Virginia Property Tax

Virginia assesses every parcel at 100% of fair market value — by statute, with no fractional ratio and no cap on year-over-year change — and protects the owner with procedure instead: a 15-day notice of any increased assessment showing two prior years, a locality-run board of equalization, and an original, de novo appeal to the circuit court whose window is the latest of three statutory limits.

In this section

• The 100% standard and the assessing officers — what the statute requires, who assesses, and why no cap means procedure is the protection.
• The board of equalization and the circuit court — the 15-day notice, the locality-set deadline with its 30-day floor and postmark rule, and the latest-of-three court window.
• Virginia property tax deadlines — the notice clock, the ordinance deadline, and the three court limits.

Who does what

• The Commissioner of the Revenue or the local assessor assesses real estate in each locality — which officer depends on the locality’s structure (§ 58.1-3201).
• The local board of assessment reviews (BOE) — a citizen board appointed under § 58.1-3377 — hears applications contesting assessments, including a catch-all any-year application.
• The circuit court hears assessment appeals as original, de novo proceedings under § 58.1-3984.
• The locality’s governing body sets the tax rate and, by ordinance, the BOE application deadline — within the statutory floor.

No cap — procedure is the protection

Virginia is one of the states on this site with no percentage limit on an assessment: a market rise passes straight through to the assessment (§ 58.1-3200(A) requires 100% of fair market value). The protections are procedural, and they are strong: the notice of an increased assessment must show the new figure and the two preceding years’ assessments, and reach the owner at least 15 days before the hearing (§ 58.1-3330) — a built-in year-over-year comparison on the notice’s own face. The board and court page walks the ladder.

Finding your property

Virginia property records are locality-run — each of the independent cities and counties keeps its own assessment records. Fairfax County’s iCare portal, verified live when this section was prepared, is the example: it searches real and personal property assessments and exposes the assessment history the notice shows. Your own commissioner of the revenue or assessor’s site is the entry point for your locality.

What this does not cover

Personal property assessment (§ 58.1-3983.1 is deliberately outside these pages), relief and exemption programs, and the 95 localities’ individual ordinances are not restated here. AssessCheck has no data connection to any Virginia locality. The Code sections cited throughout were read on the official law portal — the strongest provenance on this site.