Washington WARN Act Requirements for Employers
Washington WARN Act rules: the 50-employee threshold, 60-day notice, layoffs across multiple sites, the paid leave restriction, exceptions, and penalties.
Washington has its own mass layoff notice law, new enough that much of what has been written about layoff notice in this state predates it. If another founder told me they were planning cuts here, my first question would be whether they had counted every location together. Below, I cover who the law reaches, what triggers it, and what a missed notice costs.
The Securing Timely Notification and Benefits for Laid-Off Employees Act took effect on July 27, 2025, and it reaches employers with 50 or more full-time employees in Washington, half the federal threshold. It is not a state copy of the federal WARN Act (the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act). Three features make it meaningfully different.
First, a mass layoff is not confined to a single site, so separations across locations are added together. Second, employees on state paid family and medical leave may not be included in a mass layoff. Third, the state law carries its own daily civil penalty on top of employee back pay. If you are planning a reduction in force in Washington, those three are where the surprises live.
Does Washington Have One?
Yes. Washington now has a state layoff notice law that operates alongside federal WARN. The Employment Security Department calls it the Mass Layoffs and Business Closings law, and describes it as varying slightly from the federal WARN Act (Washington Employment Security Department). Slight or not, its lower threshold reaches employers the federal statute does not.
Both laws can apply at once. A Washington employer with 300 employees planning a large reduction is covered federally and by state law, and must satisfy both. Where the requirements differ, the stricter one governs in practice, because complying with the looser one does not discharge the other obligation.
Which Employers Are Covered
Employers with 50 or more full-time employees in Washington. Part-time employees are excluded from the count, as under federal law.
The statute defines who that leaves out. A part-time employee is one who averages fewer than 20 hours a week, or who has worked fewer than six of the twelve months before the date notice is required (RCW 49.45.010). A seasonal crew hired in the spring can therefore sit outside the count even while working full hours.
The definition of employer excludes the state and its political subdivisions, and since March 2026 it excludes tribes as well, the only coverage change the 2026 amendment made. Everyone else with 50 or more full-time employees in Washington is covered, whatever the industry.
The phrase doing the work is "in this state." The threshold is measured against the Washington workforce, not the national one, and that cuts both ways.
A company headquartered in another state with 60 full-time employees in Washington is covered by state law even if its total headcount is well under the federal 100. A national employer with 4,000 people and 30 of them in Washington is covered federally but falls below the state threshold.
For a multi-state employer, that means running the coverage analysis once per applicable law, not once overall. A wrong answer here is hard to fix later, because by the time anyone spots the error, the notice period has already been missed.
What Triggers Notice
Two events trigger the obligation: a business closing and a mass layoff. A deep enough cut in hours counts toward both. Each is measured in employment losses, and an employment loss is a termination (other than a discharge for cause, a voluntary separation, or a retirement), a layoff exceeding six months, or a sustained reduction in hours.
| Event | Definition | Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Business closing | Permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site of employment, or of one or more facilities or operating units within a site | 50 or more full-time employees at a single site |
| Mass layoff | Reduction in force that is not the result of a business closing | 50 or more employees, excluding part-time, in any 30-day period, not limited to one site |
| Reduction of hours | A cut of more than 50 percent in an individual employee's hours in each month of a six-month period | Counts as an employment loss toward the same 50-employee thresholds |
The second row is the one to read carefully. Under federal WARN, a mass layoff is assessed at a single site of employment, and a reduction spread across three offices may trigger nothing because no single site reaches the threshold. Washington does not limit the definition that way, so employment losses across locations within a 30-day period are added together.
Do not rely on the agency summary for this count. Employment Security Department guidance still describes a mass layoff as one at a single site of employment, but the statutory definition in RCW 49.45.010 carries no such limit, so plan the count to the statute.
There is also a restriction federal WARN does not have. An employer may not include in a mass layoff an employee who is currently on leave under the state Paid Family and Medical Leave program (RCW 49.45.060). Leave status becomes a required check on the selection list before it is final, not a detail to reconcile afterward.
Only three of the four notice exceptions lift that restriction: unforeseeable business circumstances, a natural disaster, and the construction project exception. An employer relying on the fourth, actively seeking capital or business, still may not put someone who is on paid family or medical leave into the layoff.
The restriction is also limited in time, according to the state paid leave program. It protects an employee only while they are actually on leave, which for intermittent leave means only the days or hours taken. Leave scheduled to start after the WARN notice is issued does not count, and neither does an application still pending (Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave).
Because the count runs statewide across a rolling 30 days, it has to be kept as a list rather than done in your head. Log every separation as it is decided, add the sites together, and record the leave check against each name before the list is final.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employee ID or initials | Site or location | City | Full-time or part-time | Type of loss | Date of employment loss | On state paid family and medical leave | Counts toward the state threshold | Notes |
| 2 | Closing, mass layoff, or reduction of hours | ||||||||
| 3 | |||||||||
| 4 | |||||||||
| 5 | |||||||||
| 6 | |||||||||
| 7 | |||||||||
| 8 | |||||||||
| 9 | |||||||||
| 10 | Log every separation, including the ones you expect to exclude, so an exclusion is a recorded decision rather than an omission. | ||||||||
| 11 | Part-time employees are excluded from the Washington count. Record them here and mark the exclusion in the last column. | ||||||||
| 12 | Check the leave column before the selection list is final, not after. |
Notice Period and Contents
Sixty calendar days of advance written notice, the same period as federal WARN. Washington did not extend the period the way New York and New Jersey did; it widened who is covered instead.
The notice must contain what federal WARN requires, plus additional Washington-specific content (RCW 49.45.020).
| Required element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Site information | Name and address of the employment site where the closing or mass layoff will occur |
| Company contact | Name and contact details of a company official available for further information |
| Timing | Whether the action is permanent or temporary (and, if temporary, whether it is expected to last longer or shorter than three months), the expected date of the first employment loss, and the schedule for the rest |
| Job titles | The job titles of the positions that will be affected |
| Relocation and contracting | Whether the action will result in relocation or in contracting out the operations or the affected positions |
| Employee details | Names and addresses of the employees holding the affected jobs, on the notice to the department and, where employees are represented, to the bargaining representative |
| Extended actions | Additional notice where a closing or layoff extends beyond the period announced in the original notice |
Two of those elements are Washington additions that do not appear in the federal notice requirements: the relocation and contracting-out disclosure, and the statement of whether a temporary action is expected to last longer or shorter than three months.
The obligation to issue further notice when an action runs past the period originally announced is written into the Washington statute, and federal WARN imposes a similar duty through its regulations (20 CFR 639.10). Under either law, that duty matters for phased reductions that get extended.
The March 2026 amendment reshaped how employee names travel. The notice to affected employees carries job titles; names and addresses go to the department, and to a bargaining representative where the employees are represented. The same bill added those names and addresses to the Public Records Act exemptions in RCW 42.56.230.
The practical result is that the publicly visible version of a filed notice no longer carries individual employee data, and no affected employee receives a roster of everyone else being cut. Draft the recipient versions separately rather than redacting one master copy.
Drafting is where the Washington additions get dropped, because the relocation disclosure and the three-month statement have no federal habit behind them. The outline below collects the elements in the table above into a working draft with the recipient versions kept apart.
Who Receives the Notice
The Employment Security Department and the affected employees, or their bargaining representative where the employees are represented. The department serves as the state dislocated worker unit and maintains a public database of filed layoff and closure notices.
The department also tells employers to send the notice to the chief elected official of the community where the layoff or closure will occur. Federal WARN requires that copy from the employers it covers (29 U.S.C. 2102), so an employer subject to both laws sends it in any case.
Filing with the state is not a formality. Failure to notify the department is what triggers the separate daily civil penalty described below, which comes on top of anything owed to employees. An employer that tells its staff correctly but never files with the state has satisfied one obligation and breached the other.
Confirm the current filing method with the department before submitting. The agency has adopted several rounds of rules under the law, and official pages list more than one email address for WARN notices, so use the one on its current WARN page. A notice sent to a superseded address is not a filed notice.
Exceptions to the Notice
Four exceptions excuse the 60-day notice requirement rather than merely shortening it (RCW 49.45.030). Each one has to be established with documentation, and the burden of doing that sits with the employer.
The construction project exception is written for construction alone. Federal WARN reaches similar ground through its temporary project exemption, which its regulations apply to work on a particular building or project (20 CFR 639.5). The other three track the familiar federal exceptions, but the Washington documentation requirement does not.
A Washington employer must submit documentation to the department to establish an exception (Washington Employment Security Department). The rule on that documentation, WAC 192-460-160, took effect on October 10, 2026, and requires the employer to submit the records, in redacted form, at the time notice would have been required.
The rule lists what may qualify: financial and banking records, loan applications, business plans, contracts and collective bargaining agreements, and attestations with supporting documentation (WAC 192-460-160).
Where an exception applies to only part of the 60-day window, notice is still required as soon as the exception no longer applies. Waiting until the reduction happens and asserting an exception afterward is the pattern that produces liability, because the employer carries the burden of proof and a record made at the time is what meets it.
Kelly KapoorCustomer ServiceUp to Date
Darryl PhilbinWarehouseNeeds Attention
Ryan HowardSalesUp to DatePenalties for No Notice
A missed notice creates two separate exposures: one running to employees and one running to the state.
What you owe each employee can come in below the gross figure. Liability is reduced by wages paid over the period of the violation, by voluntary unconditional payments the employer makes, and by amounts already paid to the employee under federal WARN (RCW 49.45.040). Any civil penalty already paid under federal WARN also counts as payment of the state penalty.
The three-week window is worth planning around rather than discovering. An employer that realizes after the fact that notice was required can still eliminate the civil penalty by paying affected employees in full within three weeks of ordering the action. The window is narrow, but it is the one meaningful remedy available after a missed notice.
Washington vs Federal WARN
The two laws share the same notice period and differ on most of the rest: who is covered, how a mass layoff is counted, who may be included in one, and what the notice must say.
Federal WARN reaches employers with 100 or more employees, excluding part-time staff, or with 100 or more who together work 4,000 hours a week, not counting overtime. It assesses a mass layoff at a single site of employment (29 U.S.C. 2101).
| Requirement | Federal WARN | Washington |
|---|---|---|
| Employer threshold | 100 or more employees nationally, excluding part-time, or 100 or more working 4,000 hours a week combined, excluding overtime | 50 or more full-time employees in Washington |
| Notice period | 60 days | 60 days |
| Mass layoff scope | Assessed at a single site of employment | Not limited to a single site; statewide losses aggregate |
| Percentage trigger | 50 to 499 losses must be 33 percent of the site | No 33 percent requirement |
| Employees on paid leave | No restriction | May not be included in a mass layoff |
| Notice content | Federal elements | Federal elements plus relocation and contracting-out disclosure |
| Civil penalty | Up to $500 per day for not notifying the local government, avoided by paying employees within 3 weeks | Up to $500 per day for not notifying the department, avoided by paying employees within 3 weeks |
| Enforcement | Federal district court; the U.S. Department of Labor does not enforce | Private right of action plus state enforcement |
| Construction exception | General temporary project exemption, applied to construction hires | Construction project and multiemployer union referral exceptions |
The two rows doing the most work are the threshold and the mass layoff scope. Together they mean a mid-sized Washington employer running a distributed reduction can owe 60 days of notice in a scenario where federal WARN would have required nothing at all. California takes a different route to a similar result with its 75-employee threshold.
Washington is not the only state that counts beyond a single site. New Jersey counts its 50-employee trigger statewide too, and goes further by including part-time staff and requiring statutory severance. If you are running a distributed reduction across either state, count first and decide second.
Under the Threshold
Below 50 full-time employees in Washington, and below 100 nationally, neither law requires advance notice. That covers most small businesses in the state. What remains are obligations that arrive faster and cost more per head than WARN does.
The Washington final paycheck rule comes first, because it is the one with a date attached rather than a process.
After that it is documentation and sequence: a written termination letter, a documented offboarding process, same-day access removal, and a retained record of how people were selected.
Even where no law compels notice, giving what warning you reasonably can is worth doing. The employees who remain are watching how the ones who leave are treated, and that is the part of a reduction that shows up in retention two quarters later.
Running that sequence as an assigned workflow is what FirstHR handles: separation documents go out for e-signature with a dated record, offboarding tasks are assigned and tracked to completion, and everything files against the employee profile. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a law firm and not a payroll provider, so it does not determine WARN coverage, calculate back pay, or issue final wages. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Washington have its own WARN Act?
Yes. Senate Bill 5525, the Securing Timely Notification and Benefits for Laid-Off Employees Act, became Washington law and took effect on July 27, 2025. Employment Security Department materials call it the Mass Layoffs and Business Closings law. Under it, an employer with 50 or more full-time employees in the state owes at least 60 days of advance written notice before a business closing or a mass layoff. Until then, the federal WARN Act was the only general layoff notice law reaching Washington employers, and it starts at 100 or more employees not counting part-time staff, or 100 or more who together work 4,000 hours a week excluding overtime. The lower state threshold therefore pulled a substantial number of mid-sized employers into scope for the first time. Engrossed Senate Bill 6106 amended the law with effect from March 17, 2026, taking tribes out of the definition of employer and shifting which copy of the notice carries employee names and addresses.
How many employees does the Washington WARN Act cover?
Fifty or more full-time employees in Washington, compared with 100 or more under the federal WARN Act. Part-timers are left out of the Washington count. Because the threshold is measured against the workforce in Washington rather than nationally, an employer headquartered elsewhere can be covered by Washington law based on its Washington headcount alone, and conversely a large national employer with only a handful of Washington staff may fall below the state threshold while still being covered federally. Employers operating in several states need to run the count separately for each applicable law rather than assuming one answer covers all of them. This is general information, not legal advice.
Does the Washington WARN Act apply to layoffs across multiple locations?
Yes, and it is the most consequential way the state law departs from federal WARN. Washington does not tie a mass layoff to one site of employment, so the employment losses at all of your Washington locations in a 30-day period are combined and measured against the 50-employee trigger. Federal WARN judges each site on its own, which is why a reduction split across three locations can stay below its line. Picture 20 separations in Seattle, 18 in Spokane, and 15 in Tacoma inside the same 30 days: together that is 53 employment losses, enough to require a Washington notice even though no single site gets close to the federal threshold. Before deciding that spreading cuts across locations keeps a reduction outside the law, add up the whole state.
Can you lay off an employee on paid family and medical leave in Washington?
Not as part of a mass layoff, outside narrow exceptions. Washington law does not allow an employer to include anyone currently taking leave through the state Paid Family and Medical Leave program in a mass layoff, a limit with no counterpart in federal WARN. The bar lifts under three of the four notice exceptions, when the reduction rests on unforeseeable business circumstances, a natural disaster, or the construction project exception. It stays in force when the employer relies on the fourth, actively seeking capital or business, so a reduction justified that way must still leave out everyone on leave. The protection lasts only while the employee is actually taking paid leave: according to the program, it does not reach leave that starts after the WARN notice is issued, or an application still awaiting a decision. In practice, check current leave status against the selection list before you finalize it, not after. Because the way this rule interacts with other employment decisions can turn on the facts, talk to employment counsel before going ahead with a reduction that would otherwise include someone on leave.
What are the penalties under the Washington WARN Act?
Two penalties apply: back pay and benefits for each affected employee, capped at 60 days, and a civil penalty of up to $500 a day for failing to notify the Employment Security Department. The employee amount covers wages plus the value of the benefits the person would have received, counted for each day of the violation. The state penalty is avoided if the employer pays every affected employee in full within three weeks of the order for the closing, mass layoff, or hours reduction. Suits can come from the department, an affected employee, or a bargaining representative within three years, and a court may order the employer to pay reasonable attorney fees when the plaintiff wins. The realistic cost of a missed notice therefore includes litigation on top of the amounts the statute sets.
Where do you file a Washington WARN notice?
File with the Washington State Employment Security Department, the agency acting as the state dislocated worker unit, and give notice to the affected employees too, or to their bargaining representative where they have one. The department also asks for a copy to go to the chief elected official of the local community, a step federal WARN already demands from any employer within its reach. Its layoffs and employee notifications pages carry guidance for employers, and filed layoff and closure notices are kept in a public database. Since the March 2026 amendment, the employee copy lists the affected jobs by title, while names and addresses go only to the department and, for represented staff, to the bargaining representative. The Public Records Act exempts those details, so no individual employee data appears in the version of a notice the public can see. Before sending anything, confirm the filing method and address on the department's current WARN page, since it has adopted several rounds of rules under the law and its official pages list more than one email address for notices.
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