# Registered CPA firms in Washington — what the forms mean

> 1,430 CPA firms are currently registered with the Washington State Board of Accountancy, in 7 legal forms. What each form means, and how a firm registration differs from a personal licence.

## Registered CPA firms

**1,430** firms hold a current registration, out of 2,356 on the Board’s file. A firm registration is a different thing from a personal licence, and the difference catches people out.

### Two registers, and they do not join up

The Board keeps one list of **people** licensed to practise
public accounting — 25,984 of them — and a separate list of
**firms** registered to do business. Neither file says who works
where. Checking a firm is registered tells you nothing about the licence of
the person who will actually do your return, and checking a person tells you
nothing about the firm they trade under. You often need both, and they have to
be looked up separately.

The numbers do not join up either: firm registrations and personal licences
run in **separate sequences**, so the same number can belong to a
firm and to a person at once. Search a number here and you may get two
results — that is correct, not a collision.

### The legal forms

| Legal form | Firms registered | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Limited Liability Company](/firm/limited-liability-company.md) | 490 | 34.3% |
| [P.S. Corporation](/firm/p-s-corporation.md) | 440 | 30.8% |
| [Sole Proprietorship](/firm/sole-proprietorship.md) | 306 | 21.4% |
| [Corporation](/firm/corporation.md) | 70 | 4.9% |
| [Limited Liability Partnership](/firm/limited-liability-partnership.md) | 68 | 4.8% |
| [Professional Corporation](/firm/professional-corporation.md) | 45 | 3.1% |
| [Partnership](/firm/partnership.md) | 11 | 0.8% |

The commonest single fact in that table is worth pulling out:
**306** registered CPA
firms — 21.4% —
are **sole proprietorships**. One person, practising under a
trading name, with no separate entity behind them. A name with
« & Associates » in it is not evidence of associates.

### Firms renew on a different date from people

This is easy to get wrong, because both are three-year cycles. Individual
licences are filed by **30 April**. Firm registrations run to
**30 June** — every current registration in the file expires
on 30 June of 2027, 2028 or 2029, without exception.

Ended registrations do not follow that pattern at all: their dates are
scattered through the calendar, which is what you would expect if they mark
the day a practice stopped rather than a scheduled deadline. So an ended
registration is not the same kind of event as a missed renewal, and the file
does not say which one it was.

### What a registration does not tell you

- **Not size.** The file records a form and an address, not a
headcount.
- **Not who works there.** No column links a firm to the people
licensed at it.
- **Not quality.** Registration is a requirement, not an
assessment, and the Board says as much.

Although this information is updated nightly, the information found through this service is not guaranteed to be accurate or timely. The Board does not guarantee the use of this information for any purpose and as such, the information obtained from this database should not be considered an official endorsement of any individual or firm.

**Not a consumer reporting agency.** This site
and the datasets sold from it are **not** consumer reports under
the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and must not be used to decide anyone's
eligibility for employment, credit, insurance, housing, or any other purpose
covered by the FCRA. If you need a background check, use a screening company
that operates as a consumer reporting agency.

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Página: https://cpa-wa.pages.dev/firm/
Fonte: Washington State Certified Public Accountants — Washington State Board of Accountancy
Recolha: 2026-08-21