A building permit submittal package on a desk with rolled construction drawings, forms on a clipboard, and a hard hat.

Permitting & Engineering in Virginia

These two go together because one is useless without the other. Virginia has one building code, the Board of Housing and Community Development is the only body that may amend it, and Va. Code § 36-105(A) makes local enforcement of it mandatory — so there is no unenforced corner of the Commonwealth and no locality writing its own rules. What is local is the arithmetic: Table R301.2 is printed blank and your jurisdiction fills it in. We do the structural engineering against the figures your jurisdiction actually publishes, then carry the set through submittal, the comment cycles and every inspection to the certificate of occupancy.

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How a permitting & engineering project runs

Four stages, in this order. The sequence matters more than it looks: getting engineering and permitting settled before anything is fabricated is what keeps a build from stalling.

1

Jurisdiction and zoning check

First we establish who enforces on your land — a county, one of the 38 independent cities that sit in no county at all, or a town that has elected to run its own building department. Then the zoning, because that is where local power genuinely lives: Va. Code § 36-98 stops a locality regulating dwelling foundations, required building materials or finishes, or minimum window area by ordinance for single-family construction, but expressly does not override proffered conditions, conditions on a special exception or conditional use permit, overlay districts or historic districts. An appearance rule your county cannot impose generally can still be attached to your particular parcel.

2

Structural engineering

A Virginia-licensed professional engineer analyses the frame against the criteria your jurisdiction publishes, then seals the foundation, anchor bolt layout, framing and connection details. A clear-span barndominium is not covered by the residential code’s prescriptive tables, so VRC Section R301.1.3 sends those elements to accepted engineering practice and VCC Section 310.6.1.1 sends what the residential code does not address into the Virginia Construction Code.

3

Assemble and submit

Sealed plans, energy documentation, wind-load calculations, truss engineering, site plan, and the ancillary approvals reviewers ask for late. The septic authorisation is not one of the late ones — Va. Code § 32.1-165 bars a permit for a building designed for human occupancy until it is in hand. On fees, expect a locality-set schedule: the only permit-fee figure that is identical everywhere in Virginia is the 2.0% Building Code Academy levy the local building department collects and remits quarterly to DHCD.

4

Inspections through to CO

We answer review comments quickly, then schedule and meet the seven minimum inspections under USBC Section 113.3 — footing excavations before concrete, foundation systems, preparatory work before placement, structural members and fasteners, the mechanical and electrical and plumbing systems, energy conservation material, and the final. Three of those must happen before concealment, and two before concrete is placed. The certificate of occupancy follows under Section 116, within five working days of the final inspection being approved.

Overhead view of architectural floor plan and structural elevation drawings spread on a workbench with a scale ruler and pencil.
Who you are actually dealing with

Virginia has 38 independent cities, and they belong to no county at all

You will read that Virginia permits are handled at the county level. That is the wrong map. Virginia has 133 county-level jurisdictions: 95 counties and 38 independent cities, and an independent city is not a place inside a county — it is a county equivalent with its own building department, its own zoning administrator and no county government above it. Alexandria, Richmond, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Harrisonburg, Winchester, Fredericksburg and 31 others are in this class. Separately there are 189 incorporated towns that do sit inside counties, and Va. Code § 36-105(A) lets a town under 3,500 people elect whether to administer the building code at all — if it does not, the county does it for the town. So the first real question on any Virginia project is which of three kinds of body has your parcel. What does not change is the code itself. § 36-98 makes the Uniform Statewide Building Code supersede the building codes and regulations of the counties, municipalities and other political subdivisions; § 36-102 vests the power to amend it in the Board of Housing and Community Development alone; and § 36-105(A) makes enforcement of it for new construction the local building department's responsibility, with no opt-out. The code is the same everywhere. Who reviews it, what they charge and the design criteria they publish are not.

Where we deliver permitting & engineering

In Virginia the city limit is a real boundary rather than a formality: thirty-eight Virginia cities are independent and sit in no county at all. The code is not what changes when you cross that line — the Uniform Statewide Building Code applies on both sides of it and enforcement is mandatory everywhere. What changes is who reviews the drawings, what they charge, how the land is zoned, and the criteria that locality has filled into Table R301.2. Two parcels twenty miles apart can carry completely different engineering.

Serving clients across the entire region.

Every locality we build in has its own reviewer, its own fee schedule and its own filled-in design criteria. The service area pages set out what each one publishes.

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Before you commit

What actually decides the price

Square footage is the number everyone leads with, and it is rarely the one that moves a barndominium budget. These four do.

  • Which building department holds your parcel

    There is no state-set dollar cap and no state fee schedule. Va. Code § 36-105(B) says fees are levied to defray the cost of enforcement, and 13VAC5-63-70 Section 107.1.1 requires each local governing body to establish a schedule of unit rates that may be based on square footage, cubic footage, estimated cost of construction or other criteria. Two neighbouring jurisdictions can price the same building very differently.

  • The one number that is identical statewide

    Va. Code § 36-137(7) lets the Board levy up to two percent of permit fees to support the Virginia Building Code Academy, and 13VAC5-63-70 Section 107.2 sets the rate at 2.0%. The local building department collects it on top of its own fee and remits it quarterly to DHCD — unless the locality maintains a DHCD-accredited training academy, in which case it keeps it. Every other permit figure in Virginia is a local one.

  • How much of the design falls outside the prescriptive tables

    VCC Section 310.6.1.1 sends any method, material, system or component for a Group R-5 structure that the Virginia Residential Code does not prescriptively address into the Virginia Construction Code instead. A wide clear span or a bolted steel frame is exactly that building. Which construction types require a registered design professional is set out in DHCD's Related Laws Package rather than in the Administrative Code, so it is a question to put to the building official by name at the outset.

  • Review cycles, and how long inspections take to reach you

    13VAC5-63-90 Section 109.4 waives technical plan review by right where identical construction documents for an identical dwelling have already been approved in the same locality under the same edition. 13VAC5-63-130 Section 113.7 forces a building official who cannot inspect within two working days of a request to accept a third-party report. Both move a rural schedule more than the fee line does.

A building permit submittal package on a desk with rolled construction drawings, forms on a clipboard, and a hard hat.

Permitting & Engineering in Virginia: common questions

8 questions we get asked most often about building in Virginia. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Isn't a building permit in Virginia a county matter?
Only for part of the state, and treating it as the default is how projects lose a month. Virginia has 133 county-level jurisdictions — 95 counties and 38 independent cities — and an independent city belongs to no county whatsoever. In Census terms each of the 38 is its own county equivalent. Inside the limits of Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Winchester, Staunton, Fredericksburg, Danville, Martinsville, Galax, Norton and the rest, there is no county building official, no county zoning administrator and no county board of supervisors with any authority at all. Then there are 189 incorporated towns, which are a different animal again: a town sits inside a county, and its residents are also county residents. Va. Code § 36-105(A) provides that a town with a population of less than 3,500 may elect to administer and enforce the building code, and where it does not, the county in which it sits does so for it — and where the town straddles a county line, each county does its own portion. There is no gap anywhere in this: the same subsection requires a county or municipality with no building department to enter into an agreement with another locality, another agency or a state agency approved by the Department. The fallback is never ambiguous, but which of two named bodies you are dealing with is a per-town fact worth confirming in writing.
Can my locality make the building code stricter, or looser, than the state's?
Neither, and Virginia gets there by a stronger route than a stringency rule. Va. Code § 36-98 directs the Board of Housing and Community Development to promulgate the Uniform Statewide Building Code and says that code shall supersede the building codes and regulations of the counties, municipalities and other political subdivisions and state agencies. Because the local instrument is superseded, the question of whether it is stricter or looser never arises. § 36-102 puts the power to modify, amend or repeal code provisions in the Board and nowhere else, and there is no opt-in, opt-out or local amendment mechanism anywhere in Chapter 6. What the preemption does not touch is set by the definition of building regulations in § 36-97, which ends by excluding zoning ordinances and other land use controls that do not affect the manner of construction or materials to be used. That is the whole line: how you build is the Commonwealth's, and whether, where and to what use is your locality's. § 36-98 also expressly preserves proffered conditions accepted as part of a rezoning, conditions imposed on a special exception, conditional use permit or variance, airport and highway overlay districts, historic districts under § 15.2-2306, and local floodplain regulations adopted as a condition of participating in the National Flood Insurance Program. So the honest answer to a locality telling you something the code does not say is usually that it is coming through zoning, not through a local building code.
Which edition of the code is my project under, and is it about to change?
The 2021 edition of the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code, effective 18 January 2024, adopted by Virginia Register Volume 40, Issue 9. Note the offset before you assume it is stale: the year in the name is the model-code year, and Virginia runs about three years behind — the 2018 edition took effect on 1 July 2021, and the 2021 edition on 18 January 2024. It is built on the 2021 I-Codes, though the electrical standard is the 2020 National Electrical Code, a year behind the rest. 13VAC5-63-30 Section 103.2 opens a one-year window on each new edition in which the permit applicant, not the building official, may elect the previous edition instead; that window for the 2021 edition ran from 18 January 2024 and closed a year later, so a permit application submitted now is under the 2021 edition with no election available. The provision is self-perpetuating and will re-arm when the next edition takes effect. What governs is the permit application date, and once a permit is properly issued a later edition does not force changes to the approved documents. 13VAC5-63-160 Section 116.2 requires the certificate of occupancy to state the edition under which the permit was issued, which makes the CO the authoritative record of which code your building answers to. The 2024 edition is still in development at DHCD and no adoption date has been published.
What is the actual sequence from submittal to certificate of occupancy?
On a rural parcel it starts before the building department. Va. Code § 32.1-165 bars any locality from issuing a permit for a building designed for human occupancy without prior written sewage authorization, and 13VAC5-63-30 Section 103.5 is the mechanism by which that and other functional-design sign-offs are made a condition of the permit or the CO. Va. Code § 54.1-1111(A) then requires the applicant, before issuance, to furnish either a contractor licence or certificate number or a written statement that he is not subject to licensure — it is unlawful for the building official to issue without one, and doing so is a Class 3 misdemeanor, which is why this is enforced consistently. 13VAC5-63-80 Section 108.1 sets what triggers a permit: construction of a building, structural work, means of egress, water supply and sanitary drainage, electrical wiring, mechanical and fuel supply systems. Section 108.2 exempts one-story detached tool or storage sheds not exceeding 256 square feet, which is not a barndominium exemption and should never be read as one. Then 13VAC5-63-130 Section 113.3 sets seven minimum inspections: footing excavations and reinforcement before concrete, foundation systems, preparatory work before concrete, structural members and fasteners before concealment, electrical, mechanical and plumbing before concealment, energy conservation material before concealment, and a final. Va. Code § 36-105(B) requires the building official to coordinate fire and health inspections before an occupancy permit issues, and Section 116.1 requires the CO within five working days after the final inspection is approved.
What can a Virginia locality charge for a permit?
There is no state-set maximum and no published state schedule, so the limits are on purpose rather than on amount. Va. Code § 36-105(B) and 13VAC5-63-70 Section 107.1 both permit fees to be levied in order to defray the cost of enforcement of the code — cost recovery, not revenue. § 36-105(B) and (C)(7) then ring-fence the money: with the exception of the levy imposed under § 36-137, fees levied under that subsection shall be used only to support the functions of the local building department. § 36-105(C)(7) defines defray the cost as the fair and reasonable costs incurred during normal business hours and excludes overtime unless the work is done outside the locality's normal working hours, adding that a locality shall not charge an overtime rate for inspections conducted during its normal business hours. 13VAC5-63-70 Section 107.1.1 requires the schedule to exist and to use unit rates; Section 107.1.2 requires a refund on written request where a permit is revoked, abandoned or cancelled, correlating to work not completed. On top of the local fee sits the only figure that is the same everywhere in Virginia: the 2.0% Building Code Academy levy under Section 107.2, statutorily capped at two percent by § 36-137(7) and remitted quarterly to DHCD. Any other number you are quoted is your specific jurisdiction's own, and it is worth getting the schedule in writing before you design to it.
Can I permit and build it myself as the owner?
Virginia does allow it, in a narrower lane than most people assume, and it exempts you from far less than they assume. The exemption is Va. Code § 54.1-1101(A)(7): any person who performs or supervises the construction, removal, repair or improvement of no more than one primary residence owned by him and for his own use during any 24-month period. Every clause is a limit. Performs or supervises means you may act as your own general contractor. No more than one primary residence means one, not a house and a second dwelling. Owned by him means you must own the land. For his own use means you must actually live in it, so a building put up to sell is outside it. And during any 24-month period is a rolling cap, not a per-project allowance. Then read subsection C, because it is the single most misunderstood sentence in the subject and the statute states it flatly: a person exempt under subdivision 7 shall comply with the provisions of the Uniform Statewide Building Code. The exemption is from licensing only. Permits, plan review, the seven minimum inspections and the certificate of occupancy all apply in full. Subsection B adds that an owner-builder must obtain a certificate of occupancy before conveying the property to a third-party purchaser unless that purchaser acknowledges in writing that none was issued, and subsection D makes a violation of B or C a Class 1 misdemeanor. In practice the exemption is administered through § 54.1-1111(A), where the exempt owner files the written statement of non-liability to licensure with the permit application.
The county has one inspector and a three-week backlog. Am I stuck?
No, and this is one of the more useful things in the Virginia code that almost nobody mentions. 13VAC5-63-130 Section 113.7 lets the building official accept reports of inspections and tests from individuals or agencies approved under his written policy — and it makes acceptance mandatory in a defined circumstance: where the building official is unable to make an inspection required by Section 113.3 or 113.4 within two working days of a request or an agreed date, he shall accept reports for review. He must then approve the report unless there is cause to reject it, and any failure to approve must be in writing within two working days stating the reason. Reports must be written, must state whether the applicable code provisions are met, and must be certified by the inspector or the agency's responsible officer. Section 113.7.1 goes further: each building official charged with enforcement shall have a written policy establishing the minimum acceptable qualifications for third-party inspectors, covering report format, timeframe and any prequalification requirement. That policy is not optional in any Virginia jurisdiction, and 13VAC5-63-60 Section 106.2 provides that a local government's limits on the official's delegated authority do not apply to it. Ask for that document by name at project start. Note that third-party plan review is a weaker right — Section 109.4.1 lets the official accept a conforming report and expedite the permit, but with no two-day backstop and no mandatory policy behind it.
What if the permit is refused, or an inspector calls something wrong?
You have a fixed appeal path with short deadlines, and missing one of them is treated as agreement. First, a refusal has to be explained: Va. Code § 36-105(D)(2) requires the local building department to provide the applicant a written explanation detailing the reasons the application was denied, and encourages it to limit review of a revised application to the previously inadequate portions. From a building official's decision, 13VAC5-63-190 Section 119 gives you 30 calendar days from receipt to appeal in writing to the Local Board of Building Code Appeals, a body every local building department must have, with at least five members, on which employees or officials of the locality may not serve. That board must meet within 30 calendar days of receiving the application, or 45 where it holds regularly scheduled monthly meetings. From its decision you have 21 calendar days to apply to the State Building Code Technical Review Board, and from there 30 days to the circuit court under Rule 2A:2. § 36-105(A) is explicit that no appeal to the Review Board lies before a final determination by the local board, so the local step cannot be skipped, and Section 119.5 provides that failure to file within the time limit constitutes acceptance of the building official's decision. One incentive worth knowing: under § 36-114.1 a party who prevails on appeal of a Review Board decision on a stop work order may recover actual litigation costs, including attorney and witness fees, from the locality. Building without a permit is a different matter — § 36-106 makes a violation a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $2,500, each day after a court-ordered abatement period a separate offence.

Keep reading

The pages that answer the next question this one raises.

Is It Legal in Virginia?

One statewide code, county zoning, and why the farm-building exemption does not reach a house.

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How Long Does It Take?

The 30-business-day statutory review clock, and how the private-provider route shortens it.

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Where We Build

Which authority actually reviews your parcel, city by city.

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