Bill > HB2895

This bill provides a tax preference for rural and nonrural data centers in Washington state. The key provisions are: 1. It creates a sales and use tax exemption for qualifying businesses and tenants on eligible server equipment, power infrastructure, and related labor and services installed in eligible computer data centers located in nonrural counties. 2. To qualify, businesses must have sufficient capacity and experience serving large data center tenants, and tenants must contract for a minimum of 150 kilowatts of electrical capacity. 3. The exemption is limited to up to 8 eligible data centers statewide, and qualifying businesses and tenants must meet minimum employment requirements to maintain the exemption. 4. The bill also extends and expands the existing sales and use tax exemption for data centers located in rural counties. The goal of the bill is to improve the competitiveness of Washington's technology and data center industry, particularly in urban areas, and increase family wage jobs in the sector across the state.