What is a GPIN?
A GPIN is a parcel identification number, but the name belongs to particular counties rather than to Virginia law. Prince William County defines its Grid Parcel Identification Number as a unique 10-digit number built from grid coordinates. Carroll County calls its number a Tax Map/Parcel ID number. Any of these numbers points to a parcel without fixing its boundary lines or its acreage.
Asked for a GPIN in Carroll County, you answer with the Tax Map/Parcel ID
The question can arrive as a blank on a form, or a line in an email from a lender or a closing office: please provide the GPIN. Carroll County's own pages use a different name: the number a Carroll County record carries is the Tax Map/Parcel ID number.
The Circuit Court Clerk's Office uses that name on its land records page. The Commissioner of the Revenue keeps the tax identification maps and the GIS parcel layer, at 605-7 Pine Street, Hillsville, real estate line (276) 730-3030.
Next door the wording shifts again. Grayson County's Real Estate Office in Independence keeps that county's tax maps and tax cards. For Wythe, Pulaski, Montgomery or Floyd County, or the City of Galax, the commissioner of the revenue, assessor or GIS office for that locality is the one to say what its parcel number is called. How the number fits a free valuation request is answered on that page.
A grid coordinate in one county, and plainer words in the state's own statutes
The definition behind the name comes from Prince William County, a county well outside this footprint, which describes its GPIN as a unique 10-digit number built from grid coordinates at the parcel's center.
How that county builds the number, and what its ten digits record, is spelled out in the GPIN glossary entry.
Virginia's statutes use plainer terms: Va. Code 17.1-252 speaks of the "tax map reference number" or "parcel identification number (PIN)" of the affected parcel. The steps at the Carroll County counter are laid out in where to record a deed in Carroll County. On a boundary survey plat, the survey standard, 18VAC10-20-370, calls the number a tax map designation or geographic parcel identification number. How the plat and the parcel number connect across the record is the subject of the plat and parcel number behind a tract.
A parcel number finds the land; the deed and the plat describe it
Whatever it is called, a parcel number is an index. It gets you to the right page in the assessment record, the right shape on the county map and, where the clerk indexes by it, the right entries in the land records. It does not settle where the lines run or how much ground lies inside them.
Carroll County says so on its map viewer. Its Web GIS calls its layers general reference only and points to recorded plats and deeds for legal acreage and ownership.
So the number on the tax card and the acre figure beside it are a starting point. A boundary survey plat reports area in a rural area to the nearest hundredth of an acre, and the recorded deed describes the land conveyed. The name on the assessment is listed for convenience in collecting the taxes, which is why tracing an owner from a parcel number ends at the deed book, as set out in how to find out who owns a piece of land.
A form asks for a GPIN, and all you have is the county's parcel number?
Send the number with the county and a word about what is on the land, and Lowell will follow up with an opinion of value on the tract. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Is a GPIN the same thing as a PIN?
Both name a parcel identification number, but GPIN is a county-specific label. Virginia's recording statute speaks of a tax map reference number or parcel identification number (PIN), and the surveying standard speaks of a tax map designation or geographic parcel identification number. Prince William County's Grid Parcel Identification Number is one county's version, built from grid coordinates.
Can a parcel number stand in for the description of land in a deed?
No. Where the recording statute puts a parcel number on a deed's first page or cover sheet, the number serves the clerk's index. The deed still describes the property conveyed, and how a description is written or corrected is a question for the attorney who prepares the deed.
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.
- GIS frequently asked questions, the Grid Parcel Identification Number Prince William County, Virginia
- Va. Code 17.1-252, tax map reference or parcel identification number on recorded instruments Virginia General Assembly
- 18VAC10-20-370, minimum standards for land boundary surveys Virginia Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, Certified Interior Designers and Landscape Architects
- Commissioner of the Revenue Carroll County, Virginia
- Circuit Court land records Carroll County, Virginia
- Web GIS public access and site sign in Carroll County, Virginia
- Real Estate Office Grayson County, Virginia
- Va. Code 58.1-3344, the name listed as owner on an assessment Virginia General Assembly