Snohomish County, WA Parking Rules: EV Charging (2026)

Chapter 30.26 SCC governs off-street parking lot design countywide, and subsection (13) of the parking lot development standards, SCC 30.26.065(13), addresses electric vehicle charging directly. Infrastructure for charging electric vehicles cannot intrude into or diminish the dimensions of the aisle or parking stall it is meant to serve, so a charger, its bollard, or its cabinet has to sit inside the striped stall boundary or in dedicated landscape area rather than narrowing the drive aisle or stall width set by SCC Table 30.26.065(19). Where a property owner runs charging infrastructure through an adjacent pedestrian path, such as a sidewalk or the accessible route to a building entrance, the equipment must be positioned so it does not interfere with the accessibility requirements of WAC 51-50-005, the state building code's accessibility chapter.

The county's definitions chapter, SCC 30.91E, backs this up with a full taxonomy: an 'electric vehicle' is any vehicle that runs partially or exclusively on electric energy stored on board (SCC 30.91E.081); an 'electric vehicle battery charging station' is the component assembly that charges those batteries and must meet the electrical standards of chapter 19.28 RCW (SCC 30.91E.082); and charging speed is classified as Level 1 (slow), Level 2 (medium), or Level 3, also called DC Fast (SCC 30.91E.084). A charging station is 'public' if it is publicly owned and available, like a Park & Ride, or privately owned but open to the public, like shopping center parking (SCC 30.91E.085), while a 'restricted' station serves a single-family home, employee lot, or fleet with no public access (SCC 30.91E.086).

No separate county permit is required purely to add a charger, but new parking lot construction or reconfiguration still runs through the site plan and building permit process administered by the Snohomish County Department of Planning and Development Services (PDS), which checks compliance with this chapter before issuing a certificate of occupancy.