Bank branches dwindle as closures outpace openings in Puget Sound area

Banks are trimming their branches all across the Puget Sound region.

Over the last five years, 155 bank locations closed locally, according to filings with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a branch of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In contrast, only 29 new locations opened over the same period.

Continuing a yearslong pattern of declining physical footprints, financial institutions have shuttered 13 locations and opened just three so far this year across the four-county Puget Sound region. Eight of those closures were in the city of Seattle.

The last time the region saw a net increase in bank branches was in 2013. However, the rate of closures has somewhat decelerated. A combined 29 bank branches closed in the last two years. In 2023 alone, 33 branches had shut down. The tally of branch closures last year was the lowest in more than a decade.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2025/10/26/bank-branch-closures-outpace-openings.html