How do I get a 911 address for vacant land?

Floyd County's E911 page is the plainest record in this footprint of when an address actually arrives. It quotes the county's Code of Ordinances, section 62-53, and the sentence that matters is about timing.

The Building Official shall assign proper numbers for houses and other public and commercial buildings under construction at the time of footer inspection by the Building Official.

Floyd County E911 page, quoting Code of Ordinances section 62-53

So the number is handed out once a building is going up, at its first inspection, and the same page adds a flat note that an address will not be issued for a property until a building permit is issued. It also names two other desks: the Emergency Management Office, which it says does addressing of new structures, and the Emergency Services Department, which gives the address after the first inspection. The page does not say how the three fit together, so ask Floyd County which desk handles the step you are on.

The rule for bare ground is written out in the same place. Vacant property with no structures is given no address number, and the one exception is a cemetery, public or private. A structure on a permanent foundation that has no phone line is considered for a number at the Building Official's discretion when the owner asks. Once a house is there, the address stops being optional: Floyd requires every habitable structure to carry a 9-1-1 address even when it will not be the mailing address, which is the distinction the entry on what an E911 address is takes up.

Until something is built, bare land is identified in the county record by its tax map number. That is not a 911 address, and in Floyd County the ordinance says plainly that vacant property with no structures gets no number.

The state numbering statute is written around buildings. Va. Code 15.2-2024 lets a locality require, by ordinance, that each building fronting on a right-of-way be numbered and the number displayed so it reads easily from the right-of-way. Road names are a separate power: Va. Code 15.2-2019 lets every locality name streets, roads and alleys, so a road can carry a name before anyone builds beside it.

In Floyd, a private drive gets its own E-9-1-1 street name once three or more residential or business structures use it, whether the drive is private or public. Where two numbered structures share a driveway there, the number is displayed at the driveway entrance and at the structure, part of the larger question of whether two parcels can share a driveway.

Where the rule ties the number to a structure, a vacant parcel without one is simply what the rule produces; the missing number is not a finding about whether the land can be built on. Electric service runs on its own track, set out in how to get power to raw land.