Virginia has nine fully dry counties where alcohol sales are prohibited: Bland, Buchanan, Charlotte, Craig, Grayson, Highland, Lee, Patrick, and Russell. These are the dry counties in Virginia as of the most recent legislative framework, which since 2020 treats every locality as “wet” by default unless its voters have chosen otherwise. Roughly 31 additional counties contain smaller pockets, individual supervisor election districts, where sales have been restricted even though the county as a whole has not gone dry.
What Being Dry Actually Means
Dry status in Virginia targets the sale of alcohol, not personal possession or private consumption by adults 21 and older. If you buy a bottle of bourbon in a wet county and drive it home to a house in Lee or Patrick, you have not broken any law. Virginia’s possession statute restricts only those to whom alcohol cannot lawfully be sold, chiefly people under 21.1Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-305 – Purchasing or Possessing Alcoholic Beverages Unlawful in Certain Situations You can keep alcohol in your home, serve it to guests at a private gathering, and consume it as you would anywhere else in the state.
What you cannot do in a dry county is buy it there. No retailer sells beer, wine, or spirits, and no restaurant serves cocktails unless the specific town or district has separately voted to allow it. The prohibition tracks the jurisdiction’s boundaries, which means online delivery services also have to honor the local status of the delivery address.
Fully Dry Versus Partially Dry
The difference between fully dry and partially dry matters more than the county list alone suggests. A fully dry county has voted to prohibit the sale of all alcoholic beverages. A partially dry county, sometimes called “moist,” allows some sales but not others. Many of Virginia’s restricted jurisdictions fall into this middle category, permitting beer and wine while banning mixed drinks or spirits at restaurants.
Towns inside dry counties can also act on their own. A town can hold its own referendum and approve sales even when the surrounding county has not. In Tazewell County, the town of Richlands approved mixed beverage restaurant sales in 2018 while the broader county kept tighter rules in place. The result is a patchwork where a restaurant a few miles down the road may operate under completely different rules than one across the town line.
Supervisor election districts add another layer. Virginia law lets individual districts within a county hold their own referenda, so parts of a county can be wet while other parts stay dry. That is how portions of around 31 additional counties ended up with restrictions without the county itself ever going fully dry.
Buying Spirits in Virginia
Virginia is a control state. The government holds a monopoly on retail sales of distilled spirits, and all liquor sales happen through state-run Virginia ABC stores. Private retailers can be licensed to sell beer and wine, but not vodka, whiskey, or any other spirit.
In a dry county, the state does not operate an ABC store. Because no private retailer can sell spirits either, there is no legal way to buy distilled liquor within the county. Residents who want spirits have to drive to an ABC store in an adjacent wet jurisdiction, and in the southwestern corner of the state, where most dry counties are clustered, that can be a real trip.
Even in wet counties, ABC stores follow their own schedule. State law closes them on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, though many stores open Sundays after 10 a.m.2Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-120 – When Government Stores Closed
Restaurants and Mixed Drinks
In a partially dry area that allows beer and wine but has voted down mixed beverages, a restaurant can pour you a glass of chardonnay but cannot make you a margarita. Owners in these jurisdictions have to be careful about bringing unauthorized spirits onto the premises, even for cooking, unless their license permits it.
Virginia law does leave one door open. Where mixed beverage sales have been voted down, restaurants that hold mixed beverage licenses can still sell beer and wine for on-premises consumption if they pay the appropriate fees. That carve-out prevents a mixed-beverage referendum from accidentally shutting down all alcohol service at an established restaurant.
Weddings, Fundraisers, and Other Events
Hosting a wedding, reunion, or fundraiser in a dry county is not automatically off the table. The Virginia ABC Authority issues banquet licenses for events held in unlicensed locations. A standard banquet license covers private events where alcohol is provided to guests at no charge, such as weddings and company gatherings. A banquet special event license is available to nonprofits running charitable, civic, or educational events, and that version lets the nonprofit sell alcohol through admission charges or a cash bar.3Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. Get a Banquet License
How dry-county status interacts with these licenses is not spelled out plainly on the ABC website, so if your venue sits in a restricted jurisdiction, call the Authority’s licensing office before you book. Which side of a town line the venue is on can change the answer.
How a County Becomes Dry (or Stops Being Dry)
Virginia’s local option system gives voters direct control through three separate referenda. One, under Virginia Code 4.1-121, decides whether the ABC Authority can sell alcohol in the locality at all.4Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-121 – Referendum on Establishment of Government Stores A second, under 4.1-124, decides whether restaurants can serve mixed beverages.5Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-124 – Referendum on the Sale of Mixed Beverages A third, under 4.1-123, decides whether beer and wine can be sold between noon Saturday and 6 a.m. Monday.6Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-123 – Referendum on Sunday Wine and Beer Sales Any of them can be put on the ballot by petition.
When a referendum passes, the change takes effect 60 days after the circuit court records the result. The same process works in reverse: a dry locality can vote itself wet, and a wet one can vote itself dry, with the same waiting period either way.
The 2019 legislative change that made all localities wet by default did not touch counties that had already voted dry. It flipped the burden going forward. Before the change, a locality had to affirmatively vote itself wet. Now, a locality has to affirmatively vote itself dry, which is a much harder political effort than simply never holding a vote. For the nine counties that were already dry, nothing changed on the ground, and in the rural southwestern areas where temperance traditions remain strong, the appetite to hold a wet referendum has not materialized.