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Washington requires a sample from some deer, and offers a test on the rest

Washington CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

If you take a deer, elk or moose in the 100 series units of eastern Washington you must turn in the head or lymph nodes within five days and before you leave the region, and no whole carcass from any other state or province may be brought into Washington at all.

In named areas
Is a sample required
and voluntary everywhere else
Boned out
Carrying a carcass in
No whole carcass from anywhere
See the agency
What the test costs
turnaround below
Yes, 2024
Found in wild deer
Mandatory Testing Region (MTR) and Transport Restriction Zone (TRZ)
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Washington

Sampling required in the named areas

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife requires a sample from deer taken in the areas it names, and a test is available on a deer taken anywhere else in Washington.

Where the requirement bites
Anyone who harvests or salvages a deer, elk or moose in the Eastern Region, meaning the 100 series game management units, must hand the head or the extracted lymph nodes to the agency within five days and before leaving that region.
How to submit
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife names self-service collection site, hunter check station, WDFW regional or district office, appointment with WDFW staff and mail in.
How long results take
The agency says results take about four to six weeks on average.
The zone it draws
Mandatory Testing Region (MTR) and Transport Restriction Zone (TRZ)

WDFW’s drop off locationsLook up a result

If you harvest or salvage a deer, elk, or moose in WDFW's Eastern Region (100 series GMUs), you are required to present the head to WDFW with at least three inches of neck attached, or extracted lymph nodes, prior to leaving WDFW's Eastern Region , within five days of harvesting or receiving a salvage permit.
Testing for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into Washington

What may be carried across the Washington line

This is the rule a hunter is most likely to miss, because it is written by the state being entered rather than the state the animal was taken in. Reading the regulations of the state hunted in cover to cover does not surface it. Nationally, 42 of the 50 states restrict what crosses and 27 refuse an intact carcass from anywhere at all.

No whole carcass from anywhereA hunter driving home to this state boned the animal out before the line, whatever state the hunt was in.

An intact carcass may not be carried into Washington from any other state. The parts WDFW does admit are listed below.

No whole carcass of a deer, elk, moose or caribou taken anywhere outside Washington may be brought into the state, and only boned out meat, a clean skull and antlers, a hide or cape with no head, permitted research tissue and finished taxidermy may come in.

What WDFW admits, in its own categories:

  • Meat that has been de-boned in the state or province where it was harvested and is imported as boned-out meat
  • Any part of the skull and antlers with all soft tissue removed. Soft tissue is any tissue that is not tooth, bone, or antler (velvet must be removed)
  • Hides or capes without heads attached
  • Tissue imported by researchers with preapproved permits for use by a diagnostic or research laboratory
  • Finished taxidermy mounts
You cannot bring whole carcasses into Washington.
Important information for hunters, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

WAC 220-413-030

What WDFW says

The Washington agency’s own words on the meat

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife publishes this:

As a precaution, the Washington State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend not eating any animal that tests positive for CWD or appears to have it.
Testing for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

That sentence is reproduced whole and unedited because it is the agency’s statement rather than a summary of one, and 30 of the 50 states here publish one of their own. The wording differs between states.

Where the state stands

CWD in Washington: status, zones and baiting

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed the disease in Washington's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2024. The agency describes the detection as confined so far to its Eastern Region, which it treats as the Mandatory Testing Region and Transport Restriction Zone..

First confirmed case
2024
Baiting and feeding
Baiting and feeding banned statewide
Moving an animal out of a zone
The same allowed parts list governs moving a deer, elk or moose taken in the 100 series game management units to anywhere else in Washington, and lymph nodes must be handed in before the animal leaves the Eastern Region.
Carcass waste
The agency asks hunters to bone the animal at the kill site and leave the inedible parts there, or failing that take them to an approved landfill, or double bag them into household trash bound for a landfill.
WDFW confirmed the presence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Washington in 2024.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Zone boundaries are redrawn between seasons more often than any other rule here, usually after a new detection near an existing line. The map linked above is WDFW's own and is the one that governs.

A small white steel shelter on a gravel pad with one open bay and a sign reading LDWF CWD TESTING CONTAINER SITE beside a deer silhouette, bare trees behind it at dusk
A freezer container site, open at the side and lit at night. A state that wants samples from a whole parish cannot staff a counter for three months, so it buys a cooler and a sign and takes the head whenever the hunter finishes. The tag in the box is the part that matters: everything the lab can tell a hunter later depends on the paper that went in with the head. “LDWF CWD Testing Container Site 01”, Ktkvtsh, CC BY 4.0

Washington CWD questions

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CWD rules in other states

CWD rules in every stateHow the 50 states differ on sampling, cost and what crosses a state line.Venomous snakes by stateWhich species a state actually has, and where the range maps put them.Burn permits by stateWhether a permit is needed today, and who issues it.Firewood permitsWhat a cord off public land costs, and which forests still sell one.Washington tick activityThe weather driven tick index for Washington, updated daily.

Washington read September 23, 2026 from Chronic wasting disease (CWD), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, linked above. Carcass rules, zone boundaries and sampling requirements change between one season’s regulations and the next, and a state can add a rule mid season after a new detection, so the WDFW document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.