What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Richmond?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 10 records listed for a contractor or trade in Richmond, VA, 3 apply to every business of this type and 7 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

Of the 3 that always apply, 1 carry a flat fee, coming to $263.00. That is a floor, not a total. 6 of the 10 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 1 has no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

BPOL Tax: Gross receipts of $5,000 or less: no fee. $5,001–$500,000: a flat $30 a year. Above $500,000: a rate on gross receipts by classification — Professional Service $0.58/$100, Personal Service $0.36/$100, Retail Merchant $0.20/$100, Repair Service $0.36/$100, Restaurant $0.36/$100, Contractor $0.19/$100, Wholesale Merchant (on purchases) $0.22/$100.

Commercial Building Permit: $131.00 for the first $2,000 of value; above that, $131.00 plus $8.50 per $1,000 or fraction. A 2.0% state surcharge is added to the final calculated fee. This same formula also prices electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas-piping, fire alarm, sprinkler, and sign permits.

Articles of Incorporation: $75–$2,525 one-time — a $25 filing fee plus a charter fee on authorised shares

Annual Registration Fee: $50–$850 a year — $50 flat for an LLC, $50 to $850 for a corporation by authorised shares

General Business Licence (local BPOL, not state): No state fee. A locality may charge up to $50 where its population exceeds 25,000, or $30 below that, plus a tax on gross receipts once you pass its threshold

Contractor Licence: $274.50–$439.50 initial — $274.50 Class C, $419.50 Class B, $439.50 Class A, including the recovery fund and technology charges

Permits for a contractor or trade in Richmond, VA come from 4 separate offices: City of Richmond Department of Finance, BPOL Tax Division, City of Richmond Planning & Development Review, Bureau of Permits and Inspections, Virginia State Corporation Commission, Office of the Clerk, Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, Board for Contractors. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• City of Richmond Department of Finance, BPOL Tax DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: BPOL Tax900 E. Broad Street, Room 103, Richmond, VA 23219 · (804) 646-7000www.rva.gov/finance/bpol-tax
• City of Richmond Planning & Development Review, Bureau of Permits and InspectionsIssues 3 permits on this page: Certificate of Occupancy (HCO), Commercial Building Permit, General Contractor Licence (not issued by Richmond)900 East Broad Street, Room 110, Richmond, VA 23219 · (804) 646-4169www.rva.gov/planning-development-review/permits-and-inspections
• Virginia State Corporation Commission, Office of the ClerkIssues 4 permits on this page: Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation, Annual Registration Fee, General Business Licence (local BPOL, not state)1300 East Main Street, Richmond, VA 23219 · (804) 371-9733www.scc.virginia.gov
• Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, Board for ContractorsIssues 2 permits on this page: Contractor Licence, Tradesman Licence9960 Mayland Drive, Suite 400, Richmond, VA 23233-1485 · (804) 367-8511www.dpor.virginia.gov/Boards/Contractors

The $500,000 flat-fee threshold is confirmed current via a city press release, effective January 1, 2026 — the live BPOL page's own rate table still carries stale "$250,000 or more" heading text left over from before the change. A qualifying new business (not a contractor) exceeding $500,000 gets a 2-year exemption under section 26-874, paying just the $30 fee instead of the percentage rate. Late payment draws a 10%-or-$10 penalty plus 10% annual interest.

A final Certificate of Occupancy tied to an active building permit carries no separate fee — confirmed directly on the city's own customer guide. The $263 HCO fee applies instead to a partial, temporary, or ownership/tenant/DBA-change certificate not tied to new construction. Reprinting an issued certificate is $32. Assembly, Education and Institutional uses — including restaurants and day nurseries — cannot substitute the cheaper Certificate of Zoning Compliance and must go through this process.

Value of work equals the higher of the contractor's estimate or an RS Means price lookup. A commercial demolition permit is $368 plus up to $1,000 more for buildings over 10,000 sq ft; a failed inspection or no-show costs $63; after-hours inspection is $110/hour.

No fee, because Richmond issues no contractor license or bond of its own — state law requires only that the applicant furnish proof of a valid Virginia contractor licence (or an exemption) before a building permit or business license issues, which the city verifies rather than separately licensing. A contractor still needs the state DPOR Board for Contractors licence already covered at the state layer.

$100 flat, and a Virginia LLC then files no annual report at all — only a $50 annual registration fee, due on the last day of the twelfth month after the month it was organised and every year on that date. The absence of a report is not an oversight in our reading: the LLC Act has an article for annual registration fees and none for annual reports, and the corporate report section by its terms binds only corporations. Miss the fee and a $25 penalty follows; leave it unpaid to the last day of the third month after the due date and the company's existence is cancelled automatically.

Quoting $25 to incorporate in Virginia is wrong: the charter fee is mandatory and additional, at $50 for each 25,000 authorised shares or part of them up to a million shares, then a flat $2,500 above that. So the minimum is $75 and the practical maximum $2,525 — and the cliff is sharp, because authorising a million shares costs $2,000 in charter fee while authorising one more costs $2,500. It is charged on authorised shares, not issued ones, and increasing the authorisation later triggers a top-up for the difference. Unlike an LLC a corporation does file an annual report, but it is free; the money is the annual registration fee, $50 up to five thousand authorised shares then $15 for each further five thousand, capped at $850.

The due date is the entity's own anniversary month rather than a common calendar date, which makes it easy to miss. An LLC pays $50 whatever its size; a corporation pays $50 up to five thousand authorised shares and $15 for each further five thousand, capped at $850 — so the share count you chose at formation follows you every year. Penalties differ too: a flat $25 for an LLC, and ten per cent or $10, whichever is greater, for a corporation. The deadline after that is what matters most. An LLC is cancelled automatically if the fee is unpaid by the last day of the third month after the due date; a corporation is terminated at the fourth. You also cannot pay early — the Commission assesses about two months ahead and will not take money before it does.

No state fee, because the whole licence-tax chapter of the Code sits inside the Local Taxes subtitle and the obligation arises only from a local ordinance. Two things about the threshold are routinely got wrong. It exempts you from the licence TAX, not the licence FEE — the statute expressly excepts the fee — so a locality can charge $50 to a business turning over ten thousand dollars. And the population that sets the threshold is the locality's, not the business's: under $100,000 of gross receipts in a locality above fifty thousand people, or $50,000 in one between twenty-five and fifty thousand, no tax is due, while a locality under twenty-five thousand people has no statutory floor at all. Above the threshold the rate caps run 16 cents per hundred dollars for contracting, 20 for retail, 36 for services and repair, and 58 for professional and financial work. A separate licence is needed for each definite place of business. Localities that charged more on 1 January 1978 may keep those higher rates.

The thresholds moved in 2025 and older guidance is now wrong. Class A is a single contract of $150,000 or more or a million a year; Class B is $30,000 to $150,000 or $250,000 to a million; Class C runs from just over $1,000 to $30,000. Below $1,000 no contractor licence is needed at all. The fee is the small part: Class A applicants must document $45,000 of net worth and Class B $15,000, and Class A and B both need a designated employee who has passed the board's exams, which Class C does not. Electrical, plumbing and HVAC contractors must additionally hold a master tradesman licence as a condition of licensure — two credentials, two fees. Value means fair market value, so under-pricing a contract does not move you down a class. The printed fees are $400, $380 and $235; the rest is a $25 recovery fund assessment and the $7.25-a-year technology charge that ends on 30 June 2030.

This is the individual credential that sits under the company's contractor licence, and for the mechanical trades it is compulsory to hold both. The main trades run on a three-year cycle while every other licence and certification in the chapter runs on two, which is a genuine trap when budgeting renewals. Renewal is $160. Exchanging a locality-issued card for a state licence costs $110, and adding a second trade designation $105. Continuing education at renewal is three hours per designation for plumbing, electrical and HVAC and one hour for gas fitters, rising to eight for elevator and accessibility mechanics, water well providers and fire sprinkler inspectors.