Check a Washington CPA licence
Type the licence number or the surname. All 51,317 records are searchable — lapsed and retired included, not just the 25,984 currently licensed to practise.
Checking a roster rather than one name? Pro access resolves a whole list, and the datasets are published with their prices — from USD 300 a month for the stream of changes.
Why this answers « lapsed » and not « not found »
Most licence lookups load only the people who are currently licensed. Ask them about someone whose licence ran out in 2019 and they say nothing found — which reads like an absence of a problem, and is the opposite of the truth.
This site loads all 51,317 records the Board publishes. Search someone whose licence lapsed and it says licence lapsed, with the date it ran out. That is the answer someone actually needs before handing over their books.
| Status, as the Board words it | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed to practise public accounting | 25,984 | 50.6% |
| Licence lapsed | 12,278 | 23.9% |
| Retired | 5,074 | 9.9% |
| Certificate lapsed | 4,564 | 8.9% |
| Certificate retired | 1,926 | 3.8% |
| Licence held, but inactive | 914 | 1.8% |
| Suspended by Board order | 154 | 0.3% |
| Registration lapsed | 108 | 0.2% |
The Board states plainly what this file is for: it is provided « to aid in verifying credentials and disciplinary history ». What each status means.
Two dates, and everyone remembers the wrong one
Washington renews CPA licences every three years, filed between 1 January and 30 April. But the 120 hours of continuing education must be finished by 31 December of the year before — four months earlier. The profession splits into three cohorts of almost equal size:
Where Washington’s CPAs are
12,532 of the 25,984 in practice have a Washington address on the record, 3,874 an address in another state, and 9,578 have no state recorded at all — 36.9% of the profession, neither here nor elsewhere as far as this file is concerned. We count them nowhere rather than guess.
| Town in Washington | CPAs in practice | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | 2,364 | 9.1% |
| Bellevue | 765 | 2.9% |
| Spokane | 586 | 2.3% |
| Kirkland | 405 | 1.6% |
| Bothell | 332 | 1.3% |
| Renton | 302 | 1.2% |
| Vancouver | 290 | 1.1% |
| Tacoma | 273 | 1.1% |
| Sammamish | 269 | 1.0% |
| Redmond | 264 | 1.0% |
| Bellingham | 242 | 0.9% |
| Edmonds | 231 | 0.9% |
| Issaquah | 213 | 0.8% |
| Lynnwood | 208 | 0.8% |
| Olympia | 175 | 0.7% |
| Everett | 171 | 0.7% |
Firms are a separate register, and it is here too
The Board keeps a second list: 1,430 CPA firms currently registered to do business, out of 2,356 on file. Neither register says who works where, so checking a firm tells you nothing about the licence of the person doing your return — and the numbers run in separate sequences, so one number can belong to a firm and to a person at once.
Both are searchable from the same box above. 306 of the registered firms are sole proprietorships: one person under a trading name. What each legal form means.
All 91 towns with a page · Washington CPAs in other states · Registered firms · The three-year cycle · How this site is built