Fairfax County started charging a meals tax in January. Arlington and Roanoke went up in July.
Virginia's local meals tax is climbing, and the referendum that used to stand in a county's way has been gone since 2020. In Roanoke, unpaid meals tax has produced criminal charges against restaurant owners.
Fairfax County began collecting a tax on prepared food and beverages on January 1, 2026, at 4%. It is the county’s first. Voters rejected a meals tax by referendum in 2016, and the Board of Supervisors imposed this one without a vote, because since 2020 it has not needed one.
Arlington County went from 4% to 5% on July 1, 2025. Roanoke went to 6.5% the same day. Virginia Beach moved to 6% in its FY2026 budget.
What changed in 2020
Counties used to be capped at 4% and required to win a referendum first. HB 785, enacted in 2020, removed the referendum requirement and raised the county ceiling to 6%, matching what cities already had. The food and beverage provisions took effect on enactment, April 22, 2020.
Cities and towns operate under a different section, § 58.1-3840, which carries no statutory rate cap at all. That is why Richmond charges 7.5% and Charlottesville 7%, both above the county ceiling.
Where the rates stand
| Locality | Meals tax | Sales tax | On the check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richmond | 7.5% | 6.0% | 13.5% |
| Charlottesville | 7.0% | 5.3% | 12.3% |
| Norfolk | 6.5% | 6.0% | 12.5% |
| Roanoke | 6.5% | 5.3% | 11.8% |
| Fredericksburg | 6.0% | 5.3% | 11.3% |
| Virginia Beach | 6.0% | 6.0% | 12.0% |
| Spotsylvania County | 6.0% | 5.3% | 11.3% |
| Alexandria | 5.0% | 6.0% | 11.0% |
| Arlington County | 5.0% | 6.0% | 11.0% |
| Fairfax County | 4.0% | 6.0% | 10.0% |
Spotsylvania sits at the county statutory ceiling. It has since October 2023, three years before the Kalahari resort opens there.
Prepared food does not get Virginia’s reduced grocery rate. The Department of Taxation excludes hot food packaged for immediate consumption, and bars restaurants, caterers, food trucks and theaters from the reduced rate entirely.
The VRLTA published a study on January 28 covering all 133 Virginia localities and found nearly a third exceed the 5.3% sales tax baseline, describing the result as a fragmented and uneven local tax environment.
The part that gets owners arrested
Meals tax is a trust tax. The diner’s money is collected on the locality’s behalf and held for it. Under § 58.1-3906, a corporate officer, LLC member or manager who willfully fails to pay it over is personally liable for a penalty equal to the entire amount of the tax, on top of what the business owes. Two conditions: actual knowledge of the failure, and authority to prevent it. Corporate form is not a shield.
Roanoke started charging owners criminally in October 2024. Commissioner of the Revenue Ryan LaFountain put the theory plainly at the time: customers “give the money to the restaurants, for them to give to the city. If that money doesn’t go from the restaurant to the city, they’re stealing.”
The documented case is Katheryn Pascal, former owner of FarmBurguesa, charged with one felony count of embezzlement and eleven misdemeanor counts of failure to collect and remit, over roughly $6,700 in back meals tax across ten consecutive months at the Vinton location. She took a plea deal in Roanoke County Circuit Court on March 7, 2025.
Under § 18.2-111, proof of embezzlement sustains a larceny charge. Above $1,000 that is grand larceny, punishable by one to twenty years.
The compliance details that cost money
Due the 20th, almost everywhere. Richmond, Norfolk, Fairfax County, Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, Spotsylvania and Virginia Beach all file monthly by the 20th. Alexandria is the outlier: the last day of the following month.
Penalties are 10% nearly everywhere, with interest of 10% a year in Richmond, Norfolk and Fredericksburg. Fairfax County is the mildest at 5% interest.
The seller’s discount is the one piece of good news, and you forfeit it by being late. Fairfax County lets timely filers keep 3% of the tax collected through December 31, 2027, dropping to 1% in 2028. Spotsylvania allows 3%. Fredericksburg allows 3% or $100, whichever is less. Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania both say plainly that late payment forfeits it.
State sales tax has its own discount under § 58.1-622, but any dealer whose average monthly sales tax liability exceeds $20,000 is not eligible, no discount is allowed on the local 1%, and the return and the payment both have to be on time. A 2026 bill to expand the discount, SB 697, was passed by indefinitely in Senate Finance on January 28, 10-4.
What comes next
The budget bill enacted in the 2026 special session extended authority to levy an additional 1% local sales tax to every Virginia county and city, effective July 1, 2026. It was previously available to only nine localities. It still requires a referendum, it does not touch groceries, and it does apply to restaurant meals.
Any locality in Virginia can now put a penny on the ballot. Restaurant checks are in the base.
