METROSCOPE
Explore
All places > Snohomish County > Woodway
An editorial illustration of Woodway, Washington
Snohomish County · Washington

Woodway, WA

Woodway has chosen to remain a residential town without a local job district.

Population
1,340
1% more from 2021 to 2026
Family households
—
±10 points at 90% confidence · too uncertain for ranking or interpretation
Local jobs
326
2% fewer from 2018 to 2023
Median income
$204,583
±$38,498 at 90% confidence
City overview

The forces shaping Woodway now.

01
The employers behind the economy

Woodway has chosen to remain a residential town without a local job district.

Woodway contains 326 workplace jobs. Retail accounts for 49% of them. Hospitality is next at 17%.

The town’s planned land uses are residential, recreation, open space, and public services; it has no commercial or industrial zoned land. Work inside Woodway is therefore limited mainly to home occupations and town services, while household livelihoods depend on employment elsewhere in the region.

Workplace jobs: 2023
02
The commute that shapes the city

Woodway sends its largest stream of resident workers to Seattle.

41% of observed resident job destinations are in Seattle, followed by Bellevue at 8%.

Current GTFS schedules 0 weekday stop departures at 0 stops inside Woodway; that supply still needs to be tested against the route to Seattle, the largest outside job destination. Schedule supply is not ridership.

Workplace flows: 2023 · commute modes: ACS 2024
03
The trajectory

More residents and fewer local jobs are pulling Woodway in opposite directions.

Woodway’s population rose 1% from 2021–2026; its workplace job count fell 2% from 2018–2023. The source periods differ because the two series are released on different schedules.

In a place this small, a few households or worksites can move a percentage sharply. The direction is worth watching, but the next release matters more than a single dramatic rate.

Population: 2021–2026 · jobs: 2018–2023
People

Who lives here—and which households shape demand?

1,340 residents are counted in the latest official state estimate, 1% more than in 2021. Survey measures appear here only when their uncertainty is small enough to describe the city confidently.

Average household size
2.7

±0.2 people at 90% confidence

Median age
47.8

±4.8 years at 90% confidence

Below poverty line
2%

Income alone does not describe wealth or local costs. ±1 points at 90% confidence

Residents, 2026
1,340

Official annual city estimate from Washington OFM.

Population composition

Who lives here

Estimated share of all Woodway residents. Each percentage uses the city’s total population as its denominator.

White, non-Hispanic79% ±10 pts
Two or more races, non-Hispanic9.0% ±5 pts
Chinese, except Taiwanese2.2% ±2 pts
Black, non-Hispanic1.9% ±2 pts
Hispanic / Latino, any race1.9% ±2 pts
Filipino1.4% ±2 pts
Two or more Asian groups1.2% ±1 pts
Japanese1.0% ±1.0 pts
Vietnamese0.8% ±1 pts
Asian Indian0.6% ±0.9 pts
Taiwanese0.6% ±0.6 pts
Korean0.4% ±0.6 pts
Laotian0.3% ±0.5 pts
American Indian / Alaska Native, non-Hispanic0.0% ±1 pts
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic0.0% ±1 pts
Another race, non-Hispanic0.0% ±1 pts

0% published estimate: Hmong, Mongolian, Okinawan, Other East Asian, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Mien, Singaporean, Thai, Other Southeast Asian, Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Pakistani, Sikh, Sri Lankan, Other South Asian, Afghan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Other Central Asian, Other Asian, specified, Other Asian, not specified. Zero is not proof that no residents identify with that group.

Some ranges are wide, which is common for smaller populations. Treat small differences as uncertain rather than as a precise ordering.

ACS 2020–2024 · 5-year estimates
Dataset
U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates · tables B03002 and B02015
Period
2020–2024
Geography
Woodway Census place
Definition
Race and Hispanic/Latino origin are self-reported Census concepts. Hispanic/Latino may be of any race; the broad display uses non-Hispanic race categories plus Hispanic/Latino of any race.
Method
Every percentage is shown with its 90% margin of error. Detailed Asian estimates use the Asian-alone universe and are divided by the city population for display.
Open the official source ↗
Work

What powers the local economy—and how dependent is it?

Retail accounts for 49% of jobs located in Woodway. The city’s job base changed +116% between 2010 and 2023.

Jobs by sector

Workplace jobs inside the city—not the industries of residents who commute elsewhere.

Retail49%
Hospitality17%
Construction / Real Estate8%
Information (partial technology proxy)7%
Education (includes academia/research)6%

Verified employer anchors

Official town land-use finding; Woodway has no commercial or industrial zoning · Current or recent profile · 2024 comprehensive plan. The stated employer vintage is within the current two-year publication window.

The town’s planned land uses are residential, recreation, open space, and public services; it has no commercial or industrial zoned land. Work inside Woodway is therefore limited mainly to home occupations and town services, while household livelihoods depend on employment elsewhere in the region.

Because the town has no commercial or industrial zoned land, it does not have a conventional local employer ranking.

Town of Woodway Comprehensive Plan ↗. Headcounts change faster than Census employment totals.

Housing

What kinds of homes exist—and where is pressure showing?

The firmer current signal is construction intent: 2 homes were authorized in 2025, versus a recent pace of about 2 per year.

Home value profile

What owner-occupied homes are worth

Owner estimates from the 2020–2024 American Community Survey—not listings, recorded sales, or appraisals. The final Census band is open-ended: $2 million and above.

Median estimate$2M+Census top-coded at $2M+
Middle half of homes$1.3M–$2M+Lower to upper quartile of owner estimates
Luxury-home concentration51%≈229 homes · estimated at $2M+
Under $500k6%
$500–749k1%
$750–999k4%
$1–1.49M22%
$1.5–1.99M17%
$2M+51%

These estimates are useful as a distribution, but the survey intervals are too wide to rank Woodway or identify one definitive value range.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year tables B25075–B25078. Values cover owner-occupied homes only and do not measure current asking prices or recent purchase prices.

The housing mix we can estimate confidently

This describes the existing stock. It does not imply that one building type is preferable.

Attached houses<1%
Homes authorized, 2025
2

Permit authorizations—not construction starts or completed homes.

Residential buildings, 2025
2

One building can contain one home or many housing units.

2023–2025 annual pace
2 homes

Average housing units authorized per year across the latest three final annual estimates.

Recent pace vs prior 3 years
−43%

2023–2025 average compared with 2020–2022.

Permit activity: U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, final annual estimate for 2025. Housing units authorized are not starts or completions.

Mobility

Where do residents need to go—and who has a real alternative to driving?

The current covered GTFS feeds matched no scheduled stop inside Woodway’s boundary. That does not rule out service just outside the city or service absent from the covered feeds. The 2020–2024 ACS separately estimates how workers usually commuted; it does not count every transit trip or describe today's schedule.

Weekday departures
0

Scheduled stop departures in the current covered-feed snapshot—not riders.

Transit stops
0

Matched inside city limits; nearby cross-border stops are separate.

Top outside workplace
Seattle

41% of observed resident job destinations in 2023 LODES.

Where resident workers go

Top observed workplace destinations.

Seattle41%
Peak drive: 25–50 min
Bellevue8%
Peak drive: 30–60 min
Edmonds7%
Peak drive: 5–20 min
Lynnwood5%
Peak drive: 20–40 min
Everett4%

The strongest outside connection is Seattle. Employer or corridor changes there can alter everyday life in Woodway, even when nothing changes inside the city boundary.

How residents usually get to work

Citywide ACS 2020–2024 estimates describe workers’ usual commute—not every trip made today.

Households without a vehicle
2.1%

Households, rather than workers. ±2 points at 90% confidence

For someone choosing a home in Woodway, the practical test is the trip to Seattle, the leading outside workplace destination in the published flows. These citywide shares cannot show whether that trip works from a particular address.

Typical drive times

About how long does it take to get where people go?

Work destinations are selected from observed resident job flows. These are broad, reviewed planning ranges from representative parts of Woodway—not live-traffic or door-to-door predictions.

Starting area
Downtown Seattle employment core

Seattle is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Woodway, representing 37% of matched resident jobs from this city.

25–50 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Downtown Bellevue employment core

Bellevue is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Woodway, representing 7% of matched resident jobs from this city.

30–60 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Edmonds employment area

Edmonds is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Woodway, representing 7% of matched resident jobs from this city.

5–20 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Local arterial-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.40x circuity factor and an assumed 28 km/h peak-effective / 42 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Lynnwood employment area

Lynnwood is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Woodway, representing 4% of matched resident jobs from this city.

20–40 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Local arterial-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.40x circuity factor and an assumed 28 km/h peak-effective / 42 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Method, review date, and sources

Planning estimate; actual time varies by departure time, route, traffic, weather, incidents, and closures.

Estimates are derived from reviewed origin/destination coordinates using a documented distance-to-time heuristic (circuity factor and assumed effective speed by corridor type and period), then deliberately widened and rounded to a broad band. No live routing or traffic API was called.

Estimates reviewed 2026-09-10. Starting point: selected representative area.

City boundary and regional context● nearby   ● work destinations
Daily life

Community institutions and local activity

Public schools, libraries, pharmacies, and listed everyday places show part of the local inventory inside Woodway; taxable sales show the scale and direction of local commercial activity. Residents also use places across city lines, so a boundary count is not the same as access.

Local field guide

Places for everyday needs in Woodway

Care, errands, food, fitness, and personal services gathered into one browsable directory.

Hospitals0 in cityFind nearby
Explore all hospitals near WoodwayOpen

Counts reflect current directory records associated with the city, not a complete business census or a measure of access. Large categories show a sample.

Sources: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), snapshot 2026-08-13; Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-08-19.0; U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (NPPES NPI Registry), snapshot 2026-09-09.

Education footprint

The schools inside Woodway.

Institution counts and enrollment will remain separate. A school can serve students from outside the city, and residents may attend a school across the boundary or elsewhere in their district.

Public elementary0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Public middle0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Public high0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Other public programs0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Public-school names and levels come from OSPI. Private schools, complete IPEDS college coverage, enrollment by level, and graduate destinations are active additions; absence here should not yet be read as “none.”

Retail role

Woodway records relatively little retail activity for its population.

Retail sales per resident fall below 75% of the cities tracked by Metroscope. That may mean residents rely more on nearby cities for shopping, but sales records alone cannot prove where they shop.

Retail sales per resident, 2024
$6,663

Higher than 25% of 82 tracked cities.

Change from 2023
−7%

Nominal retail-sales change; inflation can account for some or all of an increase.

See the underlying sales totals
Retail trade, 2024
$8.9M

Sales reported by businesses classified in retail trade.

All taxable sales
$30.3M

Includes taxable activity outside retail trade.

Retail share
29%

Retailing industries’ share of all taxable sales.

Tracked-city median
$10,670

Median retail sales per resident across cities with comparable data.

Civic life

In Woodway, voters directly choose who runs City Hall.

Woodway voters elect the mayor separately from the council. The mayor leads city administration, while the council adopts laws, policy, and the budget—so executive accountability sits directly with an elected office.

Government form
Mayor–Council

The mayor is separately elected to lead administration.

Mayor listed
Mike Quinn

The separately elected chief executive.

Council representatives listed
5

Current directory entries; vacancies or updates can make this differ from authorized seats.

Incorporated
1958

Code city under Washington law.

Where decisions happen

When does the Woodway council meet?

Regular meeting schedule listed in the current municipal directory:

1st & 3rd Mon - 6:00pm

Schedules change and special meetings are separate. Check the city site for the live agenda, staff reports, public-comment rules, and video.

Official city site ↗Current officials directory ↗
Election record

Where to check Woodway election results.

Regular municipal offices generally return in 2027. Special measures can appear earlier, and charter provisions can differ.

The next data step is city-specific turnout, contested-seat share, ballot measures, and campaign money. Until those are normalized, Metroscope links the official record instead of guessing from partisan elections.

Structure, meetings, and current officials: Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington (MRSC), checked 2026-09-08. Election administration and certified results: the county election offices listed above. Confirm live agendas and officeholders at the source.

Change

What is changing the city’s trajectory?

Population and jobs do not always move together. Reading both helps distinguish a growing employment center from a city whose households are increasingly tied to opportunities elsewhere.

Residents
1,340

1% more from 2021 to 2026

Local jobs
326

2% fewer from 2018 to 2023

Retail trade, 2023–2024
−7%

Nominal taxable-sales change; not adjusted for inflation.

Data & details — selected comparable metrics across 82 places
Local jobs
LODES
326
1,506656,821
Higher than only 0% of places
Long-run job change
LODES
+116%
−3%+166%
Higher than 98% of places
Weekday transit departures
GTFS snapshot
0
19256,385
Higher than only 0% of places
Multifamily permitting
Census BPS
Near a 15-year low
Recent annual pace compared with this city's own 2010–2025 record
2BR Fair Market Rent
HUD, county-level
$2,549
FY2027 HUD program benchmark; chart shows FY2020–FY2027 history. Shared across this HUD metro area—not a place-specific market rent.
Work — sector breakdown
Share of local jobs by sector · LODES · workplace location, not resident industry
Retail49% (160)
Hospitality17% (55)
Construction / Real Estate8% (25)
Information (partial technology proxy)7% (24)
Education (includes academia/research)6% (19)
Other4% (14)
Government (Public Administration)4% (13)
Logistics / Industrial2% (7)
Administrative & Support Services1% (3)
Professional Services (partial technology proxy)1% (3)
Finance1% (2)
Healthcare & Social Assistance0% (1)
Manufacturing (includes, but is not limited to, aerospace)0% (0)
Where Woodway's workforce lives (inbound)
LODES OD — commuting flows into local jobs
Seattle
11.7%
Edmonds
9.0%
Woodway
8.1%
Kirkland
5.8%
Everett
5.8%