Bellingham Rental Fee and Pet Charge Caps 2025: $50 Application Fee Limit and Other Charges

The screening or application fee cap is $50 plus the annual June-over-June Consumer Price Index for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region, not a flat $50 figure that stays fixed year after year.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16, Prohibited Fees and Deposits in Residential Rentals, eff. 2025-08-01]

That inflation-linked structure means the actual dollar cap creeps upward slightly each year rather than staying static; a landlord relying on a flat $50 figure without checking the current year's CPI adjustment risks undercharging relative to what's actually allowed, or more importantly, needs to confirm the correct current-year number before assuming $50 is still precisely accurate.

While the standard security deposit cap is one month's rent, a nonprofit assisting a tenant may offer up to 2 months on that tenant's behalf.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

That exception addresses a specific, common situation; a nonprofit housing-assistance program covering a tenant's move-in costs sometimes needs to offer a larger deposit as part of its own risk-mitigation practice, and this provision lets that arrangement proceed without violating the general one-month cap that applies to tenants paying their own deposit directly.

A landlord has to choose a refundable pet deposit of up to 30% of monthly rent, or pet rent of up to 2% of monthly rent, not both on the same lease.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

That either-or structure closes an obvious double-charging problem; a landlord previously collecting both an upfront pet deposit and ongoing monthly pet rent now has to pick one mechanism, which meaningfully changes the total pet-related cost a tenant faces compared to stacking both charges together.

The ordinance separately bans a defined list of fees regardless of the general caps: in-unit appliance usage fees, common area access fees except for exclusive-use reservations, payment-processing fees for checks, money orders, or ACH, mail and package collection fees, and fees for landlord duties already required under state law.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

That list targets a different category of charge than the capped fees; these aren't fees being limited to a maximum amount, they're fees being eliminated entirely, which means a landlord currently charging any item on this list needs to remove it altogether rather than simply reducing it to a lower amount.

The ordinance separately flags that a pet fee exceeding 2% of monthly rent is prohibited if a pet deposit is also being charged, reinforcing the either-or structure from a different angle.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

A landlord auditing current pet-charge practices should check both provisions together; a fee structure that technically keeps each individual charge under its own cap could still run afoul of the ordinance if it combines a deposit and ongoing rent in a way the either-or rule doesn't allow.

A landlord can charge up to $75 per month for a tenant's violation of the rental agreement, but only after giving prior written warning and a reasonable opportunity to cure the violation.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

That procedural requirement means this fee isn't available as an immediate charge the moment a violation occurs; a landlord needs the documented warning and cure opportunity in place first, which makes this a fundamentally different kind of fee than a flat administrative charge imposed without any advance notice.

Advertisements, listings, and lease agreements now have to disclose the rent amount, which utilities are included versus tenant-responsible, and all fee amounts upfront.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

That requirement means a listing can't advertise an attractively low base rent while leaving mandatory fees for later disclosure; the advertised figure and accompanying information have to reflect the real cost structure a tenant would actually face from the start.

A separate section, Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.19, governs prohibited fees in manufactured home communities, including its own distinct late fee cap of 1% of outstanding monthly rent, different from the 2% cap that applies to standard residential rentals.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.19]

A property manager operating both standard rental units and a manufactured home community needs to track these as 2 separate fee frameworks rather than assuming the same caps apply uniformly across both property types.

Since several prohibited items, appliance usage fees, common area access charges, payment-processing fees, aren't being capped but eliminated entirely, a landlord's existing billing systems and lease templates likely need structural changes rather than a simple rate adjustment.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

A landlord who simply lowers a banned fee to a smaller amount, rather than removing it altogether, hasn't actually complied; the ordinance's prohibited-fees list functions as a true ban on those specific charges, not a reduced-rate allowance.

Bellingham's fee caps and prohibited-fees list arrived around the same general period as several other Washington jurisdictions adopting similar junk-fee restrictions and all-in cost disclosure requirements.

[Cite: Bellingham Municipal Code 6.16]

A property manager operating across multiple Washington cities should expect this kind of fee-transparency framework, capped categories alongside an outright-banned list, plus upfront cost disclosure, to keep appearing in other jurisdictions, and should build compliance processes general enough to adapt as more cities adopt comparable rules.

The practical starting point is auditing every current fee line item against 3 separate categories: the capped fees (screening, deposit, pet charges, late fees), the outright-banned fees (appliance usage, common area access, payment processing, mail collection), and the conditional violation fee requiring prior written warning.

Updating lease templates and advertising materials to reflect the required all-in cost disclosure keeps a Bellingham portfolio compliant with both the fee structure itself and the transparency requirement that applies on top of it.