Land · Virginia tax sale guide

Virginia tax sales by jurisdiction

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Virginia runs no tax lien sale and no sale season. What it runs is a court process: once taxes pass the statutory delinquency line, December 31 following the second anniversary of the due date under section 58.1-3965, the locality sues in circuit court, names everyone with an interest in the parcel, and a special commissioner auctions the property itself, subject to the court's confirmation, with title cleared of every party defendant's claims. Alongside it sits a narrow nonjudicial route under section 58.1-3975 for small, lien free, long delinquent parcels, sold by the treasurer with a deed that clears only the tax lien. Owners can redeem in full until the date of the sale, and not one day after. Because each locality sets its own sale dates and publishes its own deposit and payment terms one notice at a time, Virginia is a diary state, not a season state: the verified 2026 record in just these ten jurisdictions runs from Henrico's nonjudicial sale on May 27 to a Fairfax judicial sale closing December 1.

This page set covers the top 10 Virginia jurisdictions by population, six counties and four independent cities, each verified against its own treasurer, attorney, or contracted sale firm's published notices on November 9, 2026. Three dated events are live or imminent as the set is checked: Prince William County's combined judicial and nonjudicial sale runs Tuesday, November 10, 2026, the day after this check; Chesapeake's next nonjudicial auction opens Wednesday, November 25 and closes Wednesday, December 9, 2026; and Fairfax County's online special commissioner's sale closes Tuesday, December 1, 2026. The honest gaps are stated on their pages: Loudoun's October 23, 2026 judicial auction was postponed with no replacement date, Richmond's program has been paused since January 2023 and relaunches in November 2026 with its first sale still unscheduled, Chesterfield publishes no dated 2026 sale at all, and Arlington publishes no tax sale page, calendar, or terms of any kind.

Verify before you go: counties can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 10 jurisdictions

Each row links to that county's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a county has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How Virginia tax sales work

• Virginia sells no tax liens, anywhere, ever. No provision of the Code of Virginia authorizes the sale of a lien certificate. When a Virginia locality sells for delinquent taxes, what is sold is the real estate itself, and every page in this set is written on that basis.
• The judicial route opens on a delinquency clock, not a calendar. Under section 58.1-3965(A) real estate may be sold when taxes are delinquent on December 31 following the second anniversary of the date the taxes became due. The clock runs to the first anniversary for property carrying a condemned structure, a nuisance, a derelict building, or a blight declaration, and a city may by ordinance proceed at the first anniversary under section 58.1-3965.1.
• Before suit, notice and a payment plan off ramp. The collecting officer must mail notice at least 30 days before instituting proceedings and publish the list at least once in a newspaper of general circulation at least 30 days before proceedings commence. The notice must advise the owner of the right to request an installment agreement of up to 72 months under section 58.1-3965(C), which suspends the action while the case stays on the court docket.
• The sale is a court case with an auction inside it. Proceedings are by complaint in the circuit court where the land lies (section 58.1-3967), naming every person or entity with an interest, including lienors and the beneficiaries and trustees under a deed of trust. The court may appoint a special commissioner to sell the property and execute the deeds (section 58.1-3969), and the locality may itself be a purchaser (section 58.1-3970).
• Redemption ends on the date of the sale, not at confirmation. The owner may redeem at any time before the date of the sale under sections 58.1-3965(B) and 58.1-3974, by paying all taxes, penalties, interest, costs and a reasonable attorney fee set by the court. Partial payment does not redeem and does not stop the sale, and there is no redemption after the sale. Guides that carry redemption to the confirmation date are wrong on the current statute.
• Confirmation, title, and the surplus. Every judicial sale is subject to confirmation by the circuit court, and no upset bid period is published in the statute or in any sale notice read for this set. The title conveyed is free of all claims of any creditor, person or entity made a party defendant, including deed of trust beneficiaries, though easements recorded before the sale are not affected (section 58.1-3967). The surplus over taxes, penalties, interest, fees, costs and chargeable liens belongs to the former owner and is claimable within two years after the date of confirmation.
• The nonjudicial route is narrower and slower, not faster. Under section 58.1-3975 the treasurer may sell at public auction, without any suit, only parcels whose taxes are delinquent on December 31 following the third anniversary of the due date and that meet the section's value and condition tiers: 15,000 dollars or less; more than 15,000 and no more than 30,000 dollars with no recorded mortgage or deed of trust lien and a listed condition; or more than 30,000 and no more than 40,000 dollars, lien free, inside a designated redevelopment or revitalization zone and unimproved at no more than half an acre. A nonjudicial sale is free and clear only of the locality tax lien, prior liens survive unless the lienholder received 30 days written notice, and the treasurer tenders a special warranty deed.
• Terms are set by each sale notice, and leftovers are reoffered, never sold over a counter. Neither statute sets a deposit or a payment schedule; each locality's published notice does, and the terms vary widely across this set. Parcels that draw no successful bid are held and offered again at a later auction, whenever that may be; for a nonjudicial sale that produces no bidder, section 58.1-3975(L) adds the costs of sale to the delinquent account. There is no assignment market and no over the counter channel in Virginia law.

One Virginia fact decides most purchases: redemption ends on the date of the sale. Buyers arriving from lien states expect a redemption tail after they win; Virginia gives the owner every day up to the sale and nothing after it, which cuts both ways, because the same rule lets an owner pay in full on the morning of the auction and take your parcel off the list legally. The second fact is that terms are notice law, not statute law: deposits in this set run from a per parcel minimum in Loudoun to a third of the price in Chesapeake's standing rules, and the only document that binds you is the notice for the sale in front of you.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. Virginia counties open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid.