Virginia Remote Jobs Must Show Pay Ranges Now

Do remote jobs in Virginia now need to show pay ranges Yes. Virginia now requires wage or salary ranges in job postings, and the updated law covers public and internal postings for remote roles tied to Virginia employers, starting July 1, 2026. The key point people miss is that the law is written around the posting, not the office location. A remote role is still a job posting, so if it is being posted for Virginia, the range belongs in the ad.

The statute says an employer may not fail or refuse to disclose the wage, salary, or wage or salary range in each public and internal posting for each job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity. The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry says the change applies beginning July 1, 2026. That means the common mistake is to assume remote work gets treated differently just because no one is commuting to a Virginia office. It does not.

The law defines a wage or salary range as the minimum and maximum wage or salary for the position, set in good faith. The statute lists examples of what can support that range, including a pay scale, a previously determined range, current pay for equivalent roles, or the budgeted amount for the position. A vague sentence like “competitive pay” does not satisfy that requirement.

The part people get wrong is scope. The rule is not only about jobs physically located in Virginia. It is about postings and hiring advertisements in Virginia, and Virginia’s own guidance says employers should make sure newly posted job advertisements on any platform, both internally and externally, include the range. For a remote opening, the safer reading is simple: if the job is being advertised to hire for Virginia, show the range.

The inconvenient part is that internal postings are covered too. Many employers fix the external ad and leave the employee referral page, internal board, or recruiter template unchanged. The Virginia code reaches internal postings for jobs, promotions, transfers, and other opportunities. That means one stale template can still create a compliance problem even when the public listing looks fine.

Remote jobs also create a second trap, which is location handling. If a posting is remote but limited to Virginia residents, the pay range should still appear. If a posting is remote and open across several states, Virginia’s rule still matters for the Virginia-facing version of the post and for any posting used in Virginia hiring. Employers should not assume they can hide the range behind “location flexible” language. The law is about disclosure, not about office geography.

Another thing people get wrong is salary history. Virginia’s updated law also bans seeking a candidate’s wage or salary history, and it bars relying on that history when deciding pay. So the clean process is to post the range first, then discuss the candidate and the role. Asking what someone made before is now a separate compliance problem from failing to show the range.

A practical example: a Richmond company posts a remote customer support role, a recruiter shares it on LinkedIn, and the internal ATS also lists it for referrals. Under the Virginia rule, the range should appear in each version of that posting. If the recruiter uses a copied template without the range, the employer has a problem even if the internal version was later corrected.

For teams already building hiring workflows, the fix is mechanical. Add a required pay-range field to every job template, block publication until it is filled, and review both internal and external posting channels. If your hiring process includes a remote-work note, keep it, but do not use it as a substitute for compensation disclosure. If you need a place to coordinate hiring and testing work around real projects, DevConnect is free to use and designed for that kind of exchange, and the platform explains its own approach at https://devconnectplatform.com.

What this does not mean is that every remote posting has to use the same pay band. Virginia requires a good-faith range for the position being posted, not a one-size-fits-all number. Employers can still use different ranges for different roles, different seniority levels, or different business lines, as long as each posting discloses the range for that position.

If you are deciding whether a specific remote job needs the range, the safest check is short: Is the job being posted by a Virginia employer or into a Virginia hiring process, and is it a job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity If yes, include the wage or salary range before you publish. If you want the narrowest risk answer, treat remote as included rather than exceptional.

FAQ

Does a remote job posted from another state have to follow Virginia’s rule? If the posting is part of a Virginia hiring process or used for a Virginia-facing opportunity, the safe answer is yes, because the law focuses on the posting and disclosure requirement rather than the physical office location. Employers with multistate hiring usually standardize to the strictest applicable state rule.

Do internal postings need pay ranges too? Yes. Virginia’s code explicitly covers each public and internal posting for each job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity. That means internal job boards, employee portals, and recruiter workflows need the same compensation disclosure discipline as external ads.

What counts as a pay range under Virginia law? The statute defines it as the minimum and maximum wage or salary for the position, set in good faith. The range should be grounded in a pay scale, prior range, comparable positions, or budgeted amount. A generic statement without a real range does not meet the standard.

Can an employer ask what I made at my last job? No. Virginia’s updated law prohibits seeking wage or salary history and prohibits relying on it in hiring decisions. That is separate from the pay-range disclosure rule, but both changes now apply together.

What should a company update first? Update job templates, ATS fields, recruiter scripts, and internal boards first. Then audit old postings and copied listings, because the most common failure is a stale template that gets reused after the public job page was fixed.