Fairfax County, Virginia made some significant changes to its trespass towing rules at the end of 2025, and if you operate or are thinking about operating in Northern Virginia it is worth knowing what changed and why.
On December 9, 2025, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to raise the maximum base charge for trespass towing from $150 to $210 for passenger cars. That is a 40 percent increase. The board also increased the maximum daily storage fee from $50 to $70. For vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating between 7,501 and 10,000 pounds, the hookup and initial towing fee went from $250 to $305. The new fees took effect immediately after the vote.
The increase was driven partly by a change in Virginia state law and partly by a 2024 report from the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which recommended raising the maximum hookup fee for passenger cars. Virginia Code Section 46.2-1233.1 previously capped the hookup and initial towing fee for passenger cars at $150. Virginia Senate Bill 1332 changed that, setting a new maximum of $210. Fairfax County’s Trespass Towing Advisory Board had been working through proposed changes for most of 2025 before the Board of Supervisors took the final vote.
Not everyone was happy about the increase. During the public hearing before the vote, a resident named David Davis called the $210 fee “ridiculous” and “predatory.” Another resident, Krista White, pointed out that people sometimes get towed for minor things like forgetting to display a residency permit in their own apartment parking lot. Those are fair concerns and they reflect a tension that comes up constantly in the nonconsensual towing business. The fees have to cover actual operating costs, but from a resident’s perspective getting a $210 bill for parking in the wrong spot still feels harsh.
Michael Fernandez, who owns Battlefield Towing in the area, testified at the hearing that the increase is not about excess or greed. He is right that costs have gone up. Fuel, insurance, equipment, and labor are all more expensive than they were when the $150 cap was originally set.
There was also a structural change to how Fairfax County licenses trespass tow operators. The county replaced its registration system with a mandatory operator permit issued by the Department of Cable and Consumer Services. Under the new rules, any tow truck Fairfax VA operator doing trespass towing in the county must hold a current operator permit, renew it annually by January 31, and have valid tow truck driver registrations issued by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services for each driver. The initial application fee and annual renewal fee for operators storing vehicles inside Fairfax County is $50. Existing registrations converted automatically to permits under the transition, but companies will need to go through the full renewal process going forward.
There was also a separate change that went into effect earlier, in October 2024, around apartment and condominium towing. A new state law required that towing operators give residents of multi-family properties at least 48 hours written notice before towing a vehicle with expired registration or inspection stickers. The notice has to go to both the resident and their landlord. Operators who skip the notice requirement face a $100 civil penalty and have to cover the towed vehicle owner’s costs. Several Fairfax County towing companies were already following the new rules before the county formally updated its ordinance in October 2024 to match the state law.
If you are doing private property towing in Northern Virginia, the combination of the new fee schedule, the permit requirement, and the 48-hour notice rule for residential properties means there is more administrative structure around nonconsensual towing in Fairfax County than there was two years ago. That is probably the direction things are going to keep moving.
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