Virginia Criminal Records

Virginia is a consent state with a statewide court search, which makes it one of the easier states to check and one of the more misunderstood. The court system searches criminal and traffic cases across every general district court from one screen, but the circuit courts, where the felonies end up, join that search one at a time. The State Police name check requires the person's signed consent. And a sealing law that took effect in stages through 2026 is now removing convictions from the public record automatically. This page gives the Virginia rule and the Virginia search for each record, with government sources only.

The Virginia court system's case status and information page offers "online access to a statewide search of adult criminal case information in the juvenile & domestic relations district courts, criminal and traffic case information in general district courts and select circuit courts." That is the Online Case Information System, and its scope is the first thing to understand: every general district court, which hears misdemeanors, traffic and the preliminary stages of felonies, is in it; the circuit courts, which try the felonies, are in it only where the clerk has joined, and the clerks of the others run their own case searches or search at the counter. A felony therefore often shows in the statewide search as the general district court's preliminary hearing and then disappears into a circuit court file that may or may not be online. The older general district court system "will require you to search by individual court." The criminal records page explains what a database copy of any of these misses.

The Virginia State Police's Central Criminal Records Exchange holds the state file, and the criminal history record check page sends requests to form SP-167, the "Criminal History Record Name Search Request," which "must be printed and mailed" and carries a fee "on all background checks to cover processing costs." The form's consent block is the Virginia rule in one sentence: "I hereby give consent and authorize the Virginia State Police to search the files of the Central Criminal Records Exchange for a criminal history record and report the results." Employers, landlords and others get the full record with that signature; without it the Exchange releases conviction data only to the agencies the Code names. The fingerprint version is for the licensing and employment programs the statutes authorize, and the person's own record is obtained the same way.

Virginia rewrote its expungement law and added sealing in Chapter 23.2 of Title 19.2 of the Code, Sealing of Criminal History Record Information, with the pieces taking effect in stages. Under section 19.2-392.6, a conviction for the listed low-level offenses "with an offense date on or after January 1, 1986 ... shall be ordered to be automatically sealed" after the waiting period the section sets, and the chapter provides that "the automatic sealing of that particular offense shall be voidable upon motion and notice made within two years" if it was sealed contrary to law. Other convictions are sealed by petition to the circuit court after the waiting periods the chapter sets, and charges that ended without a conviction are expunged under section 19.2-392.2, whose newest version takes effect December 1, 2026. A sealed Virginia case leaves the court's public index and the Exchange's dissemination, and the chapter also reaches the copies: a business that disseminates criminal history information must delete sealed records, and the federal rule on complete and up to date public records applies on top.

Virginia's Freedom of Information Act answers the arrest question in section 2.2-3706: "All public bodies engaged in criminal law-enforcement activities shall provide the following records when requested," beginning with "adult arrestee photographs taken during the initial intake following the arrest and as part of the routine booking procedure, except when necessary to avoid jeopardizing an investigation in felony cases," and continuing with the arrest and booking information, while section 2.2-3706.1 opens "criminal incident information relating to felony offenses" and the criminal investigative files of closed cases. So a Virginia booking photograph is public by statute unless releasing it would jeopardize a felony investigation. Who is in custody is in the Department of Corrections inmate and supervisee locator, which gives "an inmate's location and release date if they are under the custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections," updated daily, and the regional and local jails post their own rosters. The arrest records page covers the rest.

A Virginia judgment's life depends on its date. Under section 8.01-251, "no execution shall be issued and no action brought on a judgment dated, extended, or renewed, prior to July 1, 2021 ... after 20 years from the date of such judgment," and a judgment dated after that is enforceable for ten years, extendable by recording before it expires. A judgment docketed with the circuit court clerk is a lien on the debtor's real property in that county from docketing. The court records page covers where the judgment dockets are searched.

Virginia is divided into two federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 127. The Eastern District covers the counties of Accomac, Amelia, Arlington, Brunswick, Caroline, Charles City, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Elizabeth City, Essex, Fairfax, Fauquier, Gloucester, Goochland, Greensville, Hanover, Henrico, Isle of Wight, James City, King and Queen, King George, King William, Lancaster, Loudoun, Lunenburg, Mathews, Mecklenburg, Middlesex, Nansemond, New Kent, Norfolk, Northampton, Northumberland, Nottoway, Powhatan, Prince Edward, Prince George, Prince William, Princess Anne, Richmond, Southampton, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Surry, Sussex, Warwick, Westmoreland and York, and the cities within them, with court held at Alexandria, Newport News, Norfolk and Richmond. The Western District covers the counties of Albemarle, Alleghany, Amherst, Appomattox, Augusta, Bath, Bedford, Bland, Botetourt, Buchanan, Buckingham, Campbell, Carroll, Charlotte, Clarke, Craig, Culpeper, Cumberland, Dickenson, Floyd, Fluvanna, Franklin, Frederick, Giles, Grayson, Greene, Halifax, Henry, Highland, Lee, Louisa, Madison, Montgomery, Nelson, Orange, Page, Patrick, Pittsylvania, Pulaski, Rappahannock, Roanoke, Rockbridge, Rockingham, Russell, Scott, Shenandoah, Smyth, Tazewell, Warren, Washington, Wise and Wythe, with court held at Abingdon, Big Stone Gap, Charlottesville, Danville, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg and Roanoke. A federal case from any Virginia county or city is on one of those two dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person was charged in Virginia: the statewide case search answers it for every general district court and the circuit courts that have joined, free, by name, and the other circuit clerks answer for their own.

Whether a person has a Virginia record at the Exchange: the SP-167 name search answers it, with the person's signed consent.

Whether a person is in custody now: the Department of Corrections locator answers it for state prison, and the jail rosters for the rest.

Whether an old case can still be found: a sealed conviction is out of the court's public index and the Exchange, an expunged charge is gone, a pre-2021 judgment is live for twenty years, and a copy that predates a sealing is reached through the chapter's deletion duty and the federal rule.