How to Find Probate Records in Virginia by County

Virginia has no probate court. Every estate filing in the Commonwealth is recorded by a circuit court clerk in the county or independent city where the decedent lived, across 31 judicial circuits covering 95 counties and 38 independent cities. There is no statewide probate database, and no Virginia court portal carries probate at all.

That last point is the one that costs people the most time. Virginia's online case-information systems exist, they work, and they cover civil and criminal matters only. An estate is not docketed as a numbered civil case in Virginia; it is a clerk-recorded fiduciary matter, written into the will and fiduciary books alongside the land records. Searching for it in a case portal returns nothing, and the nothing tells you nothing.

Everything below is what actually works instead, with Fairfax County covered in detail because it is the market ProbateData serves and the one Virginia jurisdiction with a paid online route to the records.

# Are Virginia probate records public?

Yes. Virginia Code § 17.1-208 states that "any records that are maintained by the clerks of the circuit courts shall be open to inspection in the office of the clerk by any person." You do not need to be an heir, a beneficiary, an attorney, or a party to anything.

Read that section closely, because the access route is written into it. The records are open in the office of the clerk. There is no statutory right to a remote database, and Virginia has not built one for probate.

One route people try and should not: a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request. Va. Code § 2.2-3703(A)(6) expressly excludes from VFOIA "the records maintained by the clerks of the courts of record." A VFOIA request sent to a circuit court clerk for a probate file is not a valid procedure and will be refused. Ask the clerk under § 17.1-208 instead, in person, by phone or in writing.

What a Virginia estate file typically holds:

# Where are probate records filed in Virginia?

With the circuit court clerk, under a three-tier venue cascade that most guides state as a single rule.

Va. Code § 64.2-443 sets it out in order: a will is offered for probate in the circuit court of the county or city where the decedent had a known place of residence; if there is no such known place of residence, then in a county or city where any real estate devised or owned by the decedent lies; and if there is no such real estate, then where the decedent died or where the decedent has estate.

The second tier matters more in Northern Virginia than anywhere else in the state. An out-of-state owner with a Fairfax rental, a snowbird whose primary residence is elsewhere, or anyone with no known Virginia residence produces a filing in the property county, not a residence county. If you only ever search residence, you miss that population entirely.

Section 64.2-443(B) adds the trap that catches researchers most often: a person admitted to a nursing home, convalescent home or similar facility is rebuttably presumed to keep the residence held immediately before admission. A decedent who died in a Fairfax facility after 30 years in Prince William is presumed a Prince William filing.

The clerk, not a judge, runs the front end. Va. Code § 64.2-444 lets the clerk or a duly qualified deputy clerk admit wills to probate, appoint and qualify executors and administrators, and take bonds "in the same manner and with like effect as the circuit court." A judge only appears on appeal or a contest.

Independent cities cut two different ways

Virginia's 38 independent cities are not inside the counties that surround them, and their probate venue is set by § 17.1-506, which composes the judicial circuits.

• City of Falls Church residents file at the Arlington County Circuit Court. Arlington County and Falls Church together constitute the seventeenth circuit.
• City of Alexandria residents file at the Circuit Court of Alexandria, the eighteenth circuit, not in Fairfax County.
• City of Fairfax residents do file at the Fairfax Circuit Court. The City of Fairfax and the County of Fairfax together constitute the nineteenth circuit, and the courthouse itself sits inside the independent city.

That third one is the reverse of the first two and is worth memorising, because a Fairfax mailing address tells you nothing on its own. Falls Church and Alexandria addresses look like Fairfax County addresses and are not.

Testate and intestate read differently

Testate filings produce a will, a named executor and letters testamentary. The important field is not the executor's name. It is whether the will grants a power of sale, covered below.

Intestate filings produce a petition for administration, a court-qualified administrator, and a list of heirs that is often the single most useful page in the file. Several heirs who never planned for the situation now jointly own a house none of them lives in, and none of them can sell it alone.

Why nothing shows up in the case portals

Virginia probate is not a numbered circuit court civil case. It is recorded in the clerk's will and fiduciary books, indexed with and frequently searched alongside land records, which is exactly why Fairfax's CPAN bundles probate with deeds and why the Land Records Division and Historic Records Center share a floor. It is also why the state's case-information systems, which index dockets, do not index probate.

# Do all Virginia estates produce a probate file?

No, and this is the population most probate lead research never sees.

Va. Code § 64.2-601 allows a small asset to be paid or delivered on affidavit alone, with no qualification and no probate file, where the decedent's entire personal probate estate does not exceed $75,000 and at least 60 days have elapsed since the death. Real estate passes outside the probate estate anyway, so a Virginia decedent can own a house, leave under $75,000 in personal property, and generate no estate file at all.

Va. Code § 64.2-510 is the trace those cases leave. Any person with an interest in intestate real estate may record an affidavit describing the property and listing the heirs, filed with the clerk of the court where the property lies. It goes into the land records, not the estate index.

For anyone working Virginia by hand, the practical consequence is that the probate index is a partial view. The clerk's land records carry heirs of decedents who never had a probate case opened, and the § 58.1-1717.1 $25 recordation fee for a list of heirs or real estate affidavit "where no will has been probated and no administration granted" is the fee line that identifies them.

# Who supervises a Virginia estate after the personal representative qualifies?

The Commissioner of Accounts, and this is the structural fact that most Virginia probate guides omit entirely.

The clerk's job under § 64.2-444 ends roughly where the estate begins. Ongoing supervision belongs to a separate office. Under Va. Code § 64.2-1200, the judges of each circuit court appoint as many commissioners of accounts as are necessary, each "a discreet and competent attorney-at-law," to provide oversight of all fiduciaries and to make "all ex parte settlements of the fiduciaries' accounts."

The inventory and every accounting go to the Commissioner of Accounts, not to the clerk. Commissioners frequently operate from a private law office rather than the courthouse. In Fairfax that office is:

Arlington County and the City of Falls Church have their own Commissioner of Accounts for the 17th circuit. Every circuit has at least one.

The two filings that matter, and when they land

The inventory, due within four months of the order conferring authority, under § 64.2-1300. The personal representative must list "all real estate over which he has the power of sale, and any other real estate that is an asset of the decedent's estate, whether or not situated in the Commonwealth." This is the first document in a Virginia estate that names the real property, which makes month four, not week one, the point at which the file becomes useful for property work.

The first accounting, due within sixteen months of qualification and covering the first twelve, under § 64.2-1304. Subsequent accountings run annually, each due within four months of the end of its twelve-month period, under § 64.2-1305.

The disqualification signal nobody publishes

The Fairfax Commissioner of Accounts sets out a practice point that is worth more than most lead filters. Where the fiduciary does not intend to sell, the real estate can be removed from the estate in the first accounting. Once removed, the value of the real estate is not included in the calculation of the commissioner's filing fee, and the fiduciary is not permitted compensation on the value of the real estate unless the fiduciary exercises the power of sale. Source: COAFFX, Real Estate.

Read backwards, that is a signal in public records: an estate whose real estate has been removed from the accounting is an estate that is not selling. There is a financial incentive for the fiduciary to remove it when no sale is planned, and no reason to remove it when one is. It is the cleanest negative filter available in Virginia public data, and it appears in a document filed with the Commissioner of Accounts, not the clerk.

# How do you look up probate records in Virginia?

By contacting the clerk's office directly, in almost every jurisdiction. There is no free online probate search anywhere in Virginia, and the three systems people are usually pointed to do not carry probate.

eCaseSearch is worth understanding properly because it is widely misdescribed as a statewide tool. It was built in-house by the Fairfax Circuit Court with the Fairfax County Department of Information Technology and launched in July 2024. It is a Fairfax product, it covers one court, and its two case-type options are civil and criminal. It is useful for what it does. It will not find an estate.

Other circuit courts run their own separate remote-access programmes, most commonly the state's Officer of the Court Remote Access system, which is restricted to Virginia attorneys and title examiners. Verify per county before assuming any online access exists. For older records in counties with nothing online, the Library of Virginia holds microfilmed will books for most Virginia localities along with statewide indexes, and archived circuit court records are transferred there under the Virginia Public Records Act.

What to have ready before you call or visit any clerk: the decedent's full legal name, an approximate date of death, the county or city of residence at death, and the specific documents you want. Most clerks will take a walk-in name search, though practice varies across 31 circuits and none of it is standardised, so call first.

Fairfax County

Virginia's most populous jurisdiction, with a population estimate of 1,167,873 as of July 2025 and a median household income of $153,637, among the highest of any county in the country. High property values and an ageing owner base make it the state's densest probate real estate market, though Fairfax publishes no probate filing count.

An appointment is required to meet with a probate clerk. Fiduciary fees are calculated during that appointment and, in the court's own words, cannot be given over the telephone. Budget for the call and the calendar.

Fairfax records sit in three separate places:

The Historic Records Center is open during regular business hours, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, closed 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. No appointment is required.

Two Fairfax specifics that save money. First, the wills finding aid publishes two free downloadable index PDFs, A to K and L to Z, covering will books 1742 to 1936 in full. Those books contain wills, inventories, estate and sale accounts, guardianship bonds and accounts, and executor and administrator bonds. For anything in that range, the free index does the work a subscription would. For records after 1936, the official instruction is to contact the Probate Department, not the Land Records Division.

Second, the File Review Request Form is not a probate tool. Its own scope is "Circuit Court Civil or older Criminal" files. You will be notified of availability within two business days, files are reviewed in person, and civil files are held four business days. Estate files are not in scope; those go through the Probate Department on (703) 246-4153.

The rest of Northern Virginia

The three courts a Fairfax researcher hits most often, none of which has a public online probate search:

Fairfax is the only one of the three with a paid online route to its own records. The other two are phone and counter work.

# What does it cost to pull Virginia probate records?

Two separate cost lines: the probate tax the estate pays, and what you pay for access.

The state probate tax is 10 cents per $100 of value, or fraction thereof, under § 58.1-1712. That is $1 per $1,000. Estates of $15,000 or less in value pay no state probate tax. A county or city may additionally impose a local probate tax equal to one-third of the state amount under § 58.1-1718, which brings the combined figure to roughly $1.33 per $1,000 where the local tax is levied.

That is worth knowing for a reason beyond compliance. The probate tax is assessed on the personal probate estate, it is visible in the file, and it is therefore a rough floor on estate value that you can read off the paperwork.

Recording a list of heirs or a real estate affidavit where no will has been probated and no administration has been granted carries a $25 fee under § 58.1-1717.1.

For access:

CPAN setup requires a CPAN Entity Agreement plus a CPAN User Agreement for each user, with payment by check made out to Fairfax Circuit Court. The HelpDesk is [email protected] or (703) 246-2366.

# How long does probate take in Virginia?

Longer than the six-month figure most guides quote. Six months is the earliest an estate can move toward distribution; the accounting calendar means most Virginia estates run 16 to 18 months or more, because the personal representative's first account is not due until sixteen months after qualification.

The two dates in bold are the ones that carry real estate information. Month four is when the property first appears in writing. Month sixteen is when you learn whether it stayed in the estate or came out of it.

This is also why a four-month outreach sequence is the wrong shape for Virginia. An estate you contact in month two is still open in month twelve, and in most cases still open in month eighteen.

# How do you turn a Virginia probate filing into a real estate lead?

The filing tells you an estate exists. Five more steps tell you whether anyone in it can actually sign a listing agreement.

1. Check for a power of sale before anything else. Virginia is a title-vests-at-death state. The Fairfax Commissioner of Accounts puts it plainly: title to real property typically vests in the devisee or heir immediately on the decedent's death, and the fiduciary may sell the decedent's real property only if the testator or the court grants a power of sale. Section 64.2-521 gives the executor power to sell where the will devises real estate to be sold and names nobody else to sell it. Absent that devise or a court order, the personal representative cannot convey. An agent who takes a listing agreement from a Virginia personal representative who has no power of sale is holding an unsignable contract.

2. Get the list of heirs, form CC-1611. Under § 64.2-509 it is filed at qualification, or by a will proponent where no representative has qualified, or by any heir at law once 30 days have passed since the death with no qualification. Form CC-1611 carries names, ages, addresses and relationship to the decedent. Where step one shows no power of sale, this document names your actual sellers. On an intestate estate with four siblings, it tells you on one page how many people have to agree.

3. Read the inventory at month four, not the petition at week one. The petition does not itemise real property. The § 64.2-1300 inventory does, and it is filed with the Commissioner of Accounts, at the commissioner's office, which in Fairfax is a private law office at 10400 Eaton Place, not the courthouse. Sending someone to the clerk for an inventory sends them to the wrong building.

4. Check whether the real estate was removed in the first accounting. As above, removal is the fiduciary telling the Commissioner of Accounts that no sale is planned. It is the strongest negative signal Virginia public records give you, and acting on it saves more time than any positive filter.

5. Confirm venue before you conclude the estate does not exist. Falls Church files in Arlington. Alexandria files in Alexandria. A nursing-home decedent is presumed to have kept the residence held before admission. A decedent with no known Virginia residence files where the property lies. Four different answers to one question, and no portal to check them against.

Be honest about what Virginia records do not carry. There are no phone numbers and no email addresses in an estate file, so contact detail is a skip trace and not a lookup. There is no free online search anywhere in the Commonwealth, so every case starts as a phone call, a counter visit, or a paid Fairfax subscription. The inventory lists real estate but the statute does not prescribe a valuation basis, so do not assume the figure on the page is either assessed or market value.

Follow-up is where most of this falls apart. Virginia's calendar runs 16 months or more, so a personal representative who says no in month three is a different conversation in month ten, and a different one again when the first accounting comes due. A 90-day cadence is the minimum that keeps you present across an estate that long.

# Which Virginia counties does ProbateData cover?

Fairfax County, the largest probate real estate market in the Commonwealth and the only Virginia jurisdiction with any online route to its own estate records.

Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record and not a pre-probate prediction. Each one carries the property records matched to the estate, the personal representative skip traced with mailing address, phone and email where available, the attorney of record where one is named, and MLS tracking so you can see whether the property has already listed. The property side is the most recent owner of record, not a tax assessment history and not comparable sales.

The manual version in Virginia is harder than in most states, and the reason is structural rather than bureaucratic. There is no free search to start from, so every case begins with a call or a visit. The document that names the property is filed four months in, at a different office from the one that opened the estate. The document that tells you whether a sale is coming is filed sixteen months in, at that same separate office. And the question of who can sign is answered by the will, not by the letters. That is four separate sources for one lead, repeated per case.

You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1 and search Fairfax County directly.

For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.

# Frequently asked questions

Are Virginia probate records public?

Yes. Virginia Code 17.1-208 provides that any records maintained by the clerks of the circuit courts are open to inspection in the office of the clerk by any person. You do not need to be an heir, a beneficiary or a party. Note the wording: the right is to inspect the records in the clerk's office, and Virginia has built no statewide remote database for probate.

How do you look up probate records in Virginia?

By contacting the circuit court clerk in the county or independent city where the estate was filed. No Virginia court portal carries probate: Fairfax eCaseSearch offers civil and criminal case types only, OCIS covers district court criminal and traffic matters, and the statewide circuit court system covers civil and criminal cases in select courts. The only online route to Virginia estate records is Fairfax County's paid CPAN subscription. Everywhere else is a phone call or a counter visit.

Can you search Virginia probate cases online for free?

No. There is no free online probate search anywhere in Virginia. Fairfax County's eCaseSearch, launched by the Fairfax Circuit Court in July 2024, is often described as a statewide tool but covers one court, holds data from 18 October 2004, returns no documents, and offers only civil and criminal case types. Fairfax does publish free downloadable index PDFs for will books from 1742 to 1936.

Can I file a Virginia FOIA request for a probate file?

No. Virginia Code 2.2-3703(A)(6) expressly excludes the records maintained by the clerks of the courts of record from the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. A VFOIA request sent to a circuit court clerk for an estate file is not a valid procedure and will be refused. Access runs through Virginia Code 17.1-208 instead, which means asking the clerk directly.

Can a Virginia executor sell estate real estate?

Only with a power of sale. Virginia is a title-vests-at-death state, so title to real property passes to the devisee or heir immediately on death. Under Virginia Code 64.2-521 the executor has power to sell where the will devises real estate to be sold and appoints nobody else to sell it. Without that devise or a court order, the heirs or devisees are the sellers, not the personal representative.

What is a Commissioner of Accounts in Virginia?

A separate office that supervises fiduciaries after the clerk qualifies them. Under Virginia Code 64.2-1200 the judges of each circuit court appoint one or more commissioners, each a discreet and competent attorney-at-law, to oversee all fiduciaries and make all ex parte settlements of their accounts. The estate inventory and every accounting are filed with the Commissioner of Accounts rather than the clerk, often at a private law office. In Fairfax that office is at 10400 Eaton Place, Suite 450.

How long does probate take in Virginia?

Most Virginia estates run 16 to 18 months or longer. Six months is only the earliest point at which the personal representative can move for a show-cause order against distribution under Virginia Code 64.2-556. The controlling dates are the inventory, due within four months of the order conferring authority under Virginia Code 64.2-1300, and the first accounting, due within sixteen months of qualification under Virginia Code 64.2-1304, with annual accountings after that.

What does Virginia probate cost?

The state probate tax is 10 cents per $100 of value or fraction thereof under Virginia Code 58.1-1712, which is $1 per $1,000, and estates of $15,000 or less pay no state probate tax. A county or city may add a local probate tax equal to one-third of the state amount under Virginia Code 58.1-1718. Recording a list of heirs or a real estate affidavit where no will has been probated carries a $25 fee under Virginia Code 58.1-1717.1. Inspecting records at the clerk's counter is free.