The line in Virginia's code that puts somebody at your trench
Virginia's inspection section is Section 113.3, which lives at 13VAC5-63-130 in the Administrative Code, and the footing inspection is the first item on its list. Item 1 covers two things, the excavation dug for the footing and the reinforcement set in it, and it puts both ahead of any concrete. The section's opening sentence limits the whole list to inspections that apply to the construction or the permit in question, and that qualifier is what settles a flatwork job.
That is the 2021 edition, and Section 113 was last amended effective January 18, 2024. The wording is narrower than people expect. Item 1 sets no readiness standard of its own: no requirement that the bars be tied off, nothing about grade stakes, nothing about forms. Virginia leaves that judgment with the building official, which is why what counts as ready is a question you ask at the counter rather than a list you read online. Plan footing and foundation work around that answer.
The pours in our mix that carry one when the building is permitted
A footing under a building that needs a permit is part of that permitted work, and permitted work brings its inspections with it where they apply. There is a permit, so there is a permit holder, so there is a duty to call, and Section 113.1.3 gives the building official a duty to perform the requested inspection, apart from the third party route in Section 113.7. Two kinds of building sit outside that chain. A farm building, as the code defines one, is exempt from the code itself under Section 102.3 item 9, within the exceptions that item writes in, among them flood-proofing and mudslide rules for farm buildings in a flood plain or a mudslide-prone area, and the answer on whether farm buildings are exempt from permits works through the definition. A one story detached shed, playhouse or similar building of 256 square feet or less, not classified as a Group F-1 or H occupancy, needs no permit application and no related inspections under Section 108.2 item 2. That holds whether we are pouring the footing ourselves or walking a hose down the trench for the crew that formed it. Conditions ride on the shed exemption: an owner who asks for a permit gets one with its inspections, in a special flood hazard area the building official may require the application anyway, and the exemption does not excuse the work from the rest of the code. The Virginia permit guide quotes the owner request and flood area lines in full.
- Footings for a house, an addition, a garage, a carport, a covered porch, or a pole barn that is not a farm building
- Foundation walls, which item 2 of the same list covers during whatever phases the official decides are needed
- A slab poured as part of a permitted structure, which picks up item 3, the inspection of preparatory work before concrete is placed
- A retaining wall holding three feet or more of unbalanced fill, which item 7 of the permit exemption list does not reach, though item 6 separately lists concrete or masonry walls up to six feet, so ask how your official reads the two together
- A concrete or masonry wall standing over six feet above finished grade, because the list only reaches walls at or under six feet, and ornamental column caps do not count toward the height
The inspection call belongs to the permit holder
This chain is easy to get backwards, and it is worth walking through. Section 113.1.2 reads: "When construction reaches a stage of completion that requires an inspection, the permit holder shall notify the building official." A job that needs no permit, and has none requested, has no permit holder to make that call, so no Section 113.3 inspection gets requested on it in the ordinary course. That chain holds only for work that genuinely needs no permit. Work that needed a permit and went in without one is a different case: Section 113.1 says "any building or structure may be inspected at any time before completion," Section 113.2 lets the building official inspect a site before issuing a permit, and where violations "involve work without a permit, the notice of violation shall be issued to the responsible party" under Section 115.2. What that can cost is set out under what happens if you skip a permit.
Said the other way around, the inspection follows the permit, not the concrete. A patio slab your building official treats as minor and ordinary work, with no permit requested, is not an inspected pour that somebody forgot to look at. No inspection was required on that job in the first place. Where an inspection does exist, the clock that runs on it is a separate subject with its own page.
Whether the job needs a permit at all is a different desk's answer
Virginia's permit exemption list names sixteen kinds of work, and a driveway, a patio and an on-grade slab are none of them. Being unnamed does not make them exempt and it does not make them permitted. It puts the question in front of one person, the building official where you are pouring, which is the county's office unless a town such as Hillsville issues its own permits, and that is not the same person a county over. Sidewalks and parking lots outside an accessible route are the one kind of flatwork the state names itself, and it settles them in the other list: Section 102.3 item 6 takes them out of the code altogether, which is a stronger thing than a permit exemption and does not stretch to a driveway or a patio. The rest we are not going to guess on a web page, and be careful with any page that does.
So the answer for your own job comes out of a phone call before the pour is booked. Carroll County's Building Official is Gary Bergeron, at 276-730-3016, and inside its limits the Town of Hillsville issues its own building permits. Grayson County's Building Department answers on 276-773-2322 and issues permits out in the county and inside the Towns of Independence, Fries and Troutdale too. The long version of the permit question is split by job type across the answers on a permit for a driveway in Virginia, a permit for a patio and a permit for a garage slab, and our Virginia permit guide carries the county desks.
The same answer across the line, reached through the General Statutes
Across the line the duty to inspect work in progress starts in the General Statutes, at G.S. 160D-1113, rather than in a chapter of the code book, and the state's administrative rules then name the inspections a department performs, footing inspection among them. Their footing wording is a good deal more prescriptive than Virginia's about what ready means at the trench. North Carolina's 2018 building code was still the edition in force there when this was checked on September 11, 2026, and its 2024 edition has no effective date yet.
None of which changes the answer to the question this page asks. In North Carolina too, G.S. 160D-1113 runs its inspections "as the work pursuant to a building permit progresses," so work that needs no permit is outside that schedule. Starting work without a permit it needed breaks G.S. 160D-1110, and that section makes a violation a Class 1 misdemeanor; what happens if you skip a permit covers both states. What does change across the line is the desk you are calling, and our page on North Carolina concrete permits lists those desks.