Man warns of unexpected DoorDash charge on food from Shoreline

If you have ordered DoorDash-delivered food from restaurants in Shoreline, beware. An Edmonds man is sharing his story about fees that were wrongly charged to his order.

Edmonds resident John Rumpelein said he had a frustrating experience ordering food via DoorDash from several Shoreline restaurants. In addition to typical expected charges, DoorDash added a new $4.99 fee. The receipt labels the charge as a “SEA Regulatory Response Fee”.

This didn’t just happen once. It happened 22 times between February and July 2025. The fee was attached to deliveries from Sushi Burrito, Good Burger, Chipotle, Jersey Mike’s and the Royal Unicorn, all in Shoreline.

Rumpelein contacted DoorDash customer service through the app. He asked for an explanation and a refund. He was partially refunded the charges. Much to his frustration, the problem persisted and the charge continued to appear as recently as July 16 on an order from Jersey Mike’s. 

My Neighborhood News Network helped the reader dig into the problem and here is what we learned. 

Restaurants are not responsible for the fee. The driver is not responsible for the fee. The app-based delivery service, in this case DoorDash, is responsible for the fee. 

The SEA (Seattle) Regulatory Response Fee is the fee added to delivery services in response to the City of Seattle’s App-Based Worker Minimum Payment Ordinance, commonly referred to as the “PayUp” ordinance implemented in January 2024. The ordinance ensures that app-based delivery workers earn at least $27 per hour. It includes time and distance components requiring delivery companies to pay drivers at least 44 cents per minute and 74 cents per mile with a minimum payment of $5 per delivery. 

This is a City of Seattle fee. The City of Shoreline (or any other nearby cities including Edmonds, Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace) have not implemented this fee.

Rumpelein contacted DoorDash through the app. This is the response.

Many delivery companies, including DoorDash, contract with Seattle-based Avalara, an international tax and regulation compliance company that uses AI and complex GIS information to tie the right tax, the right fee and right regulation to the right jurisdiction and right customer. In this case, DoorDash would use Avalara data to implement the Seattle delivery fee for Seattle deliveries and exclude the Seattle delivery fee for non-Seattle deliveries, like deliveries to and from Shoreline. 

We contacted Avalara and they checked their system and said their data shows Shoreline deliveries should not be charged the Seattle fee. Avalara provided this useful language to share with DoorDash to address the problem, which we did.

“‘Incorrect Seattle Regulatory Fee Being Charged to Shoreline Residents – Please Escalate to Tax or GIS Team’ and include the following in the body of the email:

“It appears the Seattle regulatory fee is being applied to Shoreline addresses due to a ZIP code overlap. Shoreline is its own city and not subject to Seattle’s PayUp ordinance. We believe the tax calculation provider (Avalara) may need to review jurisdictional boundary data. Could you please escalate this to your tax compliance or GIS engineering team to coordinate a correction with Avalara?”

We reached out to DoorDash with receipts, correspondence and the specific language Avalara suggested we use to identify and correct the issue with DoorDash. 

We connected with Parker Dorrough, DoorDash head of policy communications. It turns out Shoreline presents a unique case because it shares a zip code with Seattle. When Shoreline became a city in 1995, it did not create a new zip code just for the new city’s jurisdictional boundaries. Parts of Shoreline still share the 98133 zip code with Seattle, including a handful of restaurants. The fee is a ZIP code-based fee and the 98133 zip code was provided by the City of Seattle to DoorDash.

Dorrough said DoorDash sees an opportunity to get more granular and use streets or other boundaries to ensure Shoreline restaurants do not charge a Seattle fee. As for Rumpelein, DoorDash has reached out to him to get him fully refunded.

Rumpelein suggests DoorDash users check their receipts for this Seattle charge and use the in-app customer service portal to request refunds. We will continue to follow this story.