Every figure below is the researched rule for Washington, with its citation and a direct link to the official source so you can confirm it yourself. Covers statutory interest and when it starts accruing, how Actual Cash Value is determined and whether labor can be depreciated, whether a “no damages for delay” clause is enforceable and how long you have to file, the state-specific inputs behind a fully burdened labor rate, and who can be held liable for a construction-site injury.
The rate itself, and the date interest starts running, which differs by claim type in most states.
12% / year (in practice, statutory floor usually controls)
Rate is the greater of 12%, or 4 points above the 26-week T-bill yield; the 12% floor is what applies in practice under current rate conditions. If the contract specifies its own rate, that governs instead.
From when the debt was incurred, but only if the amount is liquidated (calculable with exactness); otherwise only from judgment entry
Washington's leading case, Prier v. Refrigeration Engineering Co., holds that if damages are liquidated, meaning determinable with exactness from the contract or from recognized standards, without relying on opinion or discretion, prejudgment interest runs from the date they were incurred. If the claim is unliquidated, no prejudgment interest applies at all; interest starts only when judgment is formally entered.
Whether a given construction claim is 'liquidated' under this test is itself a legal judgment call; a Washington case applying the doctrine, State Dept. of Corrections v. Fluor Daniel, Inc., is at https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2599713/state-dept-of-corrections-v-fluor-daniel-inc/ if you want to read the reasoning further.
Same liquidated/unliquidated doctrine as contract claims: date of loss if liquidated, judgment-entry date if not
Washington doesn't use a separate date-of-loss rule for property damage; the same Prier liquidated/unliquidated distinction applies. If the property-damage amount is calculable with exactness (e.g., a fixed repair invoice), interest runs from the date of loss; if it requires discretion or opinion to fix the amount, interest only starts at judgment entry.
How ACV is determined, whether labor cost can be depreciated, and the rules on releasing withheld recoverable depreciation.
Fair market value (not depreciation-formula, not broad-evidence)
Washington Supreme Court held ACV means fair market value, not strict replacement-cost-minus-depreciation.
Washington has a regulation expressly prohibiting depreciation of labor cost, with a narrow exception for labor embedded in the cost of manufactured materials.
WAC 284-20-010(4), adopted through rulemaking docket R 2021-04 and effective January 1, 2022, provides that except for the intrinsic labor costs included in the cost of manufactured materials or goods, the expense of labor necessary to repair, rebuild, or replace covered property is not a component of physical depreciation, and therefore may not be depreciated or subjected to betterment when an insurer calculates actual cash value under a standard fire policy.
No Washington statute sets a general release deadline for recoverable depreciation, but a real 2022 regulation bars insurers from depreciating labor costs at all, and the Insurance Commissioner has precedent for emergency extensions of policy-based repair deadlines.
Effective January 1, 2022, Wash. Admin. Code Section284-20-010(4) provides that the expense of labor necessary to repair, rebuild, or replace covered property is not a component of physical depreciation and may not be subject to depreciation or betterment (except intrinsic labor costs already included in the cost of manufactured materials). Separately, no general statute sets a maximum holdback release period -- that is governed by individual policy terms -- but the Insurance Commissioner has previously exercised emergency authority to extend policy-based repair-completion deadlines (e.g., during a 2020 pandemic-related construction shutdown) when policyholders otherwise could not meet them.
RESEARCHED from scratch (prior entry was blank). No general timing statute found (same pattern as NY/IL/PA/GA), but the labor-depreciation prohibition is a real, directly confirmed regulatory rule specific to Washington.
Whether a no-damages-for-delay clause will be enforced against you, and the deadline for bringing a construction contract claim.
Void by statute when the delay stems from the contractee's own acts or omissions
Washington voids any provision that waives, releases, or extinguishes a contractor's right to recover damages or an equitable adjustment for unreasonable delay caused by the acts or omissions of the contractee (or those acting for the contractee). Courts have applied this to let a contractor recover for the contractee's failure to exercise its own contractual rights to compel a third party's performance, or breach of its implied duty to cooperate; courts have also recognized that active interference by the contractee can fall outside what a no-damages clause was ever meant to cover.
RESEARCHED from scratch (prior entry was a draft citation). Confirmed real: RCW 4.24.360 voids no-damages-for-delay clauses for unreasonable delay caused by the contractee, and unlike Oregon's similar statute, applies to BOTH public and private construction contracts. Scoccolo Constr., Inc. v. City of Renton (Wash. 2005) confirms the statute reaches delays caused by third parties acting for the contractee (e.g., utilities under franchise agreements).
6 years for a written contract claim
Washington's general limitations period for an action on a written contract is 6 years from accrual, covering an ordinary construction-contract breach or payment dispute.
A separate 6-year statute of repose for construction-related claims (RCW 4.16.310) runs from substantial completion regardless of when a defect is discovered; that repose period wasn't independently verified against a primary source this pass.
The state-specific rates and requirements that sit underneath a fully burdened hourly labor cost.
Washington's 2026 qualified-employer tax rates range from about 0.27 percent to 6.03 percent (including the Employment Administration Fund add-on), and the taxable wage base is $78,200.
Washington's Employment Security Department (ESD) uses an experience-rated system with 40 rate classes; the 2026 combined rate for qualified employers (experience rate plus graduated social cost plus the Employment Administration Fund) ranges from approximately 0.27 percent to 6.03 percent. Delinquent and deferred-payment employers face additional surcharges. The 2026 taxable wage base is $78,200 per employee, rising to $82,000 in 2027 per ESD's own announcement. A single specific new-employer rate figure was not confirmed; Washington assigns new employers an average industry rate for their first several years before moving to full experience rating.
The exact new-employer rate figure for 2026 was not directly confirmed from an ESD source and should be verified on esd.wa.gov before publishing. Washington has no state income tax but does levy this unemployment tax; confirmed via ESD. Wage base confirmed directly against the official Employment Security Department site (esd.wa.gov); the rate range was not independently re-confirmed this pass, only the wage base.
Washington is a monopolistic workers' compensation state. Most private employers must buy coverage through the Washington State Fund administered by the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I); there is no private insurance option, though qualifying large employers may self-insure.
Washington is one of the small number of monopolistic states for workers' compensation. Nearly all employers must obtain coverage through the state fund administered by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), rather than from a private insurance carrier. Large employers meeting certain financial and safety criteria may qualify to self-insure directly, subject to L&I approval, but the open private-carrier market that exists in NCCI states is not available in Washington.
Washington's own L&I insurance overview page did not explicitly state the monopolistic designation in the content reviewed; that characterization is well established through independent industry sources (e.g., insurer guides to monopolistic states) and should be treated as reliable, but a direct statement from lni.wa.gov was not captured verbatim.
Washington requires prevailing wages on essentially all public works and maintenance contracts under RCW 39.12, with no general statewide minimum dollar threshold; a separate rule sets a $25,000 threshold specifically for state college and university construction.
Washington's prevailing wage law (RCW 39.12) requires state and local government contractors and subcontractors to pay prevailing wages on public works and maintenance contracts. The general statute does not specify a minimum contract-value threshold. A separate provision applicable only to state college and university construction sets a $25,000 threshold amount, per the U.S. Department of Labor's summary of state prevailing wage laws.
OSHA enforcement structure, how much weight an OSHA violation carries in a negligence case, and whether an injured worker's own employer can be pulled back in.
WISHA: full state plan, private + public sector
Washington operates WISHA (Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act), a full OSHA-approved state plan administered by the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) / Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), covering both private and public-sector employers.
CORRECTED: Washington uses per se liability, not mere evidence, for general contractors' WISHA violations -- the strongest classification of any state checked, stronger than negligence-per-se in the traditional sense.
Stute v. P.B.M.C., Inc. held that WISHA imposes a non-delegable duty on general contractors to comply with safety regulations for the benefit of ALL employees on a jobsite, not just their own -- and the Washington Supreme Court and Department of Labor & Industries have both explicitly characterized this as 'per se liability,' not merely evidence of negligence. Kelley v. Howard S. Wright Constr. Co. (1978) is the foundational retained-control duty case underlying this line of authority. This per se standard has since been extended to upper-tier subcontractors and property owners who retain control of the worksite.
CORRECTED: the prior entry stated Washington treats WISHA violations as 'evidence of negligence rather than negligence per se' -- this is backwards. Washington's own Department of Labor & Industries and Supreme Court explicitly describe general-contractor WISHA liability as 'per se liability,' the strongest classification of any state checked in this field. This makes Washington closer to New York's Scaffold Law in practical effect than to the majority 'evidence only' rule.
Statutory employer is a confirmed, real issue in Washington with a case directly on point, though the source doesn't detail the qualifying test in full.
Third-party actions may otherwise proceed against owners, contractors, manufacturers, and motorists via premises possession, retained control, safety undertakings, statutory duties, or product defects.
Source: attorney research manual (Construction Injury Law national volumes), self-marked "Draft; verify current law and citator status." Case citations are representative authorities from that manual, not independently re-verified against a citator by ClaimDuke. CORRECTED citation: the prior pin cite (167 Wn.2d 314 (2009)) was wrong on both reporter and year. The real case is Hymas v. UAP Distribution, Inc., 167 Wn. App. 136 (2012) -- confirmed real and directly on point (a trench/construction-site injury case addressing landowner and contractor duties under WISHA regulations).
Industrial insurance generally bars employer negligence claims under Title 51: this source doesn't name a specific piercing exception.
Wash. Rev. Code tit. 51 generally bars employer negligence claims through industrial insurance. The manual doesn't identify a specific exception mechanism (Washington's actual law recognizes a narrow "deliberate intention" exception, but that specific doctrine is not stated in this source); confirm directly.
Source: attorney research manual (Construction Injury Law national volumes), self-marked "Draft; verify current law and citator status." Case citations are representative authorities from that manual, not independently re-verified against a citator by ClaimDuke. Citation corrected using the same fix already confirmed for this state's thirdPartyContribution entry (wrong reporter/year in the original).
Stute doctrine: nondelegable GC duty to every worker on the site, not just its own employees
Under Stute v. P.B.M.C. (1990) and Goucher v. J.R. Simplot (1985), the Washington Supreme Court held that a general contractor's specific duty to comply with WISHA safety regulations runs to any worker on the jobsite who may be harmed by a violation, regardless of whether an employer-employee relationship exists between that worker and the GC. In practice, a GC can be held directly liable to a different subcontractor's injured employee for a WISHA violation the GC didn't directly cause. A jobsite owner (as opposed to a GC) is not per se liable this way; an owner's WISHA duty depends on whether the owner retained control over how contractors performed the work.
ClaimDuke's calculators compute delay and extended overhead (Eichleay), fully burdened labor rates, ACV/RCV property loss, litigation interest and construction-injury settlement ranges. Every calculation is free and live; a documented, citation-backed report is $19.
This page is reference information for your own verification. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for confirming the current rule with the official source linked above or with counsel. Several states' interest rates float and reset on a schedule (monthly, quarterly or annually), so always check the live source for the figure as of today rather than relying on what is shown here. Which rule actually applies to your specific claim is itself a legal question this page cannot answer for you.