Sushi Chef Salary in Seattle and Washington's Posting Rules

Seattle sushi cooks were advertised at $20 to $31 an hour across Seattle, Bellevue and the south suburbs in September 2026, and BLS puts the metro chef median at $80,330, the highest of any large US metro. The city's own minimum wage is $21.30 with no tip credit, and Washington's Equal Pay and Opportunities Act makes you publish a real wage range and a benefits description in every posting. A salaried head chef must clear $80,168 a year and pass a duties test to be exempt from overtime.

1. What to pay: BLS data and what Seattle restaurants advertise

BLS has no sushi chef category, but its kitchen figures for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro set the floor for a serious hire, May 2025:

Read across metros and Seattle's shape is unusual: the highest chef median of any large US metro we track, and the highest 10th percentile too, but a 90th percentile below New York's or San Jose's. The distribution is compressed. You cannot hire cheaply here, but you do not need a New York-style premium at the top either. Washington state as a whole has a chef median of $76,010, fourth among the states behind Rhode Island, Hawaii and DC.

Because Seattle postings must carry a real range under the EPOA (section 2), competitor pay is visible. We read sushi and Japanese kitchen postings on Indeed on 27 September 2026 (eight postings, a sample, not a survey):

Three things follow. First, $20 to $31 an hour is the working band for a line-level sushi cook across the metro, and Bellevue and Tukwila pay the same or more than the city proper, not less. Second, umo sushi's $6,000 a month ($72,000 a year) is the only salaried figure we found and sits close to the BLS chef median. Third, no Seattle posting we read named an omakase or kaiseki head chef role with a salary; for that profile, price from the BLS 75th to 90th percentile band and expect to negotiate.

How to set your number:

• Sushi cook or counter assistant: $20 to $28 an hour, matching what U-Village, Bellevue and Tukwila competitors already pay.
• Experienced sushi chef, own station: $28 to $31 an hour, the top of the observed range, or a salary near the BLS median.
• Head chef running the kitchen: the BLS median to 90th percentile, $80,330 to $99,570 a year, on salary only if it clears the exemption line in section 3.
• Relocation: a one-off addition, not part of the wage. See relocation packages for chefs.

2. The job ad: Washington's Equal Pay and Opportunities Act

An employer with 15 or more employees must include in every job posting the wage scale or salary range (or a fixed rate, if there is only one), a general description of benefits, and a general description of other compensation such as bonuses. A written notice that a posting is non-compliant gives you 5 business days to fix it before enforcement follows. From 27 July 2025, a posting may not require a driver's licence unless driving is an essential function or tied to a legitimate business need, which a sushi chef posting rarely has.

"Great benefits" is not a description under the rule. Say what you offer. Copy and adapt both versions below; post them together:

More wording is in the sushi chef job description template.

3. The overtime exemption line, and the duties test

In 2026, an executive, administrative or professional employee in Washington must earn at least 2.25 times the state minimum wage, $1,541.70 a week ($80,168 a year), to be exempt from overtime, and Washington's rules now align closely with the federal duties test. Both parts must be true, not just the salary:

• Primary duty is managing the kitchen or a recognised part of it (not just cooking on the line most of the shift).
• The chef customarily directs the work of at least two full-time-equivalent employees.
• The chef has real authority to hire, fire, or make recommendations on hiring, firing or promotion that are given particular weight.

$80,168 sits almost exactly on the Seattle metro chef median ($80,330). A chef paid at the median who spends most of the shift cooking, without the supervisory authority above, is misclassified even at $81,000, and you owe back overtime the day someone checks. If the role does not genuinely clear both tests, pay hourly instead. At $30 an hour with a 50-hour kitchen week, that is $1,500 in regular pay plus 10 hours of overtime at $45, or $450, for $1,950 a week ($101,400 a year) rather than a flat salary; budget for that gap before deciding.

4. Food worker card and scheduling rules

Washington requires food workers to hold a state food worker card, obtainable online for $10 and valid two years on the first issue; new hires can work up to 14 days before getting one if the employer provides food safety training in the meantime. Seattle's Secure Scheduling Ordinance, requiring 14 days' posted notice of shifts, applies only to food service employers with 500 or more workers worldwide (and, for full-service restaurants, 40 or more locations worldwide) — a threshold that excludes almost every independent Japanese restaurant and most small groups. If you are not near that size, you can ignore it; if you are opening as part of a larger chain, check it before you publish a rota.

5. Where the candidates are

MOFA counted 13,788 Japanese nationals in the Seattle metro on 1 October 2025, up 3.0% on the year, the fastest growth of any US West Coast metro in MOFA's top 50 cities. Portland, a few hours south, adds another 5,232. The pool is real but a fraction of Los Angeles's 63,972, and it sits alongside a large Eastside Japanese corporate community around Bellevue and Redmond that supports several of the restaurants in the pay table above.

• The observed postings above cluster in three areas: U-Village and Ravenna in north Seattle, South Lake Union near downtown, and Bellevue and Tukwila on the Eastside and south suburbs. A candidate leaving one of these can walk into a competing offer within the same commute, so match or beat the going rate rather than anchoring on the BLS median alone.
• Post in Japanese as well as English; the Eastside's corporate Japanese community reads both.
• Recruit from Portland and the Bay Area. A cook there may be drawn by Seattle's higher pay ceiling and its published ranges.
• Check work authorization at offer stage (Form I-9); someone on another employer's visa cannot simply move to you.
• Build a training pipeline for local cooks under a senior Japanese chef. See training local staff in Japanese cuisine.

6. What one hire costs in the first year

We could not confirm Washington's 2026 unemployment insurance new-employer percentage or the current Paid Family and Medical Leave premium split at time of writing; both are real costs, so get your specific rate from ESD and paidleave.wa.gov before finalising a budget, rather than treating the confirmed total above as the whole cost.

7. Week by week, from ad to first shift

This week: read the postings from your own neighbourhood, fix your range, and confirm whether your head chef role genuinely passes the duties test before you call it exempt.

8. Bringing a chef from Japan

Seattle's pay floor, EPOA posting rules and exemption line all apply the same way to a sponsored hire. For which US visa fits a chef coming from Japan, see US visa options for restaurants; for the ownership and essential-skills test behind an E-2, see the E-2 essential employee test. Because a green card's prevailing wage is set from local BLS data, expect Seattle's high pay figures to raise the floor on an EB-3 filing.

General information checked against official sources on 27 September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. Advertised pay figures are a small sample of public postings, not a survey. Washington and Seattle rates change every January or July; confirm current figures with the City of Seattle Office of Labor Standards and L&I before acting.