Virginia runs a Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund, and every route to it is a condition. It pays up to $30,000 on a single claim and up to $100,000 against one contractor in a two-year period. But you need a Virginia court judgment first, based on the contractor’s improper or dishonest conduct, the contractor has to have been licensed while that conduct happened, and you have 12 months from the judgment.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| Auto repair shop labor rateVirginia average | $136 per hour |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
Where a source publishes figures state by state, this page shows the figure for this state rather than a national average. Where no state-level source exists, it shows the national range and the local factors that move a job within it. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
The Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund covers losses from the improper or dishonest conduct of a licensed residential contractor, up to $30,000 on a single claim and up to $100,000 against one contractor within a two-year period, prorated among claimants when the total goes past it. It is funded by assessments on contractors rather than by tax revenue. What it is not is a complaints desk: you need a judgment from a Virginia court, based on that improper or dishonest conduct, before an application can be filed at all.
Two conditions decide most claims. The contractor has to have been licensed during the period the conduct occurred, and the application has to be filed within 12 months after the judgment becomes final. The work also has to have been on your residence in Virginia. Contractors, financial institutions and anyone in construction or property development for a living are excluded from claiming.
Shop labor in Virginia sits above the national figure, in the middle of the upper half of the national spread rather than at the top of it. That is an hourly rate and not an invoice: the bill is the rate multiplied by the hours the job is booked at, so two shops quoting the same number can still finish far apart on the same repair. The table above carries the current figure and what moves it.
For residential work, the license check is not paperwork for its own sake in Virginia, it is the thing that decides whether the Fund is available to you if the job goes wrong. Confirm the license is live now and that the name on it matches the name going on the contract, and keep the contract, the payments and any change orders, because everything downstream runs through a court before it reaches the Fund.
Note also what the Fund does not stretch to. It answers improper or dishonest conduct by a licensed residential contractor, not an ordinary dispute about quality with a contractor who did the work and stands behind it. That is a reason to settle scope and standards in writing at the start, where a disagreement is still a conversation rather than a filing.
Up to $30,000 on a single claim, and up to $100,000 against one contractor within a two-year period. Where claims against the same contractor exceed that, the amount is prorated among claimants.
Yes. The Fund requires a judgment from a Virginia court based on the contractor’s improper or dishonest conduct before a claim can be filed.
Within 12 months after the judgment becomes final.
Yes. The contractor must have been licensed during the period in which the improper or dishonest conduct occurred, and the work must have been on your residence in Virginia.
Employees, vendors, spouses and children of the contractor, other licensed contractors, financial institutions, and anyone whose business is construction or real property development.