What we do

Every working day, week, and year, we’re serving Washington residents. We provide information to law enforcement, license and regulate drivers, register vehicles and vessels, and manage over 44 professional and business licensing programs. In addition, we ensure the fair and efficient collection of state revenue. For a quick look at what we do each year, see:

• Statistics-at-a-Glance: Fiscal Year 2012
• Statistics-at-a-Glance: Calendar Year 2012

Every working day, we:

• Issue about 1,000 original driver licenses, and renew about 3,300 licenses.
• Renew the registration of more than 26,000 vehicles.
• Process more than 2,300 original vehicle titles.
• Respond to nearly 1,600 phone calls and about 200 emails from customers about vehicle and driver licensing.
• Issue or replace over 6,200 license plates.
• Process nearly 5,000 address changes for driver licenses and vehicles, including over 2,000 online.

Every week, we:

• Sell nearly 53,000 driving records, and send about 360,000 notifications to customers about changes to monitored driving records.
• Issue more than 1,100 enhanced driver licenses.
• Process over 36,000 driver license, ID card, and tab renewals over the Internet.
• Record nearly 8,000 driver license suspensions, revocations, cancellations, and disqualifications.
• Process nearly 22,000 traffic violations and accident reports.
• Receive over 28,000 professional license status searches over the Internet.
• Receive over 1,600 Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings, and support nearly 4,500 UCC searches.
• Process over 11,300 vehicle reports of sale, including 8,000 reports over the Internet.

Every year, we:

• Collect over $2.8 billion in gross revenue.
• Issue about 6.5 million vehicle tab renewal notices, including nearly 400,000 by email.
• Process over 10,000 International Registration Plan applications, and collect over $37 million in fees.
• Process over 27,000 fuel tax returns, and collect about $1.25 billion in fuel tax revenue.
• Issue or update nearly 49,000 vessel titles.
• Manage about 253,000 professional licenses for individuals and businesses.
• Issue nearly 9,200 ignition interlock licenses and occupational restricted licenses (hardship licenses).
• Register more than 235,000 vessels.
• Issue, replace, or renew more than 28,000 special-design license plates and about 15,000 personalized plates.
• Process nearly 16,000 driver hearings and interviews.
• Issue nearly 600 original vehicle dealer licenses, and renew over 3,400 dealer licenses.
• Process almost 73,000 destroyed vehicle reports, including over 60,000 over the Internet.
• Issue or renew nearly 183,000 disabled parking placards.
• Support nearly 1.7 million firearms database inquiries from law enforcement.
• Issue over 20,000 professional licenses to individuals and businesses, and renew over 100,000.
• Process over 14,000 fuel tax refunds, totalling over $56 million.