Hit and Run Penalties in Virginia, Class by Class

The penalty for a hit and run in Virginia runs from a $250 fine with no jail to a Class 5 felony carrying one to ten years. Nothing about the driver decides which end applies: the Code fixes it by what was struck, whether anyone was hurt and how much damage was done, in Va. Code § 46.2-894 and § 46.2-900.

The hit and run penalty in Virginia at a glance

What happened	Section	Offense	Punishment
A person injured or killed	§ 46.2-894	Class 5 felony	1–10 years, or up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of not more than $2,500
Attended property, more than $1,000 of damage	§ 46.2-894	Class 5 felony	Same as above
Attended property, $1,000 or less	§ 46.2-894	Class 1 misdemeanor	Up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of not more than $2,500
Unattended property, $250 or more	§§ 46.2-896, 46.2-900	Class 1 misdemeanor	Up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of not more than $2,500
Unattended property, less than $250	§§ 46.2-896, 46.2-900	Class 4 misdemeanor	A fine of not more than $250, no jail, plus 3 demerit points
Passenger aged 16+ who did not report; injury or death	§§ 46.2-895, 46.2-897, 46.2-900	Class 6 felony	1–5 years, or up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of not more than $2,500
Willful failure to give immediate notice; injury or death	§ 46.2-371	Class 4 misdemeanor	A fine of not more than $250

Two lines in that table do the work, and they are the same two that decide what counts as a hit and run in Virginia. Injury, death or more than $1,000 of damage to attended property puts the case in the felony branch of § 46.2-894. Damage of less than $250 to unattended property puts it in the least serious class the Code has.

Jail and fines, class by class

The classes themselves are empty labels until you read § 18.2-10 for felonies and § 18.2-11 for misdemeanors.

A Class 5 felony is a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than 10 years — or, in the discretion of the jury or of the court trying the case without a jury, confinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both. A Class 6 felony is the same structure with a ceiling of five years rather than ten. That alternative is written into the statute; whether a court uses it is not something any guide can predict.

A Class 1 misdemeanor is confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both. A Class 4 misdemeanor is a fine of not more than $250, and the class carries no jail at all.

None of these sections sets a mandatory minimum. Where the Code does impose one, § 18.2-12.1 requires the court to impose the whole of it without suspending any part — but the hit-and-run sections contain no such term.

Three demerit points on the smallest case

Section 46.2-900 adds a DMV consequence that the other classes do not carry. Where the vehicle or other property struck is unattended and the damage is less than $250, the offense is a Class 4 misdemeanor, and the section goes on: a motor vehicle operator convicted of a Class 4 misdemeanor under this section “shall be assigned three demerit points by the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

Demerit points are the DMV’s own system and run on the DMV’s schedule, separately from whatever the court orders; DMV publishes the three-point violations it assigns and how long each stays on a record. That band is the ordinary parked-car case; the other hit-and-run classes take their DMV consequences from a different route, below.

Court costs are added to the fine

The fine is not the whole bill. Section 16.1-69.48:1 fixes the court-cost fee assessed in a district court case by statute rather than leaving it to the court: $61 in a misdemeanor case under subsection B, and $51 in a traffic infraction case under subsection D. The misdemeanor figure is the one that applies to the Class 1 and Class 4 hit-and-run misdemeanors. The section also taxes an extra $35 where a defendant fails to appear, unless good cause is shown at a hearing he requests, and it provides that a defendant with multiple charges from a single incident is not taxed the fixed fee more than once for one appearance or trial in absence.

Other costs — a case set for trial with witnesses, or an attorney’s fee — are separate and do vary. What is payable and how is set by the court that heard the case, and each one publishes its own details through Virginia’s general district court directory.

License revocation where someone was hurt

The heaviest non-criminal penalty is not in the hit-and-run article at all. Section 46.2-389 requires the DMV Commissioner to revoke a driver’s license, for one year under subsection B, on receiving a record of conviction of any of several listed offenses. Two of them reach these cases:

• Subdivision A 5 — any crime punishable as a felony under the motor vehicle laws of the Commonwealth, or any other felony in the commission of which a motor vehicle is used. A Class 5 felony conviction under § 46.2-894 falls here.
• Subdivision A 6 — failure to stop and disclose identity at the scene of an accident, on the part of a driver of a motor vehicle involved in an accident resulting in the death of or injury to another person.

The Commissioner “shall forthwith revoke.” It is not a penalty the court imposes, and it is not discretionary.

Penalties for a passenger who does not report

Section 46.2-900 is titled as the penalty for violations of §§ 46.2-895 through 46.2-897, and two of those three sections are about passengers. Under § 46.2-895 and § 46.2-897, where a driver fails to stop and report, every person aged 16 or older in the vehicle who knew about the accident must ensure a report is made within 24 hours to the State Police or the local law-enforcement agency.

A passenger who does not carries the same ladder: a Class 6 felony where the accident caused injury or death, a Class 1 misdemeanor where it caused only property damage, and a Class 4 misdemeanor in the small unattended case. The numbering is the trap here — § 46.2-900 is not the penalty section for the driver’s own offense — and it is set out on the page that walks each section of the hit-and-run article in turn.

What the penalty does not turn on

It does not turn on fault for the collision. Sections 46.2-894 and 46.2-896 impose their duties on the driver of any vehicle involved in an accident; who caused it is a separate question, answered elsewhere.

It does not turn on where the accident happened, because the article applies on private property as well as public roads. And it does not turn on the driver’s view of how minor the damage was — the classification is set by the statutory figures, and the difference between a Class 4 and a Class 1 misdemeanor can be a hundred dollars of bumper.

Whether a particular set of facts sits above or below one of these lines is the question that decides the case, and it needs a Virginia attorney looking at the charge, the damage evidence and the record. The classification of the charge is covered in more detail on the felony and misdemeanor pages.