What permits do you need to open a restaurant in Loudoun County?

Food Establishment Permit

A restaurant or coffee shop operating in Loudoun County needs an annual Food Establishment Permit from the Loudoun County Health Department, Environmental Health Services, priced at $40 a year as posted on the Department's current Environmental Health Services Fee Schedule (loudoun.gov/6338/Fee-Schedule). The fee schedule page does not display an adoption or effective date for this figure, and no Board of Supervisors resolution or state enabling-statute fee order naming this specific amount is published elsewhere on the county's site, so this fee is recorded here as the Department's currently posted figure rather than tied to a dated ordinance. Restaurants in Loudoun follow a two-part process — plan review before opening (recorded separately for Loudoun County) and this annual operating permit, renewed every year. The Health Department, not the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, is the regulator for restaurants: loudoun.gov/1367/Restaurants-Food-Service states the county's own jurisdictional split, under which VDACS instead covers wineries, breweries, grocery stores, farmers markets, wholesale food and home-based food.

Food Establishment Permit

One flat $40 for the whole state, which is unusual and cheap — and the fee's authority is the Appropriation Act rather than the food statute, so anyone looking for it in Title 35.1 or in the food regulation will not find it there. A new restaurant pays $80 in total, plan review plus permit, and the combined fees are capped at $80 a year per facility. Apply at least thirty days before opening. A permit is not transferable, so a change of ownership means a fresh $40. Ten localities adopted their own food ordinances before 2022 and permit independently — Alexandria, Arlington, Danville, Fairfax County, Hampton, Hopewell, Norfolk, Petersburg, Portsmouth and Roanoke — and some add real money on top: Fairfax charges $100 for a preliminary inspection and $80 for a change of ownership. Retail food stores and manufacturers are a different regime entirely, run by the agriculture department, where the permit is free and the annual inspection is $40.

Certified Food Protection Manager

No state fee — Virginia neither issues the certificate nor charges for it; an accredited programme does both. At least one employee with supervisory and management authority must hold it, but the rule carves out establishments serving only food that needs no temperature control, and those that merely reheat or cold-hold commercially processed food, provided they do not cool it. The five-year validity people quote is the certifying programme's rule, not Virginia's — the regulation sets no term. Virginia requires no food handler card statewide either, and the department publishes a table of the twelve localities that do impose one, all of them in Hampton Roads and the Peninsula.

Shared with other businesses in Loudoun County

• Mixed Beverage License Tax — Loudoun County Commissioner of the Revenue, Business Tax Division, $200–$500 a year, by on-site seating capacity: 50-100 seats $200, 101-150 seats $350, 151+ seats $500; a private nonprofit club operating an on-site restaurant pays a flat $350, Annual, due March 1; a 10% penalty applies to payment made after the due date. Also required for coffee shops; what it involves is set out on the coffee shops page.
• Temporary Food Establishment Permit — Loudoun County Health Department, Environmental Health Services, $40 per event, as posted on the Department's current fee schedule, Per event; apply at least 10 calendar days before the event. Also required for coffee shops; what it involves is set out on the coffee shops page.
• Fire Marshal Operational Permit — Loudoun County Fire Marshal's Office, A permit is required for designated occupancy classifications, including 'Repair Garages and service stations' and places of assembly with an occupancy of 50 or more, under the Virginia Statewide Fire Prevention Code, adopted by Loudoun County Codified Ordinances Ch. 1602. No fee amount for this permit is published on the Fire Marshal's page, in Chapter 1602's text, or in the Building and Development fee schedule, which covers only Uniform Statewide Building Code permits rather than Fire Prevention Code operational permits. Contact the Loudoun County Fire Marshal's Office for the current fee amount., not stated in any published county source. Also required for coffee shops, fitness studios and auto repair shops; what it involves is set out on the auto repair shops page.
• BPOL Tax — Tiered Rate Above $200,000 Gross Receipts — Loudoun County Commissioner of the Revenue, Business Tax Division, Above $200,000 in annual gross receipts, the BPOL tax is charged per $100 of gross receipts by classification, as posted on the Commissioner of the Revenue's current rate table: Retail Merchant $0.17 (retail-store, and over-the-counter sales at a coffee shop or restaurant); Business Service $0.17 (service-classified business activity, including off-site catering); Personal Service $0.23 (salon, see the separate salon BPOL record); Professional Services $0.33 (veterinary, Ch. 840.01(u) names 'veterinarians' explicitly); Repair Service $0.16 (auto-repair); and Contractors (and Contracting/Developers) $0.13. Every one of these posted rates sits at or under the statewide caps the General Assembly sets in Code of Va. §58.1-3706 (20 cents retail, 36 cents repair/personal/business services, 58 cents financial/real estate/professional services, 16 cents contracting). Fitness-studio's applicable classification and rate are not published in Ch. 840's definitions, the live rate table, the full 90-item statewide classification list at 23VAC10-500-500, or the county's own taxpayer guide — Personal Service ($0.23), Business Service ($0.17) and Amusements ($0.21) are each plausible candidates with no ruling or guide distinguishing among them, so no cents figure for fitness-studio is published here; a fitness studio should confirm its specific classification with the Commissioner of the Revenue's Business Tax Division, 703-777-0260., Annual; filing and payment due March 1. Also required for coffee shops, retail stores, veterinary clinics, auto repair shops, contractors and trades and salons and barbers; what it involves is set out on the auto repair shops page.
• Food / Tourist Establishment Plan Review — Loudoun County Health Department, Environmental Health Services, $40 per review, as posted on the Department's current fee schedule, One-time, per plan review. Also required for coffee shops; what it involves is set out on the coffee shops page.