— NIL Rules · West
College and high-school name, image & likeness rules for Washington (WA) — at a glance, in plain English. Not legal advice; confirm with a compliance office before acting.
At a glance
College NIL: Legal (state law). High-school NIL: Allowed, per RCW 42.52 NIL-facilitation carve-out (SB 5913, 2024) + NCAA/House settlement · WIAA Bylaw 18.24 (HS). NIL collectives: operating. Deal-disclosure threshold: $600. Governing statute: Washington SB 5913 (2024) (RCW 42.52.807), active, effective June 2024. High-school governance: Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). Last reviewed August 2026 — this is a plain-English overview pending verification, not legal advice.
What to know
Washington has no comprehensive state NIL-rights statute — a broader 2022 bill (SB 5942) died in committee — so college NIL legality flows mainly from NCAA policy and the 2025 House v. NCAA settlement; the only enacted NIL-specific law, SB 5913 (2024), just carves an ethics-law exception letting public-university staff advise and facilitate deals. High-school NIL is allowed under the WIAA's Amateur Standing Rule (Bylaw 18.24), which bars using a school's name, uniform, logo, or mascot and bars endorsements for gambling, alcohol/cannabis, banned substances, adult content, or firearms. Collectives are legally permitted; the University of Washington's third-party collective wound down after the House settlement, with NIL facilitation moving in-house — the $600 disclosure figure is the national NIL Go clearinghouse threshold rather than anything Washington-specific, and whether this state is better classified as having no distinct state law (given how narrow SB 5913 is) is a close call worth a human legal review.
Washington never enacted a comprehensive athlete-NIL rights statute; college NIL there has been governed primarily by NCAA policy and, since June 2025, the House v. NCAA settlement framework. What Washington did pass is narrower: SB 5913 (2024), codified at RCW 42.52.807, an exemption in the state Ethics Act that lets public-university employees use public resources to help student athletes with NIL matters. High school NIL is governed by the WIAA handbook's amateur-standing rules (rule 18.24), which permit NIL activity that has no school connection.
The 2024 law solves an ethics-law problem, not an athlete-rights one: without it, state employees advising athletes on NIL risked misusing public resources.
WIAA rule 18.24, as summarized in district guidance for families, allows students to be paid for their name, image or likeness with a strict school-separation test:
As of August 2026, a college athlete in Washington operates mostly under national rules: House-settlement revenue sharing and NCAA policy set the ceiling, while state law's contribution is that school staff can lawfully spend public resources helping athletes navigate NIL. A Washington high schooler can do brand deals as a private person, but any link to their school - marks, uniform, facilities, or even naming the team - risks immediate ineligibility under rule 18.24.
Because Washington's statute is a facilitation carve-out rather than a rights charter, most post-House change lands via NCAA and settlement rules rather than Olympia; the RCW text itself has been stable since June 2024. The WIAA handbook is amended annually through its representative assembly, so the 18.24 language should be re-checked against the current handbook edition each school year.
Go deeper
Compare Washington with every other state in the NIL Rules by State tracker, estimate your take-home on NIL income with the free NIL Tax Calculator, and see what your name, image, and likeness is actually worth with HDBND's free athlete tools.