Do I need a VDOT permit for a driveway?
Yes, if the driveway connects to a state-maintained road. VDOT's rules treat any driveway meeting the highway as an entrance, and no entrance may be built in the state right-of-way until VDOT approves the location and issues a permit. A permanent upgrade or a change in use of an existing entrance needs one too. A drive off a private road, or a street inside Galax, falls outside that rule.
Every driveway that meets a state highway is an entrance
VDOT's Access Management Regulations begin with a definition wide enough to catch a farm lane. An entrance, in the regulation's words:
means any driveway, street, or other means of providing for movement of vehicles to or from the highway.
24VAC30-73-10, Definitions
The rule that follows is just as wide:
No entrance of any nature may be constructed within the right-of-way until the location has been approved by VDOT and an entrance permit has been issued.
24VAC30-73-60
VDOT may block, obstruct or remove an entrance built without one, and the Land Use Permit Regulations add that no work of any nature happens on a state highway or VDOT right-of-way until VDOT gives written permission. District administrators or their designees issue the permit, which the VDOT entrance permit entry describes.
The Code of Virginia supports the owner's side of the connection: under Va. Code 33.2-240 the Commissioner of Highways "shall permit suitable connections from where private roads leading to and from private homes intersect improved highways". A private entrance, as the regulation defines it, can serve up to two private residences for the exclusive benefit of their occupants; when a drive will serve more, sharing a driveway between parcels covers when the entrance becomes a different class.
New, upgraded or changed in use, and the two places the rule stops
The permit is not only for a fresh cut in the shoulder. Three kinds of work bring it into play.
- A new entrance. Nothing goes into the state right-of-way until VDOT approves the location and issues the permit.
- A permanent upgrade to an existing entrance. The Land Use Permit Regulations require a single use permit before constructing a permanent entrance or making permanent upgrades to an existing one, even where a districtwide permit might otherwise allow the activity.
- A change in how an entrance is used. VDOT states that a land use permit is also required when an existing entrance is modified because of a change in land use, traffic volume or type of traffic.
Two situations sit outside VDOT's rule. The regulations apply to highways that are part of the systems of state highways, so a driveway that leaves a private road is not a VDOT entrance, though the point where that private road meets a state highway is one; how to tell whether a road is state maintained covers that check. And VDOT's Road Design Manual says the access management regulations and standards do not apply in cities, which may choose to apply them to roads they maintain, so a new entrance on a street inside the City of Galax starts with the City of Galax.
The residency takes the application, and the county sets when it must be in hand
Entrance permit applications are obtained from and submitted to the district administrator's designee for the county where the work will be done, and VDOT says land use permits are typically obtained at the district or residency office serving that locality.
For Carroll County that is the Martinsville Residency at 309 Weeping Willow Lane, Bassett, 276-629-2581. Grayson's building checklist sends applicants to the Wytheville residency at 2843 Chapman Road. The residency for each of the other localities is listed on the six counties page.
Where the entrance permit falls in the building permit order depends on the county:
- Wythe County requires the VDOT entranceway permit before a building permit application when a new driveway is cut off a state-maintained road, and says the requirement does not apply where the property has an existing driveway or is on a private road.
- Grayson County lists a VDOT entrance permit for new buildings served by new access drive connections to a Virginia secondary highway, and its zoning application asks whether a new entrance is being created off a state-maintained road and, if so, for the approved permit.
- Carroll County's new-dwelling cover sheet walks applicants through a VDOT entrance permit for access from VDOT-regulated roads, alongside land disturbance, a septic permit or determination letter and an E911 address, and says evidence of approval from each agency involved is required before any building permit can be issued.
The entrance is one approval among several, and the fuller list is in what permits you need to build a house in Virginia. In Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski, the county building office confirms where the entrance permit sits in its own sequence.
The permit reaches VDOT's strip, and building and upkeep fall to the owner
A permit is narrower than it looks.
Under 24VAC30-151-20 a permit carries only the rights written in it, and only as far as VDOT's own rights in the right-of-way reach. Permission from anyone else with an interest in the land stays the permit holder's job, so the permit does not supply a right to reach the entrance across someone else's ground; it is only as useful as the parcel's own road frontage or a right the owner already holds. On shoulder and ditch section roads the owner is responsible for installing the private entrance to VDOT policies and engineering standards. The owner may ask VDOT to stabilize the shoulder and install the entrance pipe, in which case VDOT may install the pipe and will stabilize the shoulder at the owner's expense, giving an estimate but billing the actual cost. Grading and installing the driveway from the edge of the pavement to the right-of-way line, and all grading beyond the shoulder, stay with the owner.
Afterward the owner maintains the entrance, apart from duties VDOT keeps by road type. On shoulder section highways VDOT maintains the part within the normal shoulder, and on highways with ditches it cleans the drainage pipe at the entrance and "may replace the pipe if necessary to preserve the highway and protect the traveling public". Replacement is at VDOT's discretion, not a promise.
On cost, the Land Use Permit Regulations set a $100 application fee for a single permit, and the additive fee schedule lists private entrances as "none". Whether the $100 is charged on a private entrance in practice is for the residency to confirm. Width, radius, pipe size and sight distance are design questions, covered in the entrance design standards VDOT applies.
Planning a new driveway off a state road?
Name the county and the road the parcel fronts, and Lowell can say which residency takes the entrance and what that county wants in hand first. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Does an entrance that only reaches a farm field need a permit?
If it meets a state-maintained road, yes. The Access Management Regulations define a private entrance to include one that allows agricultural operations to obtain access to fields, and no entrance of any nature may be constructed within the right-of-way until VDOT approves the location and issues an entrance permit. The VDOT residency for the county confirms what a given field entrance requires.
Does a private entrance permit carry a fee?
The Land Use Permit Regulations set a $100 application fee for a single permit, and the additive fee schedule lists private entrances as none. The regulation alone does not settle whether that application fee is charged on a private entrance in practice, so the VDOT residency for the county where the work will be done is the office to ask before applying.
Does a new driveway inside the City of Galax go through VDOT?
Start with the city. VDOT's Road Design Manual says its access management regulations and standards do not apply in cities, though a city may choose to apply them to the roads it maintains. Galax is an independent city, so the City of Galax confirms what a new entrance on one of its streets requires and whether any VDOT standard is used.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- 24VAC30-73-10, Access Management Regulations definitions (entrance, private entrance) Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-20, authority to issue entrance permits Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-30, applicability to the systems of state highways Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-40, where entrance permit applications are filed Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-60, no entrance before the permit issues Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-73-90, private entrances: installation and maintenance Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-151-20, written permission and what a permit grants Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-151-30, single use permits for permanent entrances and upgrades Virginia Department of Transportation
- 24VAC30-151-710, permit fees Virginia Department of Transportation
- Va. Code 33.2-240, connections of private roads with highways Virginia General Assembly
- Land use permits (entrances, modified entrances, where permits are obtained) Virginia Department of Transportation
- Districts and residencies (Martinsville and Wytheville) Virginia Department of Transportation
- Road Design Manual Appendix F, Access Management Design Standards for Entrances and Intersections Virginia Department of Transportation
- Building Permit Requirements (entranceway permit for a new driveway) Wythe County, Virginia
- Building permit application submission requirements (VDOT entrance permit) Grayson County, Virginia
- Zoning Application, Form 0100, revised 10-25-2024 (new entrance off a state-maintained road) Grayson County, Virginia
- Building Official cover sheet for a new dwelling (agency approvals before a building permit) Carroll County, Virginia