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

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 Virginia Beach, VA, 4 apply to every business of this type and 6 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 4 that always apply, 2 carry a flat fee, coming to $125.00. 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 0 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

Business, Professional and Occupational Licence (BPOL): Flat fee below $200,000 in annual gross receipts: $25 (up to $25,000), $40 (up to $100,000), $50 (up to $200,000). Above $200,000, a per-$100-of-gross-receipts rate applies by classification: Contracting $0.16, General/personal/business services $0.36, Professional/financial/real estate services $0.58, Retail merchant $0.20, Wholesale merchant (on gross purchases) $0.12.

Commercial Building/Alteration Permit: Commercial alterations (tenant buildout): $50 plus $5 per $1,000 of construction value, or fraction thereof. New construction/additions: $50 plus $8 per 100 sq ft; non-heated commercial storage new/additions: $50 plus $4 per 100 sq ft. Commercial Plan Review is $200 ($100 for a minor review, $50 for a counter review); Plan Review Revision $100; Special Use and Occupancy Review $400; Re-inspection $75. A 2% state levy and a flat $10 Technology Fee apply to all 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 Virginia Beach, VA come from 5 separate offices: City of Virginia Beach, Office of the Commissioner of the Revenue, City of Virginia Beach Planning & Community Development, Permits and Inspections, Virginia Beach Fire Prevention Bureau, 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 Virginia Beach, Office of the Commissioner of the RevenueIssues 1 permit on this page: Business, Professional and Occupational Licence (BPOL)2401 Courthouse Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23456-9002 · (757) 385-4515cor.virginiabeach.gov
• City of Virginia Beach Planning & Community Development, Permits and InspectionsIssues 2 permits on this page: Certificate of Occupancy, Commercial Building/Alteration Permitplanning.virginiabeach.gov/permits
• Virginia Beach Fire Prevention BureauIssues 1 permit on this page: Fire Inspection Fee(757) 385-4228fire.virginiabeach.gov/fire-prevention
• 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 underlying guide is dated 'Revised 12.29.2022.' Other Virginia cities (Richmond, confirmed separately) raised their BPOL exemption threshold to $500,000 effective January 1, 2026; whether Virginia Beach has done the same could not be confirmed here — verify current thresholds directly with the Commissioner of the Revenue at (757) 385-4515 before relying on this for tax year 2026. Barbershops, beauty parlors and nail/tanning salons are billed under this same general-services rate (City Code section 18-56) rather than a separate salon licence; general contractors are likewise billed under the Contracting classification with no separate city registration or bond confirmed.

A current (July 2025) fee schedule, not a stale figure.

A current (July 2025) fee schedule, not a stale figure.

Re-inspection is also $50, starting at the second re-inspection. A fire watch costs $25 after the first 48 hours, then $25 every 7 days. Virginia Beach's own local fire official exempts it from the Virginia State Fire Marshal's Office's separate $200/year mobile-food-preparation-vehicle fee, which applies only in localities without one — but whether food trucks pay this same $50 fee or a different case-by-case amount was not confirmed.

$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.