to build a salary range.

Step 3 — Apply a geographic adjustment if needed

Washington's major labor markets — Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, Spokane, Tri-Cities — have meaningfully different wage levels. BLS OEWS publishes metropolitan statistical area (MSA) estimates for each. If the role is based in or can be performed from the Seattle MSA, use the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue MSA figures rather than the statewide aggregate; they will more accurately reflect what you are actually competing against.

Step 4 — Document the methodology

This is the step most employers skip, and it is the one that matters most when an attorney or regulator asks how you arrived at the range. Your documentation should capture: the SOC code you used, the BLS OEWS dataset and release year, the geographic scope (state, MSA), the spread percentage and the rationale, and the date you built the range. A one-page summary saved to the job file is sufficient.

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The Benefits and Other-Compensation Requirement

The wage scale is only one-third of what Washington requires. The general description of benefits does not need to be exhaustive — you are not publishing a summary plan description — but it should be specific enough to be meaningful. "Comprehensive benefits" alone will not satisfy the requirement. Name the categories: medical/dental/vision, 401(k) match, PTO, and any employer-paid premiums or notable perks.

The other compensation description should name the type (annual performance bonus, commission structure, equity) and indicate whether it is discretionary or formula-based. You do not need to disclose the exact formula or target amounts; you need to signal that it exists and what kind it is.

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Multi-State Postings and Remote Roles

If a role can be performed remotely from Washington, the EPOA applies — even if the employer is based elsewhere and even if the posting is on a national job board. Conversely, if your posting explicitly restricts the role to states where you have no Washington employees and Washington applicants are excluded, the requirement may not apply. This is a nuanced area; Washington L&I guidance and employment counsel are your best sources for how to handle a specific multi-state configuration.

For a side-by-side comparison of how other states' requirements interact with Washington's — including California, Colorado, and New York — see pay transparency laws by state.

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Putting It All Together: A Compliant Washington Posting

A compliant Washington posting for a software developer role might read:

Salary range: $115,000–$155,000 annually, reflecting a good-faith estimate based on BLS OEWS May 2024 Washington State figures for SOC 15-1252, adjusted for the Seattle MSA and the experience level of this role. (Update the dataset year when you pull the current release.)

Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision insurance (employer pays 80% of premiums); 401(k) with 4% employer match; 15 days PTO accrued annually plus 10 company holidays; remote-work stipend of $X/month.

Other compensation: Annual performance bonus, discretionary, targeted at 10% of base salary.

That structure satisfies all three EPOA disclosure elements, documents the methodology anchor (BLS OEWS), and gives a candidate enough information to evaluate the offer before applying.

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Your Next Step

Building a defensible Washington range — one that documents the SOC code, the BLS release year, the geographic adjustment, and the spread rationale — takes longer when you're doing it from scratch in a spreadsheet for every new requisition.

Our Pay Transparency Compliance Kit at /store/pay-transparency-compliance-kit includes a posting-requirements checklist, a range-build template pre-formatted for BLS OEWS inputs, and a methodology documentation worksheet you can file with each job posting. It is designed for HR managers and operations leads who need a defensible output without a dedicated compensation analyst.

If you want software that automates the BLS OEWS lookup, applies state and MSA adjustments, and generates a compliance-formatted PDF with a methodology audit trail, see our pricing page — the Professional plan includes the geographic-adjustment calculator and watermark-free PDF output, with a 14-day free trial.

Washington L&I is the authoritative source for current EPOA requirements: lni.wa.gov. Confirm the current rule there or with employment counsel before you publish your next posting.