Virginia Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified July 9, 2026 Correction August 12, 2026

Legislative changes ahead — not yet in force. The rules on this page reflect the law in force today. The following measures would change it:

HB 678 (2026), c. 1066 — Already CHAPTERED but not yet effective: on July 1, 2027, § 55.1-1204(K)'s rent-increase notice for landlords with more than four units extends from 60 to 90 days before the end of the rental agreement term, and the notice must give the tenant a renewal-decision deadline no sooner than 30 days after delivery. The current 60-day rule (the figure shown on this page) governs until then.Status: Enacted 2026; effective 2027-07-01 per the official code site's version label (one Realtor-association summary says January 1, 2027 — the official 'Effective July 1, 2027' code version controls). Not incorporated until effective. (checked 2026-07-09).
HB 278 / SB 355 (2026) — local rent regulation ('anti-rent gouging') enabling act — Would let localities adopt rent-increase regulation. Failed in 2026: Senate committee voted 11-4 to continue the bill to the 2027 session, and the Virginia Housing Commission opened a study of local rent regulation in June 2026 — expect a 2027 return. Predecessor HB 2175 (2025, 3% local cap enabling) also died.Status: Continued to the 2027 session; not enacted. § 55.1-1201's supersession clause and the Dillon Rule continue to bar local rent control. (checked 2026-07-09).
HB 329 (2026), c. 1111 — Effective January 1, 2027, § 55.1-1258's retaliation rules expand: the lists of prohibited retaliatory acts and protected tenant conduct both grow, a tenant may recover actual damages and assert retaliation as a defense in any action brought for possession, and failing to renew the tenancy of a Housing Choice Voucher holder without good cause becomes a protected ground. The parallel § 55.1-1314 (Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act) changes with it.Status: Enacted 2026 (c. 1111); effective 2027-01-01 per the chapter. Not incorporated until effective. (checked 2026-08-12).
HB 95 (2026) — Effective July 1, 2027, landlords with 4+ units must offer payment plans for unpaid rent, with no additional late fees accruing while the tenant complies — a conditional overlay on the § 55.1-1204(E) late-fee rules.Status: Enacted 2026 (c. 1105); effective 2027-07-01 per the chapter's own enactment clause. Not incorporated until effective. (checked 2026-08-12).

Virginia at a glance

Rule	Virginia	Cited to
Max security deposit	2 months' rent	Va. Code § 55.1-1226 +2 more
Deposit return deadline	45 days	Va. Code § 55.1-1226 +2 more
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	30 days	Va. Code § 55.1-1253 +2 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	Va. Code § 55.1-1253 +2 more
Late-fee cap	The lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E))	Va. Code § 55.1-1204
Entry notice	No fixed statutory period	Va. Code § 55.1-1229 +1 more
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	14 days	Va. Code § 55.1-1245 +9 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Virginia Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified July 9, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/virginia/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Virginia statute it comes from on the linked topic page.

Local rent regulation in Virginia

Virginia law does not bar rent control by name, but the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act supersedes all local ordinances concerning landlord-tenant relations and residential leasing, and no statute grants localities authority to regulate rent — so cities and counties cannot enact rent control.

Cited to Va. Code § 55.1-1201 · Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Virginia rent-increase rules →

Virginia Security deposits

Virginia caps security deposits at two months' periodic rent — and the cap is really a combined ceiling, because the deposit plus any damage-insurance and renter's-insurance premiums demanded up front may not together exceed two months' rent, and pet deposits count inside it by definition.

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia Rent increase notice

Virginia rent increases on month-to-month tenancies take effect only through a written notice, and the new rent cannot start until the next rent due date coming at least 30 days after the notice — a mechanism § 55.1-1253 codifies directly, alongside the 30-day termination notice either party can give.

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia Late fees

Virginia caps residential late fees at the LESSER of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance the tenant actually owes — so a tenant who has paid most of the month's rent can only be charged 10% of the small unpaid remainder, not 10% of the full rent, a distinction many summaries flatten into '10% of rent.' The fee must be provided for in a written rental agreement; with no written lease there is no late fee at all — instead the statutory default tenancy kicks in, under which rent is due the first of the month and 'considered late if not paid by the fifth.' That fifth-of-the-month rule is the source of a persistent five-day-grace-period myth: it applies only when no written lease was offered, and written leases carry no statutory grace period.

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia Entry notice

Virginia requires 72 hours' notice before a landlord enters for routine maintenance the tenant didn't ask for — the specific number in the statute — while all other entries (inspections, tenant-requested repairs, showings) require simply giving notice and entering at reasonable times, with no fixed period.

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia Eviction process

Virginia evictions start with a 14-day pay-or-quit notice for nonpayment — lengthened from 5 days effective July 1, 2026, a change many guides haven't caught up with (a payment-plan duty for landlords with more than four units follows on July 1, 2027).

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia Application fees

Virginia caps a residential rental application fee at $50, or $32 where the unit is public housing or otherwise regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and lets a landlord add on top of that only the actual out-of-pocket cost of third-party background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks.

Full rules, fact table & statute citations →

Virginia mobile home park laws

Virginia's Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act, Va. Code §§ 55.1-1300 through 55.1-1320, governs the tenancy of a resident who owns the home and rents the lot beneath it in a park of five or more manufactured homes, and it works through the lease renewal rather than through a rent cap: a landlord must offer every year-round resident an agreement of at least one year, the agreement renews automatically on the same terms unless the landlord gives 60 days' written notice of a change before it expires, and it must be renewed except for reasons that would justify termination or eviction, on 90 days' notice stating the reason.

Lot-rent, closure, park-sale and home-sale rules with statute citations →

Virginia Fair Market Rents (FY 2026) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Virginia metro area and county.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (July 9, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, August 12, 2026 — The HB 95 (2026 c. 1105) payment-plan overlay takes effect July 1, 2027, not January 1, 2027, and is not currently in force; the eviction page previously described it as in force. The same page's version note now records that 2026 c. 635's authorization for a legal-resource insert on the unlawful-detainer summons has been in force since July 1, 2026.
Updated, August 12, 2026 — Four Virginia chapters effective July 1, 2026 are now described: the Eviction Diversion Program's rewritten eligibility rules, with program information attached to every unlawful-detainer summons and referral no longer requiring a tenant request (§ 55.1-1262, cc. 230/818); removal of the pay-into-court precondition on the habitability defense, with the surrender-order option struck and an express power to order repairs added (§ 55.1-1241, cc. 959/1041); the bar on bifurcating the initial hearing when the tenant contests the rent and damages claimed (§ 8.01-128, c. 432); and the court-approved legal-resource insert on the summons (§ 8.01-126(C)(2), c. 635). A pending-legislation row now flags the retaliation-defense chapter effective January 1, 2027 (c. 1111). Two sentences that still described the 2027 payment-plan duty as current law were corrected.
Correction, August 5, 2026 — Montana's comparison of its one-number lease-violation notice to other states misstated Virginia's rule: Virginia gives tenants 21 days to fix a lease violation (termination 30 days after notice), while the 14-day cure figure belongs to Oregon. The Montana page now attributes each state's numbers correctly; Virginia's own record was already right and its encoded figures are unchanged.

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Virginia Code site (law.lis.virginia.gov): §§ 55.1-1226, 55.1-1204 (both the current version and the 'Effective July 1, 2027' version), 55.1-1253, and 55.1-1229 each read in full twice (independent reads matched verbatim); §§ 55.1-1200 (definitions), 55.1-1201 (applicability/supersession), 55.1-1203, 55.1-1206, 55.1-1208, and 55.1-1210 read in full once. 2026 session laws (cc. 722/723, 1050, 1066, and the HB 15/SB 48 and HB 95 changes) identified via official code version labels and section history lines, cross-checked against practitioner summaries; 2026 HB 278/SB 355 status (continued to 2027) checked 2026-07-09. 2024 Acts of Assembly c. 46 (HB 701) read in full on legacylis.virginia.gov 2026-07-09 and its added language confirmed against the current § 55.1-1229 text, confirming the earlier reading.