How Much Does a Immigration Cost in Washington?

Washington carries 3 rows — simple, $1,300–$3,900 at $180–$360/hr over 3-6 months; moderate, $3,700–$9,900 at $240–$450/hr over 6-12 months; complex, $10,250–$19,200 at $300–$540/hr over 12-24+ months — on 4 shared citations. Those figures put it in the top quarter of the table.

$6,200 is a median, not the middle of the band — $2,500 above the $3,700 floor, $3,700 under the $9,900 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 49.

Washington ranks 5th of 49 tracked states for a immigration, inside the highest-cost quarter of the table. The gap to the $4,750 midpoint is $1,450 — 31% — and only 4 states record a higher median.

Vermont ($6,200) and New Hampshire ($6,150) bracket Washington inside a $50 window — narrow enough that 5th is close to arbitrary.

5 tracked states — New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire among them — record a median within three percent of Washington's $6,200. The figure sits in the densest part of the immigration distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.

Washington ranks 2nd of 49 on hourly rate at $330 an hour and 5th on total cost — 3 places apart, enough that the rate is a slightly optimistic guide to the total.

The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 9 below Washington against 2 above. $0 up or $50 down moves Washington a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 5th position is propped up by a thin immigration field above it and a crowded one beneath.

Climbing five places would mean passing Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and adding $950 to the $6,200 recorded here.

Five places down means passing under New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, California: $350.

$950 short of Hawaii ($7,150), $2,850 clear of Kentucky ($3,350).

At $330 an hour, the $6,200 median represents about 19 hours of attorney time — a matter measured in days of work, not weeks. The peer median is 18 hours, so 1 more hours of work sit behind the Washington figure than behind the typical state's.

The escalation is comparatively shallow on hours. A complex immigration costs 5.4x a simple one in Washington, but the implied workload only rises 3.4x — 10 hours at $270 becomes 34 hours at $420 — meaning the senior-rate premium of 1.56x carries an unusually large share of the increase.

In dollars the Washington moderate band is wide: $3,700 to $9,900, a $6,200 range, $1,450 wider than the peer-median band of $4,750. End to end that is 19 hours at $330.

Across the 6-12 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $6,200 median is roughly $689 a month of elapsed time.

By implied hours Washington falls to 16th of 49 at 19 hours, 11 places below its 5th on cost — the immigration total arriving on less recorded work.

17% up the $3,700–$9,900 band sits the $4,750 table midpoint, buying 14 hours at $330 against the 19 the local immigration median implies — 5 hours apart.

$330 an hour puts Washington between Hawaii ($370) and New Jersey ($325) — not the immigration cost pairing.

No other tracked state records $330 as its median rate, so the figure identifies Washington on its own within this dataset.

$6,200 buys 23 hours at $270, 19 at $330, 15 at $420.

The ranking barely moves across tiers — 1st at the simple tier, 5th at moderate, 2nd at complex of 49 — so Washington keeps roughly the same relative position whether the immigration is straightforward or contested.

At the simple tier Washington records $2,600 and ranks 1st of 49, against a tier midpoint of $1,900.

$14,100 is 2nd of 49 once contested, between Hawaii ($16,050) and Maryland ($13,850), $3,350 off the $10,750 tier midpoint.

The lower two bands run into each other — the simple tier tops out at $3,900 against a moderate floor of $3,700 — but there is a clear gap of $350 between the moderate ceiling of $9,900 and the complex floor of $10,250. In Washington the jump into contested work is a step, not a slope.

$2,600 puts Washington 1st of 49 on straightforward matters, 4 up on its moderate position, and $700 (37%) over the $1,900 tier midpoint.

10 implied hours at $270: 53% of the moderate tier's 19, over 3-6 months.

2 states sit within three percent of the $2,600 here, against 5 at the moderate row.

$14,100 puts Washington 2nd of 49 on contested matters, 3 up on its moderate position, and $3,350 (31%) over the $10,750 tier midpoint.

34 implied hours at $420: 179% of the moderate tier's 19, over 12-24+ months.

Hawaii ($16,050) and Maryland ($13,850) bracket it — a $2,200 window.

1 states sit within three percent of the $14,100 here, against 5 at the moderate row.

In Washington a immigration is 4th of 8 at $6,200, between DUI / DWI and Personal Injury. At 54% of Divorce ($11,450).

Across practice areas Washington ranges from 1st of 49 for DUI / DWI to 13th for Estate Planning / Probate — a 12-place spread, with its 5th on immigration inside it.

The spread across practice areas is wide. Divorce runs 34% above its own midpoint, while Estate Planning / Probate runs 6% above its own midpoint — 28 percentage points apart. A single "Washington is expensive" or "Washington is inexpensive" claim would be wrong for at least one of the matter types tracked here.

The largest tracked median in Washington is 5.2x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.

Every one of the 7 matter types tracked for Washington places it in the upper third of its table, which is why the 5th on immigration is not an outlier.

That places the immigration figure in the 92th percentile of the 49 states tracked here.

Simple tier. $2,600 ÷ $270 = about 10 hours, spread over 3-6 months at roughly $578 a month. The $3,600 step to the moderate tier is 9 more hours at that rate.

Work against price. $6,200 to $14,100 is a $7,900 step, mostly work: 15 more hours at $330 is $4,950, while moving to $420 across 34 hours adds $3,060. Work carries 62%.

Borrowing the wrong row. New Hampshire ($6,150) is $50 light, Vermont ($6,200) is $0 heavy — but the $4,750 table midpoint is out by $1,450, 29x the neighbour error.

Both ends, in time. $3,700 is 11 hours at $330; $9,900 is 30. Over the 6-12 months recorded for a moderate immigration, that is 1 to 3 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.

Contested against simple. At Washington's own recorded figures, $14,100 buys 5.4 matters at the $2,600 simple median — or, counted in time, 34 implied hours against 10, a factor of 3.4 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.