What VDOT counts as a private entrance
The category is narrower than it sounds. 24VAC30-73-10 defines a private entrance three ways: one serving up to two private residences for the exclusive benefit of the occupants, one that allows agricultural operations to obtain access to fields, or one to a civil or communication infrastructure facility generating ten or fewer trips a day, such as a cell tower or a pump station. VDOT's land use permits page describes the LUP-PE in those same three terms.
The LUP-PE also restricts private entrances to highways designated as non limited access primary and secondary routes, and 24VAC30-151-30(A) lists permanent upgrades to an existing entrance as a permitted item of its own, separate from building a new one. Whether the change you have in mind is a permanent upgrade is the residency's call, not ours.
Where a shared drive stops being a private entrance
Add a third house to a shared drive and the permit changes category. 24VAC30-73-10 calls an entrance serving five or fewer residences or residential lots on a privately owned and maintained road a low volume commercial entrance, not a private one.
The fee changes, and so does the sight distance rule. The additive fee table at 24VAC30-151-710(A)(2) lists private entrances as none and a commercial entrance at $150 for the first entrance, on top of the application fee. And 24VAC30-73-80(A) requires no less than minimum stopping or intersection sight distance for a low volume commercial entrance, where private entrances are not named in that section at all. Family land is where this bites. Count the lots the drive will serve when it is finished, not the ones with houses on them today.
Which office takes the application, county by county
There is no single VDOT office for the counties we work in. 24VAC30-73-40 says applications for entrance permits shall be obtained from and submitted to the district administrator's designee for the county where the work is performed. Read off VDOT's own districts page, these are the offices covering our range. The residencies are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The counties split across two districts as well: Carroll, Floyd, Montgomery and Pulaski in the Salem District, Grayson and Wythe in the Bristol District. Call first and confirm that office is the one taking your address, because older VDOT paperwork still routes some of these counties elsewhere. Ask about the road itself while you have them. Cities and many towns maintain their own streets, and 24VAC30-151-40(A) makes a VDOT permit valid only on right of way under VDOT's jurisdiction. The towns in our range that appear on VDOT's own district pages are Hillsville, Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Floyd, Pulaski, Dublin, Independence and Wytheville, along with the cities of Galax, Radford and Salem, and a drive off a street inside one of those may be the town's call rather than VDOT's. There is no lookup we can point you to for a single address. VDOT's own instruction is to ask the district office, or the public works department of the town or city.
- Carroll and Patrick: Martinsville Residency, 309 Weeping Willow Lane, Bassett, VA 24055, 276-629-2581
- Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski: Christiansburg Residency, 105 Cambria St., Christiansburg, VA 24073, 540-381-7201
- Bland, Grayson and Wythe: Wytheville Residency, 2843 Chapman Road, Wytheville, VA 24382, 276-228-2153
- Grayson and Wythe also sit under the Bristol District office, 2111 Bonham Road, Bristol, VA 24201, 276-669-6151. VDOT publishes no county by county rule saying which of the two takes a Grayson or Wythe application, so call either one and ask about your address
What it costs, and what is not a fee at all
This is the rare permit question with a published answer. 24VAC30-151-710(A)(1), amended effective November 2025, sets the standard application fee for a single permit at $100, which the LUP-PE asks for with the application. Nothing is added on top for a private entrance, and there is no separate inspection fee, because that same subsection says the nonrefundable fee covers reviewing and processing the application and inspecting the project work. Run past the permit's dates and 24VAC30-151-710(A)(3) puts a term extension at $50 and reinstatement of an expired permit at $100.
Surety is a different animal and gets mixed up with the fee constantly. The LUP-PE bases it on the estimated cost of work within the right of way, has the district administrator's designee set the amount, and refunds or releases it once the installation passes inspection. No schedule for it is published, so ask what yours will be. If you post it in cash, the form says you need an executed Commonwealth of Virginia Substitute Form W-9 to get the money back, and that refund is the only thing the W-9 is for.
Staking comes before the paperwork gets you anywhere
The staking is the part people are not expecting, and the form makes it your job before the field review, not VDOT's. The LUP-PE is direct: the applicant shall stake out the requested location for field review by the district administrator's designee. You apply online through VDOT as a guest user or a registered user, or through the residency office for your county, on the LUP-A form bundled in the LUP-PE packet.
- Stake the centerline of the proposed entrance and the property corners, and write the owner's name on the stake at the centerline
- One copy of the recorded deed and plat showing the parcel and the current owner
- The entrance marked on the plat, with the road name and route number, and how far and in which direction it sits from the nearest intersecting state road
- If the lot came out of a subdivision, possibly the original subdivision deed and plat, so VDOT can check for entrance restrictions on it
- On a street with curb and gutter, a sketch showing a typical section of the entrance
The field review is where the real decisions get made
Once it is staked, VDOT comes out. Per the LUP-PE, a field review is conducted, VDOT determines whether sight distance is adequate and whether a culvert pipe is required, and the permit lists the size and type of pipe you supply and the clearing and grading needed. That carries a sequencing rule people trip over: all clearing and grading for sight distance has to be done before the entrance is used for construction purposes. Before the trucks use it, not after.
There is no published sight distance figure for a private drive to look up ahead of time, so any number in feet you are quoted before the field review is somebody's guess. 24VAC30-73-90(A) puts the standard in the terms of your permit, and says that if it cannot be met the entrance goes at the location with the best possible sight distance. The same subsection lets the designee require you to grade slopes, clear brush or remove trees to get there. If the ground will not give it up, 24VAC30-73-50(B) lets the Commissioner grant a sight distance exception on a written request backed by a traffic engineering investigation report prepared by a professional engineer, decided within 60 calendar days.
The apron design comes from a named drawing. The LUP-PE makes VDOT's Road and Bridge Standards the design authority for every private entrance, and in that book the private entrance sheet is PE-1, sheet 602.02, Standard Private Entrances. VDOT publishes those as signed and sealed drawings and treats them as copyrighted, so we will not print widths, radii or a surface material off it. The permit lists your pipe. The residency answers the rest.
VDOT can remove an entrance built without a permit
24VAC30-73-60(A) is the sentence that matters. No entrance of any nature may be constructed within the right of way until the location has been approved by VDOT and a permit issued, and VDOT may act within the right of way to block, obstruct or remove an unpermitted entrance. The LUP-PE adds that violating the regulations is a misdemeanor under section 33.2-210 of the Code of Virginia. Removal is the part that should worry you, not the fine.
VDOT publishes no review or issuance time for a private entrance permit, in the regulations, on its permits page or on the form. Call the residency and ask. Nothing else on the calendar is worth fixing until you have that answer. The published clocks sit on the back end: 24VAC30-151-80(C) expects work to begin within 30 calendar days of issuance, an extension under 24VAC30-151-80(B) has to be requested at least 10 business days before the permit expires, and 24VAC30-73-50(A) gives you 30 calendar days to appeal a denial, answered within 60.
It is the owner's permit
24VAC30-151-40(A) says the permit must be obtained by the adjacent property owner in the case of entrance permits, and may be issued jointly to owner and contractor where the contractor is the owner's authorized agent. 24VAC30-73-90(B) adds that on shoulder and ditch section roads the owner installs the entrance and does all grading beyond the shoulder, and may ask VDOT to stabilize the shoulder and set the pipe at the owner's expense. VDOT gives a cost estimate for that, then bills the actual cost. Your written estimate from us names the residency office and says plainly that the entrance permit is yours to pull. We pour the apron and the drive behind it.
24VAC30-73-60(B) says VDOT will permit reasonably convenient access to a parcel of record and is not obligated to permit the most convenient access, nor to approve your preferred entrance location or design. And 24VAC30-73-60(C) says stricter local entrance standards govern. Long term, 24VAC30-73-90(E) splits maintenance: it is the owner's, except that VDOT maintains the portion inside the normal shoulder on shoulder section highways, and on highways with ditches cleans the drainage pipe and may replace it.