Washington Crash Reporting Requirements
In Washington, the crash reporting threshold is $1,000 in damage. Deadline to file: 4 days. Submit to: Local law enforcement.
- Damage threshold
- $1,000
A driver must report a crash that causes injury, death, or apparent property damage to any one person of $1,000 or more, unless an officer files the report (RCW 46.52.030(1); WAC 446-85-010).
- Deadline to file
- 4 days
The written report is due within four days after the crash.
- Submit to
- Local law enforcement
File with the city police chief if the crash was inside a city or town, otherwise with the county sheriff or the Washington State Patrol. The receiving agency forwards it to the State Patrol.
Washington sets $1,000 — higher than 10 of the 44 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $250 to $4,000.
How Washington compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
$1,000 is the number to keep in mind, and it is a damage figure rather than an injury one: a crash with no one hurt still has to be reported once the damage reaches it. Only 10 of the 44 that set a dollar figure start lower. Note what the threshold is measured against — apparent damage at the scene, not the final repair invoice — so the call has to be made before anyone has priced anything.
You have 4 days. 17 of the 43 with a day count give you less time, 25 give you more. The clock runs from the crash, not from the insurance claim or the repair estimate, and it keeps running while you wait to hear whether the police filed a report of their own.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In Washington the report goes to Local law enforcement. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for Washington
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on Washington
Checked against the primary sources above on September 22, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.