What the Superior Court Clerk charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the sheriff charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees.
This is a floor, not a total. It adds up only the components this county actually publishes — the missing pieces below will push it higher. Attorney fees, if you use one, are on top of this and are not included.
Everything the clerk charges on an eviction or small claims case in Clark County. The figures set by state statute are verified and apply here. A dash means we have not yet read this county’s own schedule — not that the fee is zero.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | $135 | Washington charges the same fee for a residential eviction whether or not the landlord is also asking for back rent — $135.00 to file, rising to $247.00 if the tenant answers or a show-cause order is requested. Six of the seven counties whose current fee pages we checked print this exact figure against the exact same statute citations; one county's page currently shows a lower up-front amount that we believe has not caught up with a 2025 statewide fee increase. |
| Eviction filing — possession only | $135 | Washington does not charge a different fee for a possession-only eviction. The $135.00 residential unlawful detainer filing fee is the same regardless of what relief the landlord is asking for. |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | $250 | $250.00 to demand a twelve-person jury in a Washington superior court civil case, including a contested unlawful detainer. This is a genuine statewide statutory fee, unlike Georgia's magistrate court, where no jury trial is available at all. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | $125 | $125.00 to demand a six-person jury in a Washington superior court civil case. If a party who paid this later wants to move up to twelve jurors, RCW 36.18.016(3)(a) requires an additional $125.00 on top. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | There is no jury trial, and so no jury demand fee, in Washington's small claims department. RCW 12.40.080 sets up an informal proceeding decided by a judge or commissioner, and the small claims guides published by Washington courts and Washington Law Help both say plainly that small claims cases are never heard by a jury. |
| Mediation fee | — | |
| E-filing surcharge | — |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Washington the sheriff sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. Serving the initial summons and complaint through the Sheriff (most landlords use a private process server instead) is $10.00 for one defendant or $12.00 for two or more at the same address, plus mileage, under RCW 36.18.040(1). Executing the writ of restitution afterward is a county-by-county deposit, not a statewide number — we found $100.00 to $240.00 plus mileage among the counties whose sheriff's-office pages we checked.
Washington courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under RCW 36.18.022 and General Rule 34 (GR 34). There is one statewide form — you do not need a Clark County version of it.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full | GR 34 grants a full waiver of filing fees and surcharges if you meet any one of several tests: you already receive needs-based public assistance (TANF, SSI, food assistance and similar programs); your household income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty guideline; your income is above that line but your unavoidable living expenses leave you unable to pay; or other compelling circumstances show you cannot pay. A person represented by a qualified legal aid provider is presumed to qualify. |
Washington is all-or-nothing in the sense that matters most — there is no partial or percentage waiver the way some states offer a sliding scale. What Washington does have that Georgia and Florida do not is several different doors into that same full waiver: a public-benefits test, an income test, an expenses test, and a catch-all "compelling circumstances" test, any one of which is enough on its own.
Fee waiver information verified August 1, 2026 against the Illinois General Assembly statute text and the Illinois Courts approved-forms library. We report what the statute and the form say. We cannot tell you whether you qualify — that is the court's decision.
Clark County Circuit Court
Superior Court Clerk
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
eFileWA (Odyssey eFileWA, operated by Tyler Technologies)
eFileWA is shared by superior, district and municipal courts across the state, and several counties (Snohomish, Grays Harbor among them) require attorneys to use it. None of the county pages we checked require a self-represented landlord or tenant to e-file, and paper filing at the clerk's counter remains available everywhere we looked. There is no charge to use eFileWA itself beyond the court's own filing fee; the only add-on is a variable electronic-payment processing charge, which is a percentage of the transaction rather than a fixed dollar figure, so we have not tried to publish a number for it. eFileIL →
We publish the court's and clerk's own contact information and link to their pages. We do not take your information, route you to anyone, or file anything on your behalf. For questions about court procedure — as opposed to what it costs — use the Illinois Courts self-help center.
Washington's eviction filing fee behaves like Florida's, not Georgia's: it is fixed in the statute book, not set county by county. RCW 36.18.020, RCW 36.18.012 and RCW 36.18.016 together set a residential unlawful detainer filing fee of $135.00 (due when you file, if the case ends in a default judgment), rising to $247.00 total if the tenant files an answer or the landlord asks for a show-cause order, and a flat $290.00 for a non-residential (commercial) unlawful detainer. We checked the clerk's own fee page in six counties spanning the state — King, Kittitas, Yakima, Jefferson, Franklin and Grays Harbor, from the biggest urban county to small rural ones — and every one prints those same three figures against the same RCW citations. One county's own page, Columbia's, prints something different for the up-front amount: $85.00 rather than $135.00, though it converges on the same $247.00 if the case is contested. We think that is a documentation gap rather than a real local option; see the open question below. Small claims is a genuinely different, and genuinely cheaper, filing: a flat $35.00 under RCW 12.40.020, the same whether you are claiming $50 or the full $10,000 ceiling, and the same number statewide because it is set the same way — by statute, with no county discretion at all.
Unlike Georgia, Washington has a genuine statewide schedule for these two case types: the unlawful detainer figures come straight out of RCW 36.18.020 and RCW 36.18.012 with no county rule-making involved, and the small claims fee comes straight out of RCW 12.40.020. Every county clerk's fee page is supposed to be reprinting the same statute, not setting its own number.
Statutory backbone: RCW 36.18.020; RCW 36.18.012; RCW 36.18.016 — Clerk's fees and surcharges (unlawful detainer, jury demand); additional unlawful detainer fee on answer. RCW 36.18.020, as most recently amended by 2025's SHB 1207; RCW 36.18.012(4)'s $112 answer fee and RCW 36.18.016(3)'s jury demand fees. The $135.00 residential figure is built from three pieces: a $45.00 unlawful-detainer-specific filing fee under RCW 36.18.020(2)(a) (lower than the $200.00 general civil filing fee because chapter 59.18 or 59.20 tenancies get their own discounted rate), a $40.00 surcharge under RCW 36.18.020(5)(c), and a $50.00 surcharge under RCW 36.18.020(6) that 2025's SHB 1207 added on top. If the defendant answers or the plaintiff requests a show-cause order, RCW 36.18.012(4) adds $112.00 more, for $247.00 total. A non-residential unlawful detainer does not get the discounted $45.00 rate, so it starts from the $200.00 general civil fee instead: $200 + $40 + $50 = $290.00. Statute text checked August 1, 2026.
Compiled and verified by David Scott. We re-check every source document monthly and re-read any county whose schedule has changed. If the clerk quotes you something different from what is on this page, tell us and we will fix it. Read the full methodology.