The rest of what we have written about Washington. Every figure is quoted from Washington’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.
Protective orders and restraining orders in Washington
Who can ask for one, what you have to show, what a judge can order, what it costs, and what happens if it is broken — quoted from Washington’s own statute, not summarized.
See a different stateWashington
Washington used to have a stand-alone domestic violence statute, chapter 26.50 RCW. That chapter was repealed and its contents were folded, along with five other kinds of Washington civil protection order (vulnerable adult, antiharassment, sexual assault, stalking, and extreme risk), into one unified chapter, 7.105 RCW ("Civil Protection Orders"). The change was enacted by the legislature in 2021 as Substitute House Bill 1901 (2021 c 215), amended in 2022 by chapter 268, and took effect July 1, 2022 for most of the act (a handful of sections took effect March 31, 2022). RCW 7.105.900, the legislature's own findings section for the recodification, states directly: "the legislature further finds that in order to improve the efficacy of, accessibility to, and understanding of, civil protection orders, the six different civil protection orders in Washington state should be included in a single chapter of the Revised Code of Washington." A domestic violence protection order is one of the six petition types available under this single chapter, defined and governed by RCW 7.105.100(1)(a) and by the chapter's general definitions in RCW 7.105.010. This page covers only the domestic violence protection order; the other five order types available under the same chapter are outside this page's scope.
The short version11 points · tap one to jump to it
- Does this cover me? — As to who may sign and file the petition: the person harmed may file for themselves, and may also file on behalf of their own family or household members who are minors or vulnerable adults.
- Can I get something today? — This is the order a court can make without the other person present.
- The order after a hearing — Washington does not impose a fixed statutory ceiling in years on a final domestic violence protection order the way some states do.
- What the judge can actually order — In most states this list reaches the home, the children and money, not just distance.
- Firearms — Firearms surrender under a Washington DVPO runs through two connected statutes.
- What it costs — This no-fee rule is written directly into the chapter's own filing-procedures section.
- If they break it
- Worth knowing about Washington
- Renewing a Washington order: the burden is not yours — Washington has written into statute the answers to the three arguments most often used to end a protection order — nothing has happened, too much time has passed, you have not proved you are still afraid.
- If they try to end the order early — The respondent must first get past a paper gate: their motion needs a declaration of supporting facts, and “the court shall set a hearing only if the court finds that adequate cause is established.” You do not automatically face a hearing every time they file.
- The part that is the same in every state — This is federal law and it does not change at a state line.
In this subject 11
Does this cover me?
The short version11 points · tap one to jump to it
- Does this cover me? — As to who may sign and file the petition: the person harmed may file for themselves, and may also file on behalf of their own family or household members who are minors or vulnerable adults.
- Can I get something today? — This is the order a court can make without the other person present.
- The order after a hearing — Washington does not impose a fixed statutory ceiling in years on a final domestic violence protection order the way some states do.
- What the judge can actually order — In most states this list reaches the home, the children and money, not just distance.
- Firearms — Firearms surrender under a Washington DVPO runs through two connected statutes.
- What it costs — This no-fee rule is written directly into the chapter's own filing-procedures section.
- If they break it
- Worth knowing about Washington
- Renewing a Washington order: the burden is not yours — Washington has written into statute the answers to the three arguments most often used to end a protection order — nothing has happened, too much time has passed, you have not proved you are still afraid.
- If they try to end the order early — The respondent must first get past a paper gate: their motion needs a declaration of supporting facts, and “the court shall set a hearing only if the court finds that adequate cause is established.” You do not automatically face a hearing every time they file.
- The part that is the same in every state — This is federal law and it does not change at a state line.
In this subject 11
Who can ask for one
A person qualifies for a DVPO against someone who is either an "intimate partner" — a spouse or domestic partner, a former spouse or domestic partner, a person with whom they share a child (unless that child was conceived through sexual assault), or a current or former dating partner where both people are 13 or older — or a "family or household member" — someone related by blood, marriage, domestic partnership, or adoption; someone who currently or formerly lived with them; a parent, stepparent, child, stepchild, grandparent, or grandchild, or a parent's intimate partner and that parent's children; or a legal guardian. "Domestic violence" itself is defined broadly: not just physical harm or the fear of it, but nonconsensual sexual conduct, coercive control (a separately defined term covering patterns of intimidation, isolation, financial deprivation, surveillance, abusive litigation, and psychological aggression), unlawful harassment, or stalking. As to who may sign and file the petition: the person harmed may file for themselves, and may also file on behalf of their own family or household members who are minors or vulnerable adults. Washington also lets a minor age 15 through 17 file a DVPO petition on their own behalf without an adult filing for them (except for a vulnerable adult protection order); a person under 15 must have someone else file as the authorized petitioner on their behalf.
What you have to show
Can I get something today?
ex parte temporary protection order — before any hearing
This is the order a court can make without the other person present. It is short by design: it holds until a hearing, and the hearing is where the longer order is decided.
An ex parte order can be requested the moment the petition is filed, without notice to the respondent. The court's standard is conduct shown by the petition and evidence that would support a protection order, plus an allegation that serious immediate harm or irreparable injury could result without immediate action. The order itself is capped at 14 days when first issued, though the court can extend it for good cause, and the full hearing must independently be calendared within 14 days of filing (or of the next judicial day, if filed after hours or on a non-court day). RCW 7.105.100(8) also creates "a rebuttable presumption to include the petitioner's minor children as protected parties in the ex parte temporary domestic violence protection order until the full hearing," unless the court finds good cause not to and puts its reasons in writing. The petitioner can also ask, at this same ex parte stage, for an order to surrender and prohibit weapons (see the firearms section below).
The order after a hearing
How long it lasts, and whether it can be extended
Washington does not impose a fixed statutory ceiling in years on a final domestic violence protection order the way some states do. Instead, RCW 7.105.315(1) lets the court choose between a fixed period (with a one-year floor by default, unless the petitioner asks for something shorter) or a permanent order, and if the court makes it permanent, RCW 7.105.310(5) has the court set the paper expiration date 99 years out. That 99-year figure is a drafting convention for a database or docket system, not a substantive limit — the order is meant to be permanent. Renewal of a fixed-term order works on a burden-shifting structure that favors the petitioner: the petitioner does not have to prove continued fear (RCW 7.105.405(3): "The petitioner bears no burden of proving that he or she has a current reasonable fear of harm by the respondent"), and the court must grant renewal unless the respondent proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, both a substantial change in circumstances and that the respondent will not resume domestic violence once the order lapses. A renewed order can itself run for another fixed term of at least one year or become permanent. There is no cap on the number of renewals stated in the statute.
What the judge can actually order
Wider than most people expect. In most states this list reaches the home, the children and money, not just distance.
The statutory list
Firearms
What Washington’s own law says
Firearms surrender under a Washington DVPO runs through two connected statutes. RCW 7.105.310(1)(m), inside the protection-order chapter itself, directs the court to "consider" RCW 9.41.800 and to order surrender of all firearms, other dangerous weapons, and any concealed pistol license. RCW 9.41.800 is the operative mechanics statute: it is mandatory ("shall"), not discretionary, once its triggers are met — a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the respondent used, displayed, or threatened a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a felony, or is otherwise ineligible to possess a firearm under RCW 9.41.040, activates subsection (1); a full-hearing order restraining the respondent from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or protected person, combined with either a credible-threat finding or language explicitly barring the threatened or attempted use of physical force, activates the mandatory surrender in subsection (2). The court can also order temporary surrender without notice to the respondent, before a response is even due, if there is a showing that irreparable injury could otherwise result (subsection (3)). Surrender goes to the local law enforcement agency (subsection (6)); the order must be served by a law enforcement officer, and law enforcement must enter the surrender-and-prohibit-weapons order and any concealed pistol license revocation into the relevant databases immediately (subsection (7)). RCW 7.105.100(8) confirms a petitioner can request this weapons order at the same time as the ex parte temporary protection order, and RCW 7.105.100(1)(b) (the electronic case-tracking provision) even lists "a receipt for the surrender of firearms" and "the respondent has filed a motion for the release of surrendered firearms" among the automated status notifications a petitioner can sign up for.
What it costs
Fees
This no-fee rule is written directly into the chapter's own filing-procedures section. It bars charging the petitioner for service of process and bars any fee or surcharge that would be a condition of getting relief at all, and it also requires the court to hand over the necessary certified copies, forms, instructional brochures, and the service packet free of charge. The one carve-out in subsection (9)(b), which this page did not need to quote in full, concerns antiharassment protection orders specifically — a filing fee may be charged there, except where the underlying conduct is stalking or domestic-violence-type conduct, or where the court finds the petitioner cannot afford it. A domestic violence protection order petitioner is not affected by that antiharassment carve-out; the no-fee rule applies to them without exception.
If they break it
What a violation is, and what it carries
Worth knowing about Washington
Several things about Washington's approach are worth a reader's attention. First, the 2022 recodification itself: Washington did not just renumber its domestic violence protection order statute, it merged six previously separate protection-order laws (domestic violence, vulnerable adult, antiharassment, sexual assault, stalking, and extreme risk, adopted between 1984 and 2016) into one chapter with shared definitions, filing rules, service rules, hearing procedures, and enforcement provisions. The legislature's own stated purpose, in RCW 7.105.900(7), was to make the six orders "included in a single chapter" so the law would be easier for petitioners, respondents, and courts to navigate — meaning a citation to the old chapter 26.50 RCW is now obsolete and should be treated as a sign of outdated information. Second, Washington's domestic violence definition explicitly includes "coercive control" as its own defined term, covering patterns of intimidation, isolation, financial deprivation, surveillance, abusive litigation, and psychological aggression, not just physical violence or its threat — a broader definition than many states use. Third, on duration: rather than a hard statutory year cap, Washington lets a court simply enter a permanent order after a full hearing, with the paper expiration date set 99 years out as a system convention, and renewal of a fixed-term order puts the burden on the respondent (not the petitioner) to prove both a changed circumstance and that they will not resume abuse. Fourth, the firearms-surrender trigger in RCW 9.41.800 is mandatory language ("shall") once its conditions are met, and is tied together with the protection-order statute closely enough that RCW 7.105.100 lets petitioners get automated electronic notifications specifically about firearm-surrender receipts and any respondent motion to get surrendered firearms back. Fifth, Washington lets a minor as young as 15 file a DVPO petition entirely on their own, without a parent or guardian filing on their behalf — younger than the filing age most other states use.
Renewing a Washington order: the burden is not yours
Washington has written into statute the answers to the three arguments most often used to end a protection order — nothing has happened, too much time has passed, you have not proved you are still afraid. If you are facing a renewal hearing, these are the provisions to have in front of you.
You do not have to prove you are still afraid
“The petitioner bears no burden of proving that he or she has a current reasonable fear of harm by the respondent.”
One sentence, and it disposes of the commonest cross-examination in a renewal hearing. You are not required to perform fear, justify it, or evidence it. The statute has removed it from the list of things you must show.
The burden is on them, and it is a double one
“The court shall grant the motion for renewal unless the respondent proves by a preponderance of the evidence that there has been a substantial change in circumstances and”
— for a domestic violence protection order — “that the respondent proves that the respondent will not resume acts of domestic violence against the petitioner or the petitioner’s family or household members who are minors or vulnerable adults when the order expires.”
Read the structure. “Shall grant … unless.” Renewal is the default outcome, and it is the respondent who must displace it. And they must prove two separate things: that circumstances have substantially changed, and that they will not resume the abuse. Establishing the first without the second is not enough.
Seven reasons a court is forbidden to refuse you
RCW 7.105.405(6) is the most quietly useful provision in the chapter. “The court shall not deny a motion to renew a protection order for any of the following reasons”:
“(a) The respondent has not violated the protection order previously issued by the court; (b) The petitioner or the respondent is a minor; (c) The petitioner did not report the conduct giving rise to the protection order, or subsequent violations of the protection order, to law enforcement; (d) A no-contact order or a restraining order that restrains the respondent’s contact with the petitioner has been issued in a criminal proceeding or in a domestic relations proceeding; (e) The relief sought by the petitioner may be available in a different action or proceeding; (f) The passage of time since the last incident of conduct giving rise to the issuance of the protection order; or (g) The respondent no longer lives near the petitioner.”
Every one of those is an argument somebody has made against a petitioner in a Washington courtroom, and the Legislature has taken all seven off the table. Two are worth singling out. (c) means never reporting to the police cannot be held against you — there are a hundred good reasons people do not call. (g) means distance is not safety in the eyes of this statute.
If any of these is raised at your hearing, you are entitled to say so plainly: “RCW 7.105.405(6) says the court may not deny renewal for that reason.”
What renewal gets you
“The court may renew the protection order for another fixed time period of no less than one year, or may enter a permanent order.” (RCW 7.105.405(8).) Where children are included, a renewed order may run longer than a year (subsection (9)). And under subsection (7) the terms of the original order are not changed on renewal unless you ask — so if something in the order has not been working, renewal is your moment to ask for it to be fixed.
Two more details. You may file at any time within the 90 days before expiry, the hearing must be set within 14 days, and service must be made at least five judicial days before it (subsection (1)). And if the court refuses, subsection (12) requires it to “state, in writing in the order, the particular reasons for the court’s denial” — which is what makes an appeal possible.
A protected minor who turns 18
Added by 2025 c 122, this is new and easy to miss. A minor protected by an order who reaches 18 while it is still running may move to renew it as the petitioner in their own right. And if the order has already expired, they have “up to one year from the date of expiration” to petition for renewal — and “may, but is not required to, allege new facts and circumstances.” A young adult whose childhood protection lapsed can pick it back up without having to build a fresh case.
If they try to end the order early
RCW 7.105.500 — modification and termination
The respondent must first get past a paper gate: their motion needs a declaration of supporting facts, and “the court shall set a hearing only if the court finds that adequate cause is established.” You do not automatically face a hearing every time they file.
If a hearing does happen, subsection (3) puts the same double burden on them, and repeats the key sentence: “The petitioner bears no burden of proving that he or she has a current reasonable fear of harm by the respondent.”
Then subsection (5), which is the one to remember:
“In determining whether there has been a substantial change in circumstances, the court may not base its determination on the fact that time has passed without a violation of the order.”
And even if they do show changed circumstances, subsection (6) lets the court refuse anyway “if it finds that the acts … that resulted in the issuance of the protection order were of such severity that the order should not be terminated.” Severity alone can hold an order in place.
Finally, subsection (7) limits them to one such motion in any twelve-month period, counted through any renewal. They cannot grind you down by filing repeatedly.
The part that is the same in every state
An order from one state works in all of them
This is federal law and it does not change at a state line. An order issued by one state, tribe or territory must be enforced by every other as if that state had issued it. And you do not have to register it in the new state first — registration is optional, not a precondition to enforcement.
The same section also says the enforcing state must not tell the restrained person that the order has been registered there unless the protected person asks it to, and must not publish anything online that would be likely to reveal the protected person’s identity or location.
The federal firearms rule needs a hearing first
This is the single most misunderstood point in the whole subject, and it cuts against what most people assume. The federal prohibition at 18 U.S.C. s. 922(g)(8) reaches a person subject to an order only where three things are true: the order was made after a hearing of which they had actual notice and at which they had a chance to take part; it restrains them in relation to an intimate partner or that partner’s child; and it either carries a credible-threat finding or expressly forbids the use of force.
So an emergency or ex parte order does not trigger the federal prohibition on its own — there has been no hearing yet. State law may go further, and many states do, which is why the state rule is set out on this page separately. In United States v. Rahimi (2024) the Supreme Court upheld s. 922(g)(8), holding that “[a]n individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.”
This rule is narrower than it looks, and the detail matters. Who counts as an “intimate partner” is a defined term that excludes dating partners you never lived with; the two halves of the third condition are not equally settled after Rahimi; and there is a separate federal route based on convictions rather than orders, which does reach dating partners. We set all of it out, quoted from the United States Code, on one page: Guns and protection orders — the federal rule.
How does this state compare? Ten states do nothing at all about firearms on a protection order; fourteen prohibit possession but give the court no way to collect them. All fifty side by side: which states actually take the guns.
You should not be charged for this — in any state
This is settled, and it is worth knowing before you walk into a courthouse. Under 34 U.S.C. s. 10450, a state applying for STOP grant funding must certify to the Attorney General that its "laws, policies, and practices do not require" a victim to bear the costs associated with the filing, issuance, registration, modification, enforcement, dismissal, withdrawal or service of a protection order or a petition for one — nor the costs of filing criminal charges, or of warrants and witness subpoenas. A jurisdiction that does charge has its funds withheld and redistributed to the states that do not.
Every state receives STOP funding and every state has certified compliance. The practical consequence, in the words of the National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith & Credit, is that victims "should not be required to pay such costs in any state". That covers having the papers served on the other person, which is the charge people are most often asked for.
Two honest qualifications. The provision does not stop a court charging the respondent — many states order costs against them, and that is permitted. And it is a funding condition rather than a direct federal ban, so what a clerk does on a given day can still be wrong. If you are asked to pay a fee for any of the things listed above, you can say that your state has certified under 34 U.S.C. s. 10450 that it does not charge for them. Advocates can also raise it with the National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith & Credit on 1-800-903-0111, prompt 2.
Where this state’s own statute says so expressly, that is quoted above.
How we checked this page
Every quotation above was read in the source named in the Authority line, not taken from a summary or another website. Where a source would not open, we say so at the point we relied on something else.
On this date we also re-checked every section cited above for repeal, renumbering or amendment since 2024. That sweep is not decorative: it is what caught North Dakota’s protection order chapter being repealed and replaced, Nebraska’s moving to an entirely new title, and a dozen 2025 and 2026 amendments that most published guidance has not yet picked up.
Nothing is outstanding on the main questions for Washington. What we cannot promise is that nothing has changed since this date. Quote the words with confidence; check a section number before you put it in a filing. And if anything here does not match what a clerk or judge tells you, the court is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will fix it.
We keep a public record of every time we have got the law wrong on these pages, what caused it, and how long it was live: where we were wrong.
If there are children
What Washington presumes about custody, and the emergency jurisdiction that exists when someone has to leave the state.