Land · Virginia tax sale guide

Fairfax County tax sales, Virginia

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Fairfax is the jurisdiction where the county says the quiet part plainly: the Code of Virginia does not authorize the sale of tax lien certificates, sales occur only at public auction, and the sale conveys title to the property itself. Auctions are a last resort after every other collection attempt has failed, which is why this large county publishes no calendar at all. The working channel is notification: join the TACS potential bidders list through the county page, or watch the TACS sale pages, and a dated sale appears when the court pipeline produces one. The December 1, 2026 sale below is the only dated Fairfax sale published in the sources read for 2026, and its notice carries complete terms, which makes Fairfax, unusually, both the least scheduled and, for its one live sale, one of the best documented jurisdictions in this set.

Selling office: Department of Tax Administration (oversight); judicial sales handled by the county's contracted legal firm, Taxing Authority Consulting Services PC (TACS), as special commissioner under decrees of the Circuit Court of Fairfax County

Next sale: Tue Dec 1, 2026, online only, closing from 11:00 a.m.: Special Commissioner's Sale for Fairfax County, the Town of Herndon and the Town of Vienna (lots J3 to J6 as published). Announced by TACS, the county's contracted firm, under decrees of the Circuit Court of the County of Fairfax. Deposit and buyer premium must be received within seven days after closing, no later than Tue Dec 8, 2026. No Fairfax tax sale earlier in 2026 is published in the sources read.

As of November 9, 2026, Fairfax County has one dated sale ahead: the online only special commissioner's sale closing Tuesday, December 1, 2026, with its deposit deadline on December 8, 2026 and balances due 15 days after court confirmation. No earlier 2026 sale and no standing calendar are published; after December, the channel reverts to the bidders list and the next episodic notice.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Fairfax County, Real Properties to be Auctioned, Tax Administration. TACS, Fairfax County, Town of Herndon and Town of Vienna Real Estate Tax Sales (December 1, 2026 notice). Virginia Code, section 58.1-3965. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.

Research Fairfax County parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcels, 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 Fairfax County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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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.

How buying works in Fairfax County

Free online registration and approval through At Auction, Inc. at forsaleatauction.biz for the December 1, 2026 sale. Between sales, the county's channel is the TACS potential bidders list linked from its auction page; the county notifies list members only in the event a public auction is scheduled.

• The notice is the term sheet; the county page is only a summary of the last one. Virginia publishes its real terms one sale at a time, and they move: Prince William County's standing page describes a 10 percent deposit while the notice for its own November 10, 2026 sale requires 25 percent or 1,000 dollars, capped at 20,000 dollars, and the notice controls. Price every Virginia sale off the notice for that date, and treat any standing description, this site's included, as a starting point to verify.
• Split the room before you price it. A single Virginia auction can carry judicial lots and nonjudicial lots side by side, as the Virginia Beach and Prince William sales in this set both do, and the two kinds of lot deliver different title: the judicial deed clears the claims of every party defendant, the nonjudicial deed clears only the tax lien unless lienholders were noticed. Same room, same day, different asset. Bid them on different numbers.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

The leftover channel: held for the next auction

The December 2026 notice states the rule for this county's TACS sales: any unsold property will be offered for sale again at the next auction, whenever that may be. There is no over the counter channel and no private sale; TACS states generally that unsold property cannot be offered privately, since the locality does not take ownership of the property. Behind that practice stand the owner's redemption right, which runs to the date of the sale, and the locality's own power to purchase at the sale under section 58.1-3970.

Before you bid

• Read the notice for the exact sale you are bidding. Deposits, buyer's premiums, payment clocks and even which parcels are actually offered are set in the dated sale notice, and standing county pages can lag or conflict with it. Prince William's standing 10 percent description against its own notice's 25 percent is the standing example in this set. The notice is the only document that prices your bid.
• Assume the owner can kill your parcel up to sale day. Redemption in Virginia runs to the date of the sale and requires payment in full. A parcel can vanish from the list the morning of the auction, legally, and serious lists are republished close to the sale for exactly this reason. Verify the list on the seller's own posting within days of the sale, not weeks.
• Know which deed your lot carries before you bid it. Judicial lots come through a special commissioner with title cleared of every party defendant's claims; nonjudicial lots come from the treasurer with only the tax lien cleared and prior liens surviving unless they were noticed 30 days ahead. The lot list marks the route per parcel; where it does not, ask the seller before the sale, not after.
• Budget the confirmation gap. A judicial win is not a deed. The court must confirm the sale, balance clocks run from confirmation, and the deed follows after. Carry the time between your deposit and your deed as a cost of the route, and never schedule a resale off a sale date alone.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest bid you can pay, with the buyer's premium and deposit shown. Several sales in this set add a 5 to 15 percent buyer's premium on top of the hammer price; the maximum is the total, not the bid.

Every Virginia county in this set

One page per jurisdiction, counties and independent cities each verified against their own official sources. Virginia has 95 counties and 38 independent cities; this set is the top 10 jurisdictions by population.

• Fairfax County (this page)
• City of Virginia Beach tax sales
• Chesterfield County tax sales
• Henrico County tax sales
• Prince William County tax sales
• Loudoun County tax sales
• City of Norfolk tax sales
• City of Chesapeake tax sales
• City of Richmond tax sales
• Arlington County tax sales

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. The same desk runs Florida tax deed sales, Texas tax sales, Pennsylvania tax sales, Georgia tax sales, North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, Ohio tax foreclosure sales, Illinois tax lien sales, Michigan tax foreclosure sales, Arizona tax lien sales, California tax defaulted property sales, Colorado tax lien sales, South Carolina tax sales, Indiana tax lien sales, Tennessee delinquent tax sales, Wisconsin tax deed sales, Missouri tax sales, New Jersey tax lien sales, Maryland tax lien sales, West Virginia tax sales and Virginia tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.