Virginia Pay Transparency Law: What Employers Must Do in 2026
Date Published
Virginia Pay Transparency Law: What Employers Must Do in 2026
On July 1, 2026, Virginia became the first Southern state to require salary ranges in job postings. If you recruit anyone who could work in Virginia, the new law reaches you — even if your company sits in another state and has just one potential Virginia candidate. There is no headcount threshold to hide behind, and unlike most states, Virginia backs its rule with a private right of action. That means an applicant can sue you directly, not just wait for a state agency to act.
The good news: the requirements are clear, and they reward employers who already run defensible pay ranges. This guide walks you through exactly what the law demands, how enforcement works, the fifteen-business-day cure window that can save you from a lawsuit, and the steps to take before your next posting goes live. You will finish knowing whether your postings comply and what to fix if they don't.
TL;DR
- Virginia's pay transparency law (HB 636 / SB 215, codified at Va. Code § 40.1-28.7:12) took effect July 1, 2026 and applies to all employers with no size threshold.
- Every public and internal posting for a job, promotion, or transfer must include a good-faith wage or salary range — the minimum and maximum for the position.
- A salary history ban bars you from asking about or relying on an applicant's past pay, with a narrow exception for voluntarily disclosed history used only to support a higher offer.
- Enforcement runs on two tracks: the Attorney General can seek civil penalties up to $1,000 (first violation) and $5,000 (later violations), and an aggrieved applicant can sue within one year for actual damages.
- You avoid a private posting lawsuit if you fix the posting within 15 business days of written notice — so build a cure protocol now.
What the law actually requires
Virginia's law does two things at once: it mandates pay range disclosure and it bans salary history inquiries. Both took effect the same day, and the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry has published official guidance confirming the requirements.
On disclosure, you must include the wage, salary, or wage-or-salary range in each public and internal posting for every job, promotion, transfer, or other opportunity. The statute defines a "wage or salary range" as the minimum and maximum wage or salary for the position, set in good faith. You can anchor that range to a pay scale, a previously determined range, the actual range for people already holding equivalent positions, or the budgeted amount for the role. Virginia does not require you to describe benefits or other compensation — just the pay range itself.
The phrase that will drive litigation is "good faith." Virginia says good faith includes considering the breadth of the range. A posting that reads "$40,000–$400,000" is not a good-faith range; it is a way to disclose nothing while technically disclosing something. Regulators in other states, including New Jersey, are moving the same direction, so treat an unreasonably wide band as a red flag, not a loophole.
On salary history, you may not seek an applicant's past pay or rely on it to decide whether to hire them or to set their starting pay. The one exception: if a candidate voluntarily shares their history, you may confirm it and use it — but only to justify a higher offer that still complies with state and federal equal pay laws. You also cannot retaliate against someone for refusing to share history or for asking about the pay range.
Who is covered
This is where Virginia stands apart. The law applies to "employers" with no minimum headcount. A three-person startup and a 30,000-person enterprise carry the same obligation.
Because pay transparency rules follow the location where the work can be performed, a remote posting open to Virginia residents pulls you under the statute regardless of where your headquarters sits. If you advertise a fully remote role and a Virginia-based applicant could fill it, your posting needs a compliant range. Many multi-state employers are responding by simply including ranges on every posting nationwide — it is cheaper than maintaining state-by-state posting logic and it keeps you clear of the growing list of jurisdictions with similar rules.
How enforcement works — and why the private right of action matters
Most pay transparency states rely only on a labor agency to enforce the rules. Virginia adopted a two-track enforcement model, and the second track is the one that should get your attention.
First, the Virginia Attorney General can bring a civil action, with civil penalties of up to $1,000 for a first violation and up to $5,000 for each subsequent violation, plus other legal and equitable relief a court may order.
Second — and more consequentially — any aggrieved applicant or employee can bring a private lawsuit within one year to recover actual damages and other relief. Virginia joins Washington as one of the few states that let job seekers sue over posting violations directly. In Washington, that provision triggered a wave of class actions, so the litigation risk here is real, not theoretical.
Employers did catch a break. The bill the legislature originally sent to the governor would have allowed statutory damages of $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, attorneys' fees, and collective actions over a two-year window. The enacted version stripped statutory damages and fee-shifting, limited recovery to actual damages, and shortened the clock to one year. That makes each individual claim smaller — but it does not eliminate the exposure, especially across high-volume postings.
The 15-business-day cure period is your safety valve
Here is the provision worth memorizing. For a violation based on failing to disclose pay in a posting or failing to set the range in good faith, an applicant cannot sue you if you correct the posting — at its original posting locations — within fifteen business days after you receive written notice. A single written notice covers that posting for its full run.
That window only helps you if you can actually act on it. Build the protocol now:
- Designate one intake point — an email address or ticket queue — where posting complaints land, and make sure someone monitors it daily.
- Keep a record of where each role is posted (your careers page, LinkedIn, Indeed, third-party boards) so you can correct every location, not just the one someone flagged.
- Pre-approve compliant range language so a fix is a copy-paste, not a committee decision.
Miss the fifteen days and you lose the shield. Hit it and a posting complaint never becomes a lawsuit.
If you are managing this alongside California, Colorado, New York, and the other states with their own quirks, our 2026 multi-state pay transparency compliance guide maps the differences so you are not rebuilding this logic state by state.
How to build ranges that survive scrutiny
A compliance rule is only as strong as the pay structure behind it. "Good faith" is not a drafting exercise you solve in the applicant tracking system; it is a question of whether your ranges reflect a real, defensible method for valuing the work.
This is where a quantitative job evaluation approach earns its keep. The point-factor method scores each job against weighted compensable factors — skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, broken into sub-factors — to produce an internal ranking you can defend on the merits. When a job's grade comes from a consistent, documented scoring process rather than a hunch, the salary range attached to that grade is genuinely good-faith by construction. You can show your work.
Two moves make your posted ranges durable:
- Anchor ranges to a defensible structure. Tie each posting to a pay grade with a real minimum and maximum, not to a number a hiring manager picked under deadline. Our guide to building defensible pay ranges walks through the mechanics, and our overview of salary bands covers how to set band widths that look reasonable to a court.
- Keep internal equity and pay equity straight. Internal equity means jobs of similar value are paid similarly within your organization; pay equity is the regulatory question of whether protected groups are paid fairly for equal or comparable work. A transparent range invites both kinds of scrutiny, so it is worth running a privileged pay equity audit before disclosure surfaces gaps you did not know you had.
A practical compliance checklist
Before your next Virginia-eligible posting goes live, confirm the following:
Step | What to check |
|---|---|
Posting scope | Every public and internal posting for jobs, promotions, and transfers includes a range |
Range quality | Minimum and maximum are set in good faith; the breadth is reasonable, not "$40k–$400k" |
Remote roles | Any role a Virginia resident could perform carries a compliant range |
Applications | Salary history questions removed from forms, screening tools, and third-party recruiter scripts |
Interview guides | Recruiters and hiring managers trained not to ask about past pay |
Cure protocol | One intake point, a posting-location log, and pre-approved range language ready to deploy |
Documentation | Written methodology for how each range was determined, kept on file |
Frequently asked questions
When did Virginia's pay transparency law take effect? July 1, 2026. The law was approved on April 22, 2026, and is codified at Va. Code § 40.1-28.7:12. It was enacted through companion bills HB 636 and SB 215.
Does the law apply to small employers? Yes. Unlike Maine's July 2026 law, which covers employers with ten or more employees, Virginia's law has no size threshold. Every employer that posts a covered job is subject to the disclosure and salary history rules.
Do I have to post ranges for remote jobs? If a Virginia resident could perform the role, treat the posting as covered and include a good-faith range. Because the rule follows where the work can be done, many employers include ranges on all postings nationwide to stay clean.
What counts as a "good-faith" range? The minimum and maximum you genuinely expect to pay, anchored to a pay scale, a prior range, the actual range for equivalent roles, or the budgeted amount. Virginia specifically says good faith accounts for the breadth of the range, so avoid extreme spans meant to disclose nothing.
Can I still ask candidates about their current pay? No. You cannot seek or rely on salary history to make a hiring or pay decision. If a candidate volunteers the information, you may confirm it and use it only to justify a higher offer that complies with equal pay laws.
What are the penalties for non-compliance? The Attorney General can seek civil penalties of up to $1,000 for a first violation and up to $5,000 for later ones. Separately, an aggrieved applicant or employee can sue within one year for actual damages — unless you fix a posting violation within 15 business days of written notice.
How is Virginia different from other states? Virginia is the first Southern state with a pay transparency law and one of the few — alongside Washington — that lets applicants sue directly over posting violations. That private right of action makes accurate, good-faith ranges more important here than in agency-only states.
Get your ranges audit-ready before the next posting
Virginia's law does not just ask you to publish a number — it asks you to publish a defensible one, and to be ready to prove how you got there. Employers who already evaluate jobs with a consistent, quantitative method walk into this with the hard part done. Everyone else is one complaint away from finding out their ranges were guesses.
PointFactors uses AI-powered point-factor job evaluation to score every role against weighted compensable factors, so your pay grades — and the ranges you post — rest on a documented, repeatable method you can defend. Book a demo and see how fast you can turn compliance pressure into a pay structure you actually trust.
Justin Hampton is the founder and CEO of PointFactors.