SR 167 begins at an interchange with I-5 in Tacoma, adjacent to the Emerald Queen Casino and near the Puyallup Indian Tribe headquarters.

[4] SR 167 travels southeast along the south bank of the Puyallup River as a four-lane undivided highway, passing through farmland and industrial areas.

The highway turns north and follows a section of the Union Pacific Railroad through an industrial area along the White River in northern Sumner.

[8][9] SR 167 continues under a bluff along the west side of the White River Valley and crosses into King County as it passes through the suburban towns of Pacific and Algona.

[12] It then passes The Outlet Collection shopping mall, served by interchanges with 15th Street Southwest and SR 18, an east–west freeway with connections to Federal Way and Covington.

[6][14] The freeway crosses over the Green River into downtown Kent and intersects SR 516, which continues west to Highline College and Des Moines and east to Covington and Maple Valley.

[15] The freeway continues through an industrial area on the outskirts of downtown Kent and crosses over the BNSF Railway's Seattle Subdivision before turning north to follow the east edge of the Green River Valley.

[16] SR 167 continues onto a six-lane section of Rainier Avenue, which passes northeast through a commercial area with car dealerships and big-box retailers.

Average daily traffic volumes on SR 167 in 2016 ranged from a minimum of 8,400 at its southern terminus in Tacoma to a maximum of 129,000 at South 277th Street in Kent.

[32] The northbound truss bridge was replaced in 2015, with the original structure moved to a nearby plot of vacant land while awaiting a sale.

The proposed highway would bypass the snarled traffic at Meridian Way in Puyallup and continue across Interstate 5 to SR 509 in the city of Fife.

The upgraded SR 167 would save time traveling from Tacoma to Puyallup, as the original highway is just a four-lane road with at-grade intersections and a speed limit of 50 mph (80 km/h).

The first component of the Puget Sound Gateway Project, a new bridge for 70th Avenue East over I-5 in Fife (stage 1a), began construction in 2020.