Business Licensing Service and local licensing

Combined licensing streamlines licensing for your city businesses

Did you know more than 90 percent of businesses apply for and renew their licenses online?

The state Business Licensing Service (BLS) offers a "one-stop" local licensing solution to relieve the workload of license renewals. The free service works for more than 100 cities with more joining BLS each month.

Partnership with BLS supports your city staff and business community by removing roadblocks. This saves your local businesses time when they apply for and renew city and state licenses. Your staff, meanwhile, get fast turnaround, detailed reporting and increased compliance – with no added cost.

Our revenues increased 15 percent in the first year. With BLS, we are able to identify our businesses and their employees more easily.

~ Carrie Lewellen, Treasurer, City of Vancouver

Benefits for:

City staff

No mailings or collections

Licenses renewed annually by BLS

Payments managed by BLS

GIS integration requires licensing in city limits

Tax account discovery increases compliance and revenue

Local regulatory control

Businesses

Intuitive licensing "wizard" for applicants

Dedicated licensing customer service phone line

No trip to city hall

On-demand license printing

Cities retain local control and sign up for free

As a BLS partner, you will continue to:

Approve or deny local licenses
Close city business endorsements that are out of compliance

BLS provides its service at no charge to all local governments. Find out more with our brochure, and see the onboarding task timeline, or call our team of experts at 360-705-6777.

Decisions due by 2022

In 2017, Lawmakers unanimously approved to have cities add a combined licensing service by the end of 2022 (Chapter 35.90 RCW). Our team is working with Washington cities for a smooth transition for partnering cities. We provided a city onboarding progress report to stakeholders in January 2020.

Access ATLAS for local control

ATLAS is Revenue’s combined tax and licensing administration system. Cities access ATLAS through a portal to manage accounts and generate reports in real time. See ATLAS up close in this video on the Association of Washington Cities’ YouTube channel.