Richmondculture & etiquette

On paper Virginia has four brackets running 2% to 5.75%. In practice the top bracket begins at USD 17,000 of taxable income, a threshold that has not moved in decades, so any full-time worker is paying 5.75% on nearly all of their income. Read Virginia as a flat 5.75% state and you will be close. The compensations are elsewhere: no local income tax anywhere in Virginia — unlike Ohio, Michigan, Kansas City or New York City — and a sales tax of 6% in the Richmond region with groceries taxed at just 1% statewide.

This is the single biggest surprise for anyone moving from a state without a car tax. Virginia localities levy a personal property tax on vehicles based on assessed value: Richmond's rate is USD 3.70 per USD 100, the bill is due 5 June, and the state's Personal Property Tax Relief Act gives a full exemption below USD 1,000 of assessed value and partial relief on the first USD 20,000. A three-year-old car can easily generate a four-figure annual bill. Budget it, and check the rate for the specific locality — Henrico and Chesterfield set their own.

Virginia DMV: title the vehicle within 30 days of moving here, register it within 30 days, and get a Virginia driver's licence within 60. Then there is a step the DMV explicitly says it cannot do for you — some localities require a local sticker or decal within 30 days, bought from the local Commissioner of the Revenue, Treasurer or Director of Finance. Every vehicle also needs an annual state safety inspection. Emissions testing, by contrast, is required only in Northern Virginia; Richmond is not in the programme.

GRTC runs the region's buses and the Pulse bus rapid transit line along Broad Street, and the whole network is zero fare — you board at any open door and pay nothing. That is a genuinely unusual position for an American city of this size and it changes the maths on whether a household needs a second car, especially along the Broad Street corridor between the West End, VCU, downtown and Church Hill. Check the route map against where you are thinking of living before you assume you need two cars and two car-tax bills.

Richmond levies a 7.5% meals tax on prepared food and drink, on top of the 6% regional sales tax. It applies whether you eat in or take away, it covers alcohol, and it applies at coffee shops, bakeries, food trucks and breweries as well as restaurants. In a city with a restaurant scene this good that is a real line in a monthly budget, and it is the most common thing newcomers query on a receipt.

Virginia's cities sit inside no county at all, which is why crossing Broad Street at the western edge of town moves you into Henrico County with a different tax rate, a different school system, a different police department and a different set of services. Nearly every independent city in the United States is in Virginia. Practically: when you compare two addresses, compare the localities and not just the neighbourhoods, and be precise about which government you are dealing with — 'Richmond' on an envelope covers several of them.