Virginia has 38 independent cities, meaning cities that sit entirely outside any county and operate as their own units of local government. Of the 41 independent cities in the United States, 38 are in Virginia; the only others are Baltimore, St. Louis, and Carson City. The arrangement dates to the 1870 Virginia Constitution, which took effect in 1871 and formally separated cities from counties. Today it shapes where residents pay taxes, which schools their children attend, and which government answers when they call.
What “Independent” Actually Means
The Virginia Constitution treats counties, cities, and towns as three distinct types of local government. Article VII, Section 1 defines a city as “an independent incorporated community” of at least 5,000 residents that has received its charter under state law.1Virginia Code Commission. Constitution of Virginia Article VII Section 1 – Definitions The word “independent” is doing real work. A Virginia city is not inside a county. It sits beside counties as a legal equal, with its own government, its own courts, and its own tax base. Land within city limits is not county land, and the county has no authority over it.
That is a sharper separation than exists almost anywhere else in the country. In most states, a city is a municipality nested inside a county, and residents deal with both governments at once. In Virginia, once the General Assembly grants a city charter, the community severs all administrative ties with the surrounding county. One government handles everything within those boundaries.
How Cities Differ From Towns in Virginia
The distinction between a Virginia city and a Virginia town is not cosmetic. Towns stay part of the counties they sit in. Town residents pay taxes to both the town and the county, vote in county elections, and rely on the county for schools, courts, and social services. A town does not have its own constitutional officers, its own court system, or its own school division.
Independent cities carry all of that alone. A city runs its own schools, staffs its own courts, elects its own constitutional officers, and collects every local tax without sharing revenue with any county. The tradeoff is real. Total local control comes with total local cost, and a small city with a thin commercial tax base can find itself stretched in ways a similarly sized town, backed by county resources, never would.
The Officers and Services a City Runs Alone
Article VII, Section 4 of the Virginia Constitution requires every independent city to elect five constitutional officers: a treasurer, a sheriff, a Commonwealth’s attorney, a clerk of the circuit court, and a commissioner of the revenue.2Virginia Code Commission. Constitution of Virginia Article VII Section 4 – County and City Officers These positions handle tax collection, law enforcement, prosecution, court records, and revenue assessment without any county counterpart.
The city sheriff’s role often surprises people who assume the police department handles everything. In Virginia’s independent cities, the police department runs primary law enforcement and patrol, while the sheriff manages the city jail, provides courthouse security, and serves civil process like court summonses and eviction orders. The sheriff is elected. The police chief is appointed by the city council. Both work inside the same city limits, and their duties rarely overlap.
Every independent city must also provide its own school system. Virginia law treats each independent city as its own school division.3Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 22.1-25 – How School Divisions Made Some cities contract with neighboring counties to share court facilities or jail space, but those arrangements require formal agreements and shared funding. The city stays legally responsible for making sure each mandated service is available to residents.
Taxes and Budgets in an Independent City
Independent cities have sole authority to levy taxes within their boundaries. Residents pay real estate taxes, personal property taxes, and other local assessments directly to the city treasurer, not to any county office. Because there is no county tax layer, the city keeps all of that revenue. It also bears every cost a county would otherwise share.
Police, fire, public works, water and sewer, street maintenance, parks, and the full school system all come out of the city budget. If revenue falls short, the city cannot lean on a neighboring county, because their budgets are legally separate. That is why long-term fiscal planning matters so much for smaller independent cities, and why some have found the arrangement unsustainable.
Virginia also operates under the Dillon Rule, so a city can only exercise powers the General Assembly has explicitly granted. Independence from counties does not translate into freedom to invent new revenue sources or regulatory powers. Every tax, fee, and ordinance has to trace back to state authorization.
The 38 Independent Cities
The list spans populations from Virginia Beach, the state’s largest city, to Norton, one of its smallest:
- Alexandria, Bristol, Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Chesapeake, Colonial Heights, Covington, Danville, Emporia, Fairfax, Falls Church, Franklin, Fredericksburg
- Galax, Hampton, Harrisonburg, Hopewell, Lexington, Lynchburg, Manassas, Manassas Park, Martinsville, Newport News, Norfolk, Norton
- Petersburg, Poquoson, Portsmouth, Radford, Richmond, Roanoke, Salem, Staunton, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Waynesboro, Williamsburg, Winchester
Several of these cities function as the practical hub for an adjacent county despite being legally separate. Fairfax City houses judicial facilities used by Fairfax County. Richmond sits between Henrico and Chesterfield counties. Cooperation on transportation and emergency services is common, even though the legal boundaries stay firm.4Encyclopedia Virginia. Cities of Virginia
Martinsville’s place on the list is not settled. The Martinsville City Council voted in December 2019 to pursue reversion to town status within Henry County, and the formal process before the Commission on Local Government began in 2020.5Henry County, VA. Martinsville Reversion If that reversion is finalized, the count drops to 37.
Becoming or Ceasing to Be an Independent City
The path to independent city status runs through the courts. Under Virginia Code Chapter 38, a town seeking to become a city petitions a special three-judge court, which evaluates population (at least 5,000), fiscal capacity to run urban-level services including a school system, the impact on the surrounding county, and broader public interest factors like transportation, housing, and environmental protection.6Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 15.2 Chapter 38 – Transition of Towns to Cities Fiscal capacity is the bar most aspirations would fail. Running an independent school system is expensive, and the court has to be satisfied that the new city can sustain it without hobbling the county left behind.
A second constraint sits on top of the first. In 1987, the General Assembly imposed a moratorium on city-initiated annexation of county land. It has been repeatedly extended and remains in effect.7Virginia General Assembly. HD11 – Report on Annexation Alternatives Before the moratorium, cities could petition to absorb adjacent county territory, and the resulting fights consumed years of litigation. The freeze also removed most of the incentive to seek city status in the first place: a community that cannot grow its tax base by annexing land has little reason to take on the full cost of independence. No new independent cities have been created in decades.
The reverse move is available, and a handful of cities have taken it. Virginia Code ยง 15.2-4100 lets a city with a population under 50,000 petition to give up its charter and become a town within a surrounding county.8Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 15.2 Chapter 41 – Transition of City to Town Status A special court reviews the population threshold, the impact on the county, how debts and assets will be split, and whether the change serves both sides. Debt is often the sticking point, because the county absorbing a former city inherits responsibility for its schools, courts, and social services.9Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 15.2-4106 – Hearing and Decision by Court After reversion, residents start paying county taxes, their children enroll in county schools, and the county’s constitutional officers take over the functions the city used to run itself. South Boston, Clifton Forge in 2001, and Bedford in 2013 have all completed this process. Martinsville may be next.