2026 LEGISLATIVE SESSION MIDWAY UPDATE

At the time of writing this article, the 2026 Legislative Session is around halfway done and this year is certainly one of the most interesting Legislative Sessions of my career so far at RHAWA. While the 2025 Legislative Session was defined by the looming threat of Rent Control combined with dozens of other bills restricting rental housing providers, 2026 so far has presented many technical bills of which we oppose some and surprisingly support others.

Membership engagement has also taken a notably different form in this year’s legislative session. This year we have seen consistent engagement in our weekly briefing rooms with many familiar faces from last year but also several newcomers and first-time advocates, more than any year before. Conversation and brainstorming is a major factor in this year’s briefing rooms as the time is not as monopolized by worried conversations about the most recent amendments to rent control and any other bills that dropped the previous week.

However, this is not to say that this year has been any slower than last year’s session. The short schedule of this session has turned technical fix bills into policies that we must rapidly respond to in order to provide our feedback and make valuable changes to legislation that will shift our industry in more subtle ways.

As a reminder, the 2025 Legislative Session took place from January 13th to April 27th, making it one of the longest sessions possible. The 2026 Legislative Session by comparison is more than a month shorter, taking place from January 12th to March 12th. This, combined with the high importance of the issues the state is tackling this year, has resulted in a somewhat chaotic energy in Olympia. For housing providers though, this year may seem relatively quiet.

As I mentioned earlier, this year we are dealing with several housing-related bills, but most of them are simply technical fixes with one notable exception. The exception I speak of is revising the mailing of notice to no longer require certified mail. The certified mail requirements passed in 2025 have resulted in the mailing of nearly all notices costing over five times as much as previous years. These requirements were not working for any side of the equation; housing providers had greatly increased costs, tenants were less likely to receive their notices and were sometimes required to go to a post office to pick up notices, and the post office was completely overwhelmed with the artificial increase in new certified mailings. Luckily, the fact that this problem was clear from all sides of the political spectrum created bipartisan support to fix this issue. However, the original legislation presented to fix this issue was not quite what RHAWA had in mind.

This brings us to HB 2452, which is in its second version at the time of writing this article. The first version of HB 2452 would have provided some additional options for service of rent increases only.

HB 2452 (First Draft)

• Modifies language regarding rent increase notices to be served by at least one of the following methods: personal delivery, first class mail, or affixing a copy of the notice in a conspicuous place on the dwelling unit.
• Requires rent increase notices under the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act (MHLTA) to be served in the same manner as required for other notices under the MHLTA.

This bill was originally pitched as the fix to the certified mail requirements, but it would not have accomplished that goal for any notices other than rent increases. RHAWA met with key lawmakers in order to communicate that this bill, in fact, did not solve the problems with certified mail requirements, which led to the second bill we supported in the 2026 Legislative Session: HB 2664. HB 2664 is an incredibly short, but effective, bill that removes the requirement for notices to be mailed by certified mail.

HB 2664

• Modifies language in RCW 59.12.040 to remove certified mail requirement when serving notice.

With the introduction of this bill, it was initially looking like we would achieve two wins in this year’s session: removal of certified notice (HB 2664) and gaining some additional options when serving rent increase notices (HB 2452). However, things are never that simple in Olympia. During the reading and discussion of both of these bills in Executive Session of the House Housing Committee, the rent increase notice modifications were removed from HB 2452 and it was stated that keeping the beneficial provisions in HB 2452 would be “redundant.” This was, at best, a misunderstanding of our notice service process and was a disappointing development in this year’s session. Our members who attended Legislative Day on the Hill on February fourth spoke directly with their lawmakers, encouraging them to add these helpful provisions back to HB 2452. However, at the time of writing this article, no changes have been made.

While there are a few other bills we are tracking throughout this year’s session, most bills are a low priority for lawmakers this year — except for one.

But before we get to that, there are several bills we tracked that either will not move forward this year, or have been amended to a point where we are no longer concerned about the impact of these bills on our membership.

The first bill, SB 5937, was introduced in the first week of Session and its original version would have categorized all systems of entry using electronic technology as “smart access systems” and would have additionally mandated that you provide a privacy policy to all residents if this was the case. It also required housing providers using a “smart access system” to provide alternative forms of entry upon request such as a physical key. The language in the current version of this bill, which is likely to pass, improves the definition of “smart access system” to no longer include basic forms of electronic entry such as a keypad. It also removes the requirement for alternative forms of entry except for situations where the building utilized a biometric identification system or a purely app-based entry system. In the case that one of these systems is used, you must accommodate a request for a more simplified entry system such as a keycard, fob, or physical key.

Moving on from bills which are likely to pass to bills that are likely to fail in this year’s session. House Bill 2265 and Senate Bill 6200 both regulate portable cooling devices, requiring housing providers to allow residents to purchase and use their own portable cooling devices. HB 2265 had other provisions that were much more harmful than SB 6200, establishing new habitability standards and creating a warm weather eviction ban. Both of these bills seem to have lost momentum in this year’s session and are not likely to pass in the 2026 Legislative Session. Senate Bill 6139 was a bill RHAWA was “Other,” AKA “Neutral,” on because it would have allowed partial rental payments to not delay an eviction process; however, it would have required that any method of payment previously available to tenants must remain available for the remainder of tenancy. This would have resulted in many housing providers violating the law without their knowledge if they were to switch banks or property management software during a tenancy. Thanks to the engagement of our members and the efforts made by RHAWA behind the scenes, all of these bills are likely to fail in this year’s Legislative Session.

Now we arrive at the elephant in the room: the income tax. My colleague Daniel Klemme provides a more thorough overview of this policy in his article this month, but it would be impossible to discuss this year’s Legislative Session without mentioning it. At the time of writing this article, we have only just received the official language of the bill a few days ago and it is likely you have already read a multitude of local news articles speaking to pros and cons of the proposed tax. A quick summary of the original version of the income tax is included below, but I would assume by the time you are reading this there have already been modifications to this 65-page monster of a bill. You can use the below summary to give you some perspective on where the bill started in comparison to the current version of the bill.

HB 2724 / SB 6346

• Imposes a 9.9% tax on “Washington taxable income,” defined by reference to federal Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), after a $1,000,000 standard deduction.
• Caps the $1,000,000 deduction for married couples and domestic partners at $1,000,000 combined, while two unmarried individuals each receive a separate $1,000,000 deduction.
• Applies to net rental income, net business income, wages, and passthrough LLC / partnership / S-Corp income, including undistributed income retained in the business for reserves, capital improvements, or debt obligations.
• Prohibits any independent Washington loss carry forward unless the loss qualifies as a federal Net Operating Loss (NOL) that reduces future federal AGI.
• Credits for B&O taxes and taxes paid to other jurisdictions are limited, non-refundable, and cannot be carried forward.
• Applies to Washington-source income even if the property owner resides out of state.
• Excludes long-term real estate capital gains under current draft language (Sec. 302), but this is statutory and can be changed by future legislatures.
• Does not take effect until January 1, 2028, with revenue not expected until 2029.
• Approximately 95% of projected revenue flows into the state General Fund, with a small portion directed toward a prosecutor/public safety account.

This bill is literally and figuratively huge, consuming much of the bandwidth of both lawmakers and lobbyists in Olympia. Check in with RHAWA staff or join one of our weekly briefing rooms to get updates on any of the bills I have mentioned in this article or in a call to action.

As we move into the final weeks of the 2026 Legislative Session, I want to do what I always do and thank all of the members who took time out of their day to testify on these important pieces of legislation. Whether it was your first time getting involved or you are a seasoned housing advocate, we are on track to make some real positive changes this year, which is not something that I am usually able to say when providing legislative updates. RHAWA will always continue to advocate for your rights and provide the highest level of service to our membership.