Updated: Sep 2026
Seattle property owners are now paying for a major investment in the city’s transportation infrastructure.
In November 2024, Seattle voters approved an eight-year, $1.55 billion Transportation Levy to fund street maintenance, bridge repairs, sidewalks, pedestrian and bicycle safety, transit connections, traffic signals, and other transportation projects throughout the city. The levy replaced the previous Levy to Move Seattle, which expired at the end of 2024.
That means this is no longer a proposed tax increase waiting for a vote. The levy is in effect, and Seattle is already collecting the property tax revenue and spending it on transportation projects.
For homeowners and small-business owners who own commercial property, the levy represents an additional property-tax expense. For businesses that lease their space, the impact can be less direct but may still matter depending on the terms of the lease.
Here’s what Seattle property owners and small businesses should know.
How Much Does the Seattle Transportation Levy Cost?
The levy is funded through property taxes paid by Seattle property owners.
The rate associated with the levy is approximately $0.65 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
When the measure was placed before voters, the city estimated that the levy would cost the owner of a median-value Seattle home approximately $520 to $530 per year, depending on the estimate used during the election process. The city’s final levy materials estimated approximately $44 per month for a home assessed at $804,000.
The exact amount any individual property owner pays depends on the property’s assessed value.
For example, using the approximate $0.65-per-$1,000 rate:
- $500,000 assessed value: approximately $325 per year
- $804,000 assessed value: approximately $523 per year
- $1 million assessed value: approximately $650 per year
- $2 million assessed value: approximately $1,300 per year
These are estimates based on the levy rate and assessed value. Your actual property-tax bill can include numerous other state, county, city, school, and voter-approved levies.
And that’s an important distinction: the Transportation Levy is only one component of a Seattle property owner’s overall tax bill.
Where Is the $1.55 Billion Going?
The Transportation Levy is spread across 11 program areas.
The largest allocations include:
Street Maintenance and Modernization — $403 Million
This is the largest portion of the levy and is intended to maintain and modernize Seattle’s streets and transportation infrastructure.
For businesses, this can have a very tangible impact.
Road conditions affect deliveries, employee commutes, customer access, freight movement, and travel times throughout the city.
Bridges and Infrastructure — $221 Million
Seattle has an aging transportation infrastructure system, and the levy includes significant funding for bridge maintenance, repair, and safety improvements.
Pedestrian Safety — $193 Million
Funding will support projects intended to make walking safer and improve pedestrian connections throughout Seattle.
Vision Zero, School and Neighborhood Safety — $160.5 Million
The levy includes funding for safety improvements around schools, neighborhoods, and other areas where the city is working to reduce serious traffic injuries and fatalities.
Transit Corridor and Connection Improvements — $151 Million
The levy also provides funding for transportation connections and improvements intended to make it easier to connect with transit and move around the city.
Bicycle Safety — $133.5 Million
Funding includes expanding and maintaining protected bike lanes, improving connections to schools and neighborhood greenways, and upgrading existing bicycle infrastructure.
Traffic Signals — $100 Million
Traffic signal installation, maintenance, and modernization are also part of the levy.
Climate and Resiliency — $69 Million
This portion funds transportation-related climate and environmental initiatives.
People Streets and Public Spaces — $66.5 Million
The levy includes funding for public-space activation, lighting, and improvements in partnership with business districts and community organizations.
Freight and Goods Movement — $45 Million
This category is particularly relevant to businesses that rely on deliveries and commercial transportation.
Funding is intended to improve the city’s freight and goods-movement system.
Good Governance and Equitable Implementation — $7.5 Million
The levy also includes funding for oversight, accountability, auditing, and implementation.
The city established a Levy Oversight Committee and publishes annual reports and other information about how levy funds are being used.
The Levy Is Already Funding Projects
One of the biggest differences between the original version of this article and the situation today is that we’re no longer talking about what might happen.
The levy is already being implemented.
According to the city’s 2025 annual report, $77 million in Transportation Levy funding was invested during 2025. The Seattle Department of Transportation reported that most levy programs met or exceeded their planned milestones for the year and that the city was on track to fulfill the commitments made to voters.
The city’s 2026 delivery plan calls for continued work on levy commitments, with planning and preparation ramping up for additional construction in 2027 and beyond.
In other words, property owners aren’t simply paying into a future fund.
The money is already being spent.
What Does This Mean for Small Businesses?
For small businesses, the answer depends heavily on whether the business owns or leases its property.
If Your Business Owns Its Building
If your business owns the commercial property where it operates, the Transportation Levy becomes part of the property’s broader property-tax burden.
That’s a real operating expense.
For a small business with a relatively valuable commercial property, even a modest property-tax increase can translate into hundreds or thousands of dollars per year.
Businesses should account for those expenses when preparing annual budgets and evaluating the overall cost of occupying a property.
If Your Business Rents
The situation can be more complicated for tenants.
Commercial leases often contain provisions allowing landlords to pass certain property taxes and other operating expenses through to tenants.
Whether that happens depends on the lease.
If you’re renting a storefront, office, warehouse, restaurant, or other commercial property in Seattle, don’t automatically assume the landlord absorbs every increase in property taxes.
Check the lease.
A triple-net lease, for example, can make the tenant responsible for a significant portion of property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs.
A different lease structure may handle those expenses differently.
If your business recently received a larger operating-expense or property-tax bill from your landlord, review the lease before assuming the charge is incorrect—or unavoidable.
Could the Levy Affect Business Costs?
Potentially, although the effect isn’t necessarily negative across the board.
The levy increases the cost of owning property in Seattle, but the money is also being used to maintain infrastructure that businesses depend on.
A retailer needs customers to be able to reach the store.
A restaurant needs deliveries to arrive.
A contractor needs functioning roads and bridges to reach job sites.
A manufacturer or distributor needs freight routes.
Employees need reliable ways to get to work.
And businesses located in pedestrian-heavy neighborhoods depend on people being able to safely walk through those areas.
Transportation infrastructure therefore has both a cost side and a potential economic benefit for businesses.
The relevant question for an individual business is how those two sides balance out.
What About Property Values?
It’s tempting to assume that an additional property tax automatically makes a property less valuable.
Real estate is more complicated than that.
Property values are influenced by numerous factors, including location, interest rates, demand, rents, building condition, local economic conditions, and the overall desirability of the area.
Transportation improvements can also influence how attractive a neighborhood is to residents, workers, customers, and businesses.
So while the levy increases the carrying cost of Seattle property, it’s difficult to isolate its effect on the value of a particular property.
Business owners shouldn’t make real estate decisions based solely on the Transportation Levy.
Instead, consider it as one component of the property’s overall operating economics.
What Should Seattle Business Owners Do?
If you own or operate a business in Seattle, there are a few practical things worth doing.
Know Whether You’re Paying the Tax Directly
If your business owns real estate, look at your property-tax bill and understand what you’re paying.
If you rent, review your lease to determine whether property taxes or other landlord expenses can be passed through to you.
Don’t assume.
Update Your Budget
Property taxes are an operating expense for many businesses.
If you’re preparing a 2026 or 2027 budget, make sure your projections reflect your actual occupancy costs rather than relying on what you paid several years ago.
For businesses operating on thin margins, relatively small annual increases can matter.
Pay Attention to Your Lease
If you’re leasing commercial property, look at the sections covering:
- Property taxes
- Operating expenses
- Common-area maintenance
- Expense reimbursements
- Tax escalations
- Annual reconciliations
This is especially important when signing a new long-term lease.
A property’s advertised rent isn’t necessarily the same thing as its total occupancy cost.
Consider the Bigger Picture
If your business depends heavily on customers physically visiting your location, transportation improvements can matter in ways that don’t show up as a line item on your tax return.
Better sidewalks, safer intersections, improved transit connections, road maintenance, and public-space improvements can potentially affect how easily customers and employees access a neighborhood.
That doesn’t mean every transportation project will benefit every business.
It does mean that business owners should consider infrastructure as part of the larger economic environment in which their business operates.
Seattle’s Transportation Funding Isn’t Finished
The 2024 Transportation Levy isn’t the only transportation-funding issue Seattle is dealing with.
The city has acknowledged that even with the $1.55 billion levy, its transportation needs exceed the funding currently available.
In 2026, Seattle created a Transportation Funding Task Force to explore more stable long-term ways to pay for transportation maintenance and improvements after the levy eventually expires.
At the same time, Seattle is considering a separate renewal of its Seattle Transit Measure, which currently funds transit service and transportation-related programs. The City Council approved placing a renewed 10-year measure on the November 2026 ballot.
That means transportation funding is likely to remain part of Seattle’s financial landscape for years to come.
For business owners, this is another reason to pay attention to changes in local taxes and operating costs rather than treating each new levy as an isolated event.
The Bottom Line
Seattle’s $1.55 billion Transportation Levy is no longer a proposal.
Seattle voters approved it in November 2024, and the eight-year levy is now being implemented.
For property owners, the levy represents an additional property-tax expense of approximately $0.65 per $1,000 of assessed value.
For businesses that own their buildings, that cost should be incorporated into operating budgets.
For businesses that rent, the impact depends largely on the terms of the lease and whether the landlord can pass property-tax increases through to the tenant.
At the same time, the levy is funding infrastructure that businesses rely on every day: roads, bridges, sidewalks, transit connections, traffic signals, pedestrian infrastructure, bicycle routes, and freight improvements.
The practical takeaway for Seattle business owners isn’t simply that property taxes went up.
It’s that the cost of operating a business in Seattle needs to be evaluated as a whole.
Know what you’re paying, understand your lease, build property-tax expenses into your budget, and keep an eye on future changes to Seattle’s transportation and tax structure.
For a small business, knowing where your money is going is just as important as knowing how much money you’re making.