Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: a Washington for-profit corporation dissolves by filing Articles of Dissolution under RCW 23B.14.030 for $0, but Washington will not accept it without a tax clearance certificate in hand first.
The filing, and what Washington calls it
Washington’s Articles of Dissolution are filed with the Secretary of State’s Corporations & Charities Division under RCW 23B.14.020 (dissolution) and RCW 23B.14.030 (content).
The tax clearance question
Washington will not accept the Articles of Dissolution without a tax clearance in hand. RCW 23B.14.030 requires delivering ‘a copy of a revenue clearance certificate issued pursuant to RCW 82.32.260’ along with the articles. The Department of Revenue issues this Revenue Clearance Certificate on application, typically within 10 business days, and notably, this requirement applies to corporations and nonprofits specifically; LLCs, PLLCs, LLPs and LPs are explicitly exempted from it. (RCW 23B.14.030(1); RCW 82.32.260)
Creditors and the claims window
Washington makes available, but does not require, a formal notice-to-known-and-unknown-creditors procedure, with a 120-day claims-bar window. Optional (‘may dispose of any or all of the known claims against it’). Claims bar deadline is not fewer than 120 days from the effective date of the written notice. (RCW 23B.14.060)
What the filing costs
The Articles of Dissolution carries a $0 filing fee. No statutory base filing fee; an optional $100 expedited-service surcharge is available.
What this page does not answer
Dissolving the entity at the state level and closing it out with the IRS are two separate processes. A final federal return, IRS Form 966 in some circumstances, and canceling the EIN are governed by federal law, not by Washington’s corporation statute, and this cluster does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-closeout answer not at all.
This page sells nothing and links to no filing service. Dissolving a corporation is a filing-desk task with a statutory answer, and the answer is either in the state’s code and the Secretary of State’s own instructions or it is not.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are closing an LLC in Washington instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see dissolving an LLC in Washington.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- RCW 23B.14.020, 23B.14.030, 23B.14.060: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=23B.14.030
- RCW 82.32.260: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=82.32.260
- Washington DOR, Revenue Clearance Certificate: https://dor.wa.gov/manage-business/my-account/application-department-revenue-clearance-certificate