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Ignition interlock financial assistance: Washington charges everyone $21 a month to help indigent drivers at $80
Ignition interlock is the DUI component most likely to be lost to simple inability to pay — a driver who cannot fund the device cannot drive legally, and a driver who cannot drive often cannot keep the job that would fund it. Washington is the state that built the answer into the statute: RCW 46.20.385 funds an assistance programme out of a $21 monthly fee every interlock driver pays, and the Department of Licensing reimburses providers $80 a month per service for drivers approved as indigent. This page prices that assistance layer from the statute and the Department's published programme page, alongside our general interlock guide.
The $21 fee every Washington interlock driver pays
RCW 46.20.385(6)(a) puts the programme's funding on the people inside it. Unless costs are waived by the interlock company or the person is indigent under RCW 10.101.010, the applicant shall pay the cost of installing, removing and leasing the device, and shall pay an additional fee of twenty-one dollars per month, paid directly to the ignition interlock company. The company remits the fee to the Department of Licensing, retaining twenty-five cents per month to cover its administration expenses. Under subsection (6)(b), the Department deposits the proceeds into the ignition interlock device revolving account, and expenditures from the account may be used only to administer and operate the assistance programme — with the Department directed to adopt rules providing monetary assistance according to greatest need and when funds are available. The fee is therefore not a tax on the sentence in the usual sense; it is a pooled contribution of $20.75 a month per paying driver into the fund that pays the device bills of drivers who cannot. It runs for every month the interlock licence is held, on top of the lease the driver pays their provider, and it is one of the very few DUI charges in any state whose destination is printed in the same subsection that imposes it.
| Assistance component (Washington) | Published amount |
|---|---|
| Monthly revolving account fee (RCW § 46.20.385(6)(a)) | $21 per month, paid to the interlock company; the company retains $0.25 per month and remits the rest to the Department |
| Assistance reimbursement to the provider (Washington Department of Licensing) | $80 per month for each service — installation, monthly lease, device removal, or transfer to another vehicle — for an approved driver |
| Who qualifies (RCW §§ 46.20.385(6), 10.101.010; DOL guidelines) | Drivers who are indigent and within the Department's published income cut-offs; the Department's table lists, for example, a one-person household limit of $19,950 per year for 2026 |
| Balance of device costs for an assisted driver (DOL) | The driver remains responsible for all remaining costs above the $80 reimbursement — the assistance is a contribution, not a full payment |
| Reapplication (DOL) | Approval runs a year at a time; an approved driver must reapply annually, and a denied applicant may reapply after 30 days |
| Device lease and installation market prices | Set by the approved providers and not published as a state schedule — described, not priced, exactly as in the general interlock guide |
What the $80 actually covers — and what it does not
The Department's published assistance terms are specific. If a driver is approved, the Department will reimburse the driver's provider $80 per month for each service — installation, the monthly lease fee, removing the device, or transferring the device to another vehicle — and the driver is responsible for paying all the remaining costs. Three consequences follow from that wording. The reimbursement flows to the provider, not the driver, so it works as a discount administered inside the billing relationship rather than as cash assistance. The per-service structure means the $80 attaches separately at installation, in each lease month, and at removal or transfer, rather than being a single monthly cap across everything. And because real provider pricing for installation, leasing and removal sits in the private market — described on our interlock violation page as well as the general guide, and deliberately unpriced in both — the $80 will cover different fractions of the bill with different providers, which the Department's "all remaining costs" sentence anticipates. An assisted driver comparing providers is therefore comparing real money: the gap between a provider's lease price and $80 is the driver's monthly cost of the device for the whole restriction period priced in our Washington breakdown.
Who counts as indigent, and how the application runs
Eligibility starts with the statutory definition: assistance is for persons who are indigent, a term RCW 46.20.385 draws from RCW 10.101.010, the state's public-defence indigence definition, as determined by the Department. The Department's application requires proof of income, or a signed statement that the applicant has no income, and proof of any public benefits claimed on the form; an application with documentation missing or fields incomplete will be denied, and a denied applicant may reapply after thirty days. Approval is time-limited rather than permanent — an approved driver must reapply every year, and may do so within thirty days of the current coverage's expiration — and the Department publishes the income cut-offs it applies, expressed as annual and monthly limits by household size. Two practical points deserve emphasis. The $21 monthly fee itself is excused for a person who is indigent under the same definition, so an approved driver's stack drops both the lease gap and the funding fee. And the assistance is expressly subject to the fund's rules — monetary assistance according to greatest need and when funds are available, in the statute's words — which makes early application a priced decision as well as a paperwork one, since the programme's promise runs only as far as the revolving account does.
Why this model is worth a page of its own
Most states handle interlock indigence the way they handle other DUI costs: a judge may waive this or reduce that, case by case, with nothing published a driver can check in advance. Washington publishes the whole mechanism — the fee that funds it, the account that holds it, the monthly reimbursement the provider receives, the indigence definition that gates it and the income table that applies it — which makes it the one assistance programme in the country that can be priced to this site's standard. Drivers outside Washington should read it as a template for questions, not as an entitlement: ask whether your state has an interlock assistance fund, what fee funds it, and what indigence standard it applies, and expect the answers to be local. Within Washington, the checkable stack is the one tabled above: $21 a month in, $80 a month per service out, and everything the provider charges above the reimbursement still owed by the driver.
Sources: RCW §§ 46.20.385(6), 10.101.010; Washington State Department of Licensing, ignition interlock device and financial assistance pages. Last verified: November 2026.
The fine is one line in a longer stack — court costs, program fees, interlock, supervision and reinstatement all bill separately. Price the layers that apply to your case in the calculator.
Open the DUI cost calculatorThe assistance, stated as the Department states it
Approved drivers have $80 per month per service reimbursed to their provider and owe the rest; unapproved drivers pay the full provider price plus the $21 monthly fee that keeps the fund running. Both halves of that sentence are published — the fee in RCW 46.20.385(6)(a), the reimbursement on the Department of Licensing's programme page — and both halves belong in any honest account of what an interlock restriction costs in Washington.
Related cost guides: Ignition interlock costs, Ignition interlock violation costs, Washington DUI penalties breakdown, Washington DUI cost guide, Hardship and restricted licence costs.
Sources: RCW § 46.20.385; Washington State Department of Licensing. Last verified: November 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.