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Hunting Licenses / Virginia

Virginia Hunting License: $23.00, $46 With a Tag

In Virginia the licence is $23.00 and the first deer costs $46

$23.00
Resident licence
One-year Resident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older
$23.00
What the first deer costs on top
$46 for the licence and the tag together
depends on the licence
When it stops working
mixed
8 / 8
Licences and tags read here
each one linked to the fee table it came from
The short answer

What a season in Virginia actually costs to start

Tags on topVirginia Department of Wildlife Resources

A resident hunting licence in Virginia is $23.00, sold as the One-year Resident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older. Hunting a deer on it means buying the Deer and Turkey Hunting License as well, at $23.00, so the first day costs $46 rather than $23.00. That is 100% more than the licence price a search result would have shown. 39 of the 50 states read here work the same way. The licence itself runs different licences on different clocks, so the expiry depends on which one is in the wallet.

  • Resident licence $23.00, the One-year Resident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older
  • Nonresident licence $111.00
  • First deer on top of it $23.00, the Deer and Turkey Hunting License
  • What the first morning costs $46
  • The licence runs runs different licences on different clocks, so the expiry depends on which one is in the wallet

Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources sells it through its own licensing system, which is where a fee change appears first.

What the agency sells

Every Virginia hunting licence, at the price Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources prints

Eight tags and permits were read off Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources's own fee pages for Virginia, each one priced below with the row it sits in. A tag is a second purchase, and the licence price on its own is the first half of what a season costs.

  • One-year Resident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older$23.00

    general hunting only; bear, deer and turkey each need a further licence

    one year from the date of purchase

    One-year Resident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older | $23.00 | $28.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Three-Day Trip License to Hunt$12.00

    three days of general hunting, still without the bear or deer and turkey licence

    3 day

    Resident Three-Day Trip License to Hunt | $12.00 | $17.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older$111.00

    general hunting only; bear, deer and turkey each need a further licence

    one year from the date of purchase

    Nonresident License to Hunt, for licensees 16 years of age or older | $111.00 | $136.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident Three-Day Trip License to Hunt$60.00

    three days of general hunting, still without the bear or deer and turkey licence

    3 day

    Nonresident Three-Day Trip License to Hunt | $60.00 | $75.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Junior License to Hunt, for licensees 12 through 15 years of age, optional for licensees younger than 12 years of age$8.50

    general hunting for a resident aged 12 through 15

    one year from the date of purchase

    Resident Junior License to Hunt, for licensees 12 through 15 years of age, optional for licensees younger than 12 years of age | $8.50 | $8.50
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Senior Citizen Annual License to Hunt, for licensees 65 years of age or older$9.00

    general hunting for a resident aged 65 or over

    one year from the date of purchase

    Resident Senior Citizen Annual License to Hunt, for licensees 65 years of age or older | $9.00 | $9.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Sportsman License to Hunt and Freshwater Fish, and to hunt bear, deer, and turkey, to hunt with archery equipment during archery hunting season, to hunt with muzzleloading guns during muzzleloading hunting season, to fish in designated stocked trout waters$100.00

    hunting and freshwater fishing with the bear, deer and turkey, archery and muzzleloader privileges built in

    one year from the date of purchase, with the bear and deer and turkey parts valid July 1 to June 30

    Resident Sportsman License to Hunt and Freshwater Fish, and to hunt bear, deer, and turkey, to hunt with archery equipment during archery hunting season, to hunt with muzzleloading guns during muzzleloading hunting season, to fish in designated stocked trout waters | $100.00 | $130.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Lifetime License to Hunt$265.00

    general hunting for life, at this price when bought through 44 years of age; the bear and deer and turkey licences are still bought separately

    lifetime

    Resident Lifetime License to Hunt — through 44 years of age at the time of purchase | $265.00 | $270.00
    Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The second purchase

The tags and permits that sit on top of a Virginia licence

A tag is attached to one animal of one species, and the last column is the part that decides a calendar rather than a budget. Over the counter means it can be bought on the way to the woods. A draw means the application closed months ago.

Virginia allocates elk by draw, which means the application closes long before the season and the tag is awarded by lot rather than sold. What is over the counter and what is drawn is set out beside each tag below.

Tags and permits read off Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources's own fee pages, dearest resident price first.
Tag or permitSpeciesResidentNonresidentHow it is issued
Special Elk Hunting LicenseElk$41.00$401.00Draw
Deer and Turkey Hunting LicenseDeer$23.00$86.00Over the counter
Deer and Turkey Hunting LicenseTurkey$23.00$86.00Over the counter
Bear Hunting LicenseBear$21.00$151.00Over the counter
Bonus Deer PermitDeer$18.00$31.00Over the counter
Archery License to Hunt with archery equipment during archery hunting seasonOther$18.00$31.00Over the counter
Muzzleloading License to Hunt during muzzleloading hunting seasonOther$18.00$31.00Over the counter
Virginia Migratory Waterfowl Conservation StampWaterfowl$10.00$10.00Over the counter

Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, the page this was read from, read 23 September 2026

The clock

When a Virginia hunting license expires Mixed

Virginia runs different licences on different clocks, so the expiry depends on which one is in the wallet. One counter sells two licences that stop working on two different days. The fee table prints both prices and neither rule. The sentence the state uses is quoted below and links to the page it came from.

The hunting licence itself runs a full year from the day it is bought, but the bear licence, the deer and turkey licence and the migratory waterfowl stamp run on a fixed July 1 to June 30 year, so a deer licence bought in spring expires within months.

Resident and nonresident licenses are valid for one year from the date of purchase except the bear license, deer/turkey license, and the Virginia Migratory Waterfowl Conservation Stamp (which are valid July 1–June 30), the apprentice hunting license (valid for 2 years from date of purchase), and lifetime licenses.
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The requirement people find out about at the counter

Hunter education in Virginia

Virginia requires hunter education, and it sets the requirement without a birth year cutoff, so the test is what the applicant has done rather than when they were born. 29 of the 50 states read here use a birth year instead, and those years run from 1949 to 1986.

Virginia sets no birth year cutoff: the course is required of anyone aged 12 through 15 and of anyone who has never previously bought a regular Virginia hunting licence, whatever their age.

You are required to complete hunter education before buying a hunting license if: you are 12–15 years of age, or you have not previously purchased a regular hunting license.
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
A wide shallow wetland on a clear November morning, ducks scattered across the open water, a cottonwood in yellow leaf on a small island beside a low wooden viewing deck, and a flat brown horizon under a pale blue sky
Waterfowl is the clearest case of what these pages are about. The state licence is the first line on the receipt, and a duck morning adds a state stamp, a federal stamp and a harvest survey registration on top of it, none of which the licence price includes. “Llano Seco Unit (2024)-L1006548”, Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0
Which price applies

Who counts as a Virginia resident

Virginia draws the resident line at 60 days, and the difference between the two sides of it is $23.00 against $111.00. The statutory definition is quoted below.

Individuals who, for two or more months immediately prior to purchasing a license, have been a domiciliary resident of Virginia and who execute a certificate of residency.
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
How Virginia compares

39 of 50 states sell the animal separately from the right to hunt it

Virginia works the way most of the country does. Of the 50 states read here, 39 sell the tag apart from the licence and 11 print it on the licence instead. Where the tag is separate, the middle state adds 95% to the licence price before anybody has left the driveway.

Resident licences across these states run from $10 to $64.54, and nonresident licences from $50 to $410, which is the widest spread on any licence this site has read. 25 states run a licence year of their own, 9 give a full year from the day of sale, and 9 end it on 31 December whatever month it was bought.

The national table puts Virginia beside every other state on licence price, first tag, and the two added together.

Virginia hunting license questions

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Hunting licenses in every state

Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources read 23 September 2026, with every licence price, tag price, expiry rule and hunter education cutoff above linked to the page it came from. Fees are set by statute or by a commission and change between seasons, so the agency page beside each figure is what governs on the day. Tags on top