Washington is home to a number of big businesses: Starbucks, Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, Expedia, Nordstrom, and plenty more. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Washington state is home to a substantial amount of wealth; wealth that has grown significantly over the last three decades, especially since the explosion of the internet.
Recently, we analyzed and identified the richest cities in New Hampshire, as well as Connecticut. For this article, we turn to Washington state. This study analyzed 642 cities in Washington with complete data from the Census Bureau, in terms of their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year, to come up with a list of the 50 richest cities in the state.
Read on to find out what the richest city in Washington is, plus the top 50 wealthiest cities in the state overall.
What Are the Richest Cities in Washington?
In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Washington, we sourced critical financial data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. Once these data points were assembled, they were scored using a four-factor system taking into account: 1) Median household income; 2) mean (average) household income; 3) median home value; 4) median property taxes paid.
It is important to note some of the quirks that the Census Bureau does with its data. For certain factors, the Census numbers have upper limits, so there’s no exact value for certain factors. For example, for median household income, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of “$250,000+”, so no median incomes are recorded above $250,000. For median home value, the upper limit is “$2,000,000+”. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is “$10,000+”. For these reasons, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.
Another aspect of the Census to point out, and is particularly relevant to Washington, is the Census-designated place — CDP. The Census, more or less, treats CDPs as cities — their terminology is “place” — and so will this list of the richest cities in Washington. But if you see cities on this list that you see as, say, neighborhoods, you’re not wrong; they just happen to be treated as cities by the Census Bureau.
You’ll find a table detailing the top 50 richest cities in Washington and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below:
The No. 1 richest city in Washington in this ranking is Hunts Point, a town in the Eastside, a region of King County, and part of the Seattle metropolitan area. It lies along Lake Washington, west of Yarrow Point. The employment breakdown makes sense for a wealthy town like Hunts Point. According to Data USA, the top three industries by employment are Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services (27% of the workforce), Real Estate & Rental & Leasing (22.1% of the workforce), and Retail Trade (11.5% of the workforce. Management Occupations make up 37.7% of the workforce, with Computer & Mathematical Occupations making in second with 13.9%.
Hunts Point is a small place, with only 136 households. The median household income in Hunts Point is over $250,000 a year, while its mean household income is substantially higher, at $609,224 — the highest income in Washington. The median home value here is staggering. According to the Census Bureau, it’s in excess of $2 million. According to Zillow, it is over $7.36 million. Not coincidentally, households in Hunts Point pay a median of over $10,000 a year in property taxes.
Clyde Hill came in as the No. 2 wealthiest city in Washington state. This city of 1,156 households is Hunts Point’s neighbor to the south. The top industries by employment tend to be high-earning industries: Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services (25.7% of the workforce), Health Care & Social Assistance (15.7% of the workforce), and Finance & Insurance (9.43% of the workforce). Like Hunts Point, the median home value is in excess of $2 million, and, according to Zillow, it is just under $4.1 million. Property taxes are high, with households paying a median in excess of $10,000 per year. The median household income surpasses $250,000 and the average household income is a soaring $483,738.
Coming in as the No. 3 richest city in Washington is Medina. This city is also east of Seattle, and borders Hunts Point and Clyde Hill. The entire length of Medina borders Lake Washington. The median household income here is $244,740. Its mean household income is much higher, at $439,677. According to Data USA, the biggest occupation category is Management Occupations, accounting for 37% of the workforce. The industry breakdown is similar to the No. 1 and No. 2 cities on this list: Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services (28.1% of the workforce), Retail Trade (10.9% of the workforce), and Finance & Insurance (9.55% of the workforce). Homes are expensive too. According to Zillow, the median home value is over $4.5 million, and the median property taxes paid per household is over $10,000 a year.
The Bottom Line on the Richest Cities in Washington
There are many more cities on this list that are located in the Seattle metro area. In fact, No. 11 Riverpoint is the first one on the list to be somewhat distant from Seattle. Out of the top 50 wealthiest cities in Washington, the biggest by population is Sammamish, with 22,258 households. There, the median household income is $215,047, and the mean household income is $261,753; these are exceptionally high for such a large city.