For the first time ever, Seattle has officially surpassed the 800,000 population mark. The state Office of Financial Management (OFM) pegged Seattle at 816,600 residents in April 1, 2025 population estimates released Friday. This year marks the fifth straight that Seattle’s growth rate has exceeded 2%, making Seattle one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
As of April 2024, OFM estimated Seattle’s population was 797,700. The new estimates would indicate that Seattle added 18,900 residents in one year, growing 2.4% over the previous year. Over half of King County’s overall annual population increase — 33,600 new residents — were in the City of Seattle.
Suburban growth leaders
Other Puget Sound cities added population as well, though generally at a slower rate than Seattle, with a few exceptions. Bellevue went from 155,000 to 158,000 residents, a 1.9% growth rate. Tacoma grew from 225,100 residents to 228,400, a 1.5% growth rate. Lynnwood’s population expanded from 74,390 to 75,640, a 1.7% gain.
Some recent light rail recipients grew at a particularly robust rate. Redmond swelled from 80,040 residents to 82,380, a 2.9% gain. Shoreline jumped from 61,910 residents to 63,740, a gain of nearly 3%. Sound Transit’s 2 Line reached the edge of Redmond in spring 2024 and extended into Downtown Redmond in May, and the Lynnwood Link extension brought 1 Line service to Shoreline in fall 2024.
Another set of cities in the region lost residents in the OFM estimate or were nearly flat. Everett shrink from 114,800 residents to 114,700. Kent shrunk from 140,400 to 140,100, losing 300 residents.
The Urbanist has highlighted the trend of Seattle taking the lion’s share of the region’s growth over the last decade, including when the city first crossed the 700,000 mark in 2017. Given the American penchant for suburban sprawl, Seattle is a bit of an outlier for continuing to lead its metropolitan area in growth.
Seattle took the majority of King County’s population growth, and grew more than Pierce and Snohomish County combined. King County surpassed 2.4 million residents, a new record.
Seattle growth plans up in air
Seattle’s growth has not been evenly distributed. In fact, some of the city’s single-family zones have seen negative population growth over the last three decades. Single family zones have long consumed about two-thirds of Seattle’s residential land, while housing growth has been heavily focused in limited areas designated as urban centers, where apartments are legal to build. Legalizing apartments is a particularly good idea when you are running a growing city.
However, the pending major update to Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan could start to distribute that growth a bit more broadly. Despite his own planning department nudging him to go further in an earlier draft, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s growth plan has largely hewed to the same “Urban Village Strategy” that hyper-focused multifamily growth in limited areas. Nonetheless, the mayor’s proposal would add 29 new neighborhood growth centers (a petite version of an urban center) and more some modest multifamily housing allowances within a block of frequent transit corridors.
Overall, the City says the Mayor’s One Seattle Plan would double Seattle’s housing capacity, pushing the upper ceiling to 330,000 new units. Some of the capacity was state-mandated, as state lawmakers passed a middle housing requirement in 2023 that is going into effect at the end of June for Puget Sound cities like Seattle, and capacity elsewhere is tied up in large lots along corridors like Aurora Avenue N that are far from certain to be redeveloped.
Housing advocates have pushed the City to go bigger. The Complete Communities Coalition, a broad alliance that includes The Urbanist, has urged the city to add eight more neighborhood growth centers and expand bonuses for stacked flats and affordable housing. The Urbanist has put together a letter-writing tool that makes reaching your city councilmembers easy, with just a few clicks. Sign the letter if you’d like to see Seattle create even more housing opportunities.
Officially, Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan update was due at the end of 2024. However, a series of Harrell Administration delays and outside legal challenges has put the plan very behind schedule. The City has said the bulk of the plan’s new housing capacity will not be approved until 2026, as part of a second phase of the plan, though the votes taken this September will determine the boundaries where that denser housing will be allowed.
The delays mean new housing opportunities continue to be punted down the road. While Seattle produced a record number of homes in 2024, the permit pipeline is rapidly drying up, with anemic rate of new housing applications coming in the door over the past couple of years.
The silver lining of delays is that housing will very much be on the ballot in the fall, with Seattle voters having the opportunities to install stridently pro-housing councilmembers who could support a more robust plan. The Urbanist Elections Committee will issue endorsements next month that will point toward which candidates would lead the city in that direction.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrian streets, bus lanes, and a mass-timber building spree to end our housing crisis. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and loves to explore the city by foot and by bike.