Nine counties in Virginia are fully dry, meaning no retailer or restaurant inside their borders can sell alcohol: Bland, Buchanan, Charlotte, Craig, Grayson, Highland, Lee, Patrick, and Russell. Dry counties in Virginia restrict sales only. Adults 21 and older can still bring alcohol home, keep it there, and serve it to guests, because the state’s possession law targets people who cannot lawfully be sold alcohol in the first place, primarily those under 21.1Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 4.1-305 – Purchasing or Possessing Alcoholic Beverages Unlawful in Certain Situations
The Nine Dry Counties
All nine sit in rural Virginia, most of them in the southwestern corner of the state. They are the counties where a historical referendum banning sales has never been reversed. Beyond that group, portions of roughly 31 additional counties have voted to restrict sales in specific supervisor election districts, which produces a patchwork where the rules can shift from one side of a county line, or even one side of a district line, to the other.
Since a 2019 legislative change took effect in 2020, every Virginia locality is wet by default. A place is dry now only because voters there affirmatively made it so and have not reversed that decision. The nine counties above were dry before the change and stayed dry after it.
What a Dry Designation Actually Restricts
The prohibition applies to commercial sale within the jurisdiction’s boundaries. No store can sell beer or wine. No restaurant can pour a drink. Because Virginia is a control state and all distilled spirits are sold through state-run Virginia ABC stores, a dry county simply has no ABC store. There is no private alternative, so anyone in a dry county who wants liquor drives to a wet jurisdiction to buy it.
Nothing in the dry status stops you from doing that. Buying a bottle in a neighboring county and bringing it back to your house in Bland or Lee is legal. Serving it at a private gathering in your own home is legal. Ordering from a delivery service, however, follows the delivery address: if that address is in a dry area, the sale cannot be completed there.
Towns and Districts That Break the Pattern
Towns inside a dry county can hold their own referendum and go wet independently. That is how islands of legal sale end up surrounded by restricted land. In Tazewell County, the town of Richlands approved mixed beverage restaurant sales in 2018 by a 60-to-40 margin while the broader county kept tighter restrictions in place. A restaurant a few miles down the road from Richlands operates under completely different rules.
Supervisor election districts add another layer. Virginia law lets individual districts within a county hold their own referenda, so one part of a county can be wet while another part is dry. This is why the count of “restricted” jurisdictions in Virginia is larger than the count of fully dry counties: many places are restricted in patches rather than as a whole.
Beer and Wine vs. Mixed Drinks at Restaurants
A county or district can be partially dry, sometimes called moist. In practice this usually means beer and wine are allowed but mixed beverages (cocktails and spirits by the drink) are not. A restaurant in that kind of jurisdiction can pour a glass of wine with dinner but cannot make a margarita. The two categories are decided in separate votes, which is why they can diverge.
Virginia also carves out a protection for existing restaurants when a mixed beverage vote goes against sales. A restaurant that holds a mixed beverage license in that area can still sell beer and wine for on-premises consumption if it pays the appropriate license fees, so a mixed-beverage referendum does not accidentally shut down all alcohol service at an established place.
Hosting an Event in a Dry Area
A dry designation does not automatically block private events. The Virginia ABC Authority issues banquet licenses for gatherings held in unlicensed locations. A standard banquet license covers private events like weddings and company parties where alcohol is provided at no charge to guests. A banquet special event license is available to nonprofit organizations holding events for charitable, civic, or educational purposes, and it allows the nonprofit to sell alcohol through admission charges or a cash bar.2Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. Get a Banquet License
The Authority does not spell out on its website how dry-county status interacts with banquet license eligibility. Before booking a venue in a restricted jurisdiction, call the ABC licensing office and confirm. Whether your venue sits inside or outside a wet town boundary can decide the answer.
How a County Goes Wet (or Dry) Again
The dry status is not permanent. A locality can hold a new referendum and reverse it. Voters petition, the question goes on a ballot, and a simple majority decides. When the vote passes, the change takes effect 60 days after the circuit court enters an order recording the results. The same 60-day window applies in either direction.
The 2019 change flipped where the burden sits. Before the change, a locality had to vote itself wet. Now, a locality would have to vote itself dry. For the nine counties that were already dry, the shift did not alter anything on the ground: their existing referenda stayed in force. The political appetite to hold a new vote in these places has not materialized, and organizing one takes hundreds of signatures, a court process, and a winning margin at the ballot box. In small rural counties where many residents prefer the current arrangement, that is a heavy lift, and it is the main reason the map has not changed.