In effect
Scope
RCW 82.08.9861 provides a sales-tax exemption for eligible server equipment and eligible power infrastructure, and for listed installation labor, for a qualifying business or qualifying tenant in an eligible computer data center. To obtain the exemption, a qualifying business must be located in a county with a population over 800,000 as determined by the 1 April 2021 Office of Financial Management population estimates and must apply for an exemption certificate. The opened section says the exemptions it provides expire on 1 July 2038, and it says the section expires on that day. It does not extend the rural-county exemption in RCW 82.08.986 to these counties, and it does not say that every data center in a large county qualifies.
Dates
- Effective
- No single effective day is stated
- Scheduled expiration
- 1 July 2038
- Completion condition
- The opened sales-tax section says both the exemptions it provides and the section itself expire on 1 July 2038.
- Source document
- The source page states no document date
- Last checked
- 22 September 2026
- Issuing authority
- Washington State Legislature
Summary
Washington RCW 82.08.9861 is a separate sales-tax exemption for eligible server equipment and power infrastructure in an eligible computer data center when the qualifying business is in a county with a population over 800,000 under the 1 April 2021 population estimates cited in the section. The opened text says the exemptions provided in the section expire on 1 July 2038 and that the section expires that day. The history line cites 2026 chapter 266 and 2022 chapter 267. This is not the rural-county exemption, and the use-tax section was not opened. The expiration is the date the sales-tax section states. It is not a finding that a certificate already issued ends on a different day than the section provides.
What this does not establish
- The population test uses the 1 April 2021 Office of Financial Management estimates named in the section. This record does not substitute a later census.
- The use-tax section RCW 82.12.9861 was not opened. An earlier secondary description of a 2043 date was not used.
- The section's other qualification conditions, including any first-use date, are not restated as a second expiration.
- The same section says no new exemption certificates may be issued on or after July 1, 2028. That is a certificate cutoff, not the July 1, 2038 section expiration.
Unresolved questions
- Which Washington counties meet the 800,000-person test under the cited 2021 estimates was not listed from a separate population table.
- Whether 2026 chapter 266 changed the expiration day from an earlier version was not compared line by line with the 2022 text. The opened current section states 1 July 2038.
Relationships
Supersession means a later instrument replaces the earlier legal effect. A later implementation or a related letter is not treated as a replacement unless the record says so.
- Related, not a replacement wa-rcw-8208986-rural-data-center-exemption
Sources
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=82.08.9861&pdf=true