Unemployment in Washington state pays between $366 and $1,152 per week for claims filed on or after July 6, 2025. Your exact amount is 3.85 percent of the average of your two highest-earning quarters during a set lookback period, subject to that floor and ceiling.
The Current Minimum and Maximum
The Washington Employment Security Department (ESD) resets the weekly benefit range every July based on the statewide average weekly wage for the prior calendar year. By statute, the maximum equals the greater of $496 or 63 percent of that average weekly wage, and the minimum equals 20 percent of it.1Washington State Legislature. RCW 50.20.120 – Amount of Benefits
One catch on the floor: your weekly benefit can never exceed your own average weekly wage. If the formula would push you above what you actually earned, you get capped at your wage. If that cap drops you below $366, you receive the lower amount rather than the stated minimum.2Employment Security Department. Estimate Your Benefit
How Your Weekly Amount Is Calculated
The Base Year
The wages that count toward your benefit come from your base year: the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before the week you file.3Employment Security Department. Definitions of Terms File in April 2026, for example, and your base year runs from October 2024 through September 2025.
You need at least 680 hours of work in covered employment during that window to qualify. If you fall short in the standard base year, ESD automatically checks an alternate base year (the last four completed quarters before you filed) to see whether you qualify under that timeframe instead.2Employment Security Department. Estimate Your Benefit Washington uses hours worked rather than a minimum dollar threshold, which is unusual among states.
The Formula
ESD reviews your gross wages in each quarter of the base year, picks the two highest, averages them, and multiplies by 3.85 percent (0.0385).2Employment Security Department. Estimate Your Benefit That figure becomes your weekly benefit, bounded by the $366 minimum and $1,152 maximum.
A worked example: if your two best quarters were $9,000 and $11,000, the average is $10,000, and 3.85 percent of that is $385 per week. Push those quarters to $16,000 and $18,000 and the formula produces $654 per week. Two quarters averaging roughly $30,000 or more will hit the ceiling.
Estimating Before You File
ESD runs a free estimator at esd.wa.gov that uses the same 3.85 percent formula. Enter your gross wages by quarter and you get a reliable preview, though the official amount may shift slightly once ESD verifies wages with your employers.2Employment Security Department. Estimate Your Benefit Pull together W-2s and pay stubs covering the base year first, since the tool wants gross wages (before taxes and deductions).
How Many Weeks You Can Collect
The regular program pays up to 26 weeks per benefit year. Some workers get fewer. State law caps your total payout at the lesser of 26 times your weekly benefit or one-third of your total base year wages.1Washington State Legislature. RCW 50.20.120 – Amount of Benefits
Say your weekly benefit is $500 and your base year wages totaled $30,000. One-third of $30,000 is $10,000, which stretches to 20 weeks rather than the full 26. Higher base year earnings relative to your weekly benefit get you to the 26-week ceiling.
The Unpaid Waiting Week
Your first eligible week is a “waiting week” that pays nothing, even though you still have to file a claim for it. You serve one waiting week per benefit year, so restarting a claim later in the same benefit year does not cost you another one.4Employment Security Department. When to Apply or Restart Your Claim for Unemployment Benefits Plan for a gap in that first payment.
What Reduces Your Weekly Check
Your calculated benefit is a gross number. Several things chip away at what actually lands in your account.
Federal Income Tax
Unemployment benefits are taxable. You can ask ESD to withhold 10 percent of each payment toward federal income tax, which spreads the bill across the year instead of hitting you at filing time.5Employment Security Department. Paying Income Taxes on Unemployment Benefits Washington has no state income tax, so no state withholding applies. You can turn the federal withholding on or off through eServices or the claims center.
Part-Time Earnings
Working part-time while you collect benefits reduces your check but does not erase it. Washington subtracts $5 from your weekly earnings, then deducts 75 percent of what remains from your benefit. Earn $200 in a week and the deduction is ($200 − $5) × 0.75, or $146.25. You still come out ahead compared to benefits alone.
Vacation, Termination, and Severance
Different payouts from your former employer get treated differently. Severance paid as a lump sum tied to your departure is not deducted. A vacation cash-out is not deducted either. But vacation or holiday pay your employer assigns to a specific week reduces your benefit for that week, and termination pay (wages covering a period after your last day of work but before your official separation date) is treated as earnings and reduces benefits.6Washington State Legislature. Chapter 192-190 WAC
Child Support and Other Obligations
Court-ordered child support is intercepted automatically from your weekly benefit before it reaches you. Other legal obligations, such as certain tax levies, may also be pulled out.
Keeping the Check Coming
The weekly dollar amount only matters if you actually receive it, which means filing a claim for every week you want paid and completing at least three job search activities each week with a record of what you did.7Employment Security Department. Job Search Requirements Miss a weekly filing and you forfeit that week’s payment. Workers on temporary layoff with a confirmed recall date, people in approved training, and union members who find work exclusively through a hiring hall are generally exempt from the search requirement, but not from filing.