Businesses in unincorporated Snohomish County will be required to accept cash payments, as the council joined King County in passing a mandate aimed at ensuring retail access for those who don't have bank accounts or who have limited funds.
The Snohomish County Council unanimously passed the ordinance on Wednesday, and it will go into effect in 2025. A divided Metropolitan King County Council voted narrowly for the change in June.
Similar requirements have sprung up in New York City, San Francisco and the states of Massachusetts and New Jersey as a small but growing number of retail shops and restaurants have begun only accepting card or electronic payments. Before 2019, there was only one jurisdiction that required businesses to accept cash: Massachusetts, which passed a law nearly 40 years ago. Businesses that don't take cash, some advocates say, discriminate against low-income people who may not have a bank account or don't have sufficient access to banking services.
There is no federal law that requires stores to accept cash, but cash remains legal tender in the U.S.
"As we continue to advance technologically as a society, we need to take care not to leave behind those who are on the margins and may not have access to certain resources like banking and electronic services," Snohomish County Council Chair Jared Mead said in a news release.
A 2022 Pew Research Center study found roughly 41% of Americans say none of their purchases in a typical week are paid for using cash, up from 29% in 2018.
A 2021 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. study found about 5% of households have no checking or savings account. But Black households were about five times more likely to be without a bank account than white households, and Hispanic households were about four times more likely.
In King County, the ordinance passed 5-4, with opponents arguing businesses that shun cash often have legitimate safety concerns about holding large amounts of cash.
"It's not because they don't want the business. There's another underlying reason, and public safety is at the root of it," Steve Hooper, president of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, said in June.
If a store rejects cash, the ordinance requires that it has a cash exchange terminal available for customers. The Snohomish County ordinance included exemptions for shops that have experienced repeated thefts or theft attempts; businesses that have only one employee during any one shift; retail establishments inside residences; and a business that has a bank branch located more than 15 miles away.
The King County ordinance also allows businesses to apply for exemptions, which would be considered on a case-by-case basis.
