Virginia Job Posts, Salary Ranges, and Pay History

Do Virginia job postings now need salary ranges and can employers still ask applicants about pay history

Yes. Virginia job postings now need a good-faith wage or salary range, and employers cannot ask applicants about pay history during hiring, except for a narrow voluntary-disclosure exception. The key date is July 1, 2026, when the new rules took effect.

The posting rule is broad. Virginia’s Department of Labor and Industry says that beginning July 1, 2026, job postings and hiring advertisements in Virginia must include a wage or salary range for the position. The statute defines that range as the minimum and maximum wage or salary set in good faith, tied to pay scale, existing equivalent roles, or the budgeted amount for the job.

The part people get wrong is thinking the rule only covers public ads. The Virginia code text covers each public and internal posting for job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity. That means internal career pages and promotion notices are in scope too, not just outside recruiting posts.

Employers also cannot ask applicants about wage or salary history during the application or interview process. The state labor department summarizes the rule plainly: employers are prohibited from seeking wage or salary history from a job applicant during hiring. UVA HR’s guidance says the same thing for its own hiring process, which is a useful example of how covered employers are handling the change.

The inconvenient part is that a candidate’s past pay is no longer a normal input for setting an offer. Virginia now pushes employers to rely on the posted range, the role, and their own compensation structure instead of asking, “What did you make before?” That changes recruiter scripts, interview forms, and offer review workflows.

There is one narrow exception, and it matters. If a prospective employee voluntarily provides wage or salary history without the employer’s prompting, the employer may rely on that information, and may seek to confirm it, only to support a higher offer and only if doing so does not violate Virginia pay law or federal law. That is not a permission to ask for the number first.

A practical way to think about it is this: the employer can respond to volunteered pay history, but it cannot start the topic. If a candidate says, unprompted, “I made more at my last job,” the employer may use that information within the statute’s limits. If the recruiter asks, “What were you paid?” the question crosses the line.

The salary-range rule is not a suggestion for large employers only. Virginia Works says employers are encouraged to include minimum and maximum salary data in postings, and the 2026 law turns that disclosure into a requirement for covered postings. The state’s own job-posting guidance has long treated salary data as part of a compliant posting practice.

If you are writing a posting, the safest approach is to publish a range that the employer genuinely expects to use, not a decorative number pulled out to satisfy the form. If you are hiring, remove salary-history questions from application forms, screening notes, and interview guides. If you are applying, you can point to the posted range instead of defending your prior pay.

A concrete example helps. A Virginia employer posts a marketing manager job at $78,000 to $92,000. The recruiter can discuss where the candidate fits inside that range, ask about skills, and explain benefits. The recruiter cannot ask what the candidate earned in the last role, unless the candidate raised prior pay first without prompting.

Another common mistake is assuming the law only affects hiring, not promotion or transfer. Virginia’s text includes promotion and transfer postings too. That means the same range disclosure and salary-history restrictions matter when a current employee applies for a new internal role.

For employers, the compliance work is mostly administrative, but it has to be real. Posting templates, ATS questions, recruiter training, and interview scorecards all need a pass for salary-history language. If the company uses different pay bands for different locations or levels, the posted range still needs to match the actual job being advertised.

For applicants, the new rule changes leverage. You no longer need to disclose a prior salary to explain why you want a certain number, and an employer should already be working from a posted range. If a hiring manager asks for salary history anyway, the safe response is to decline and redirect to the range in the posting.

DevConnect is a separate place to find testers and post testing jobs for your own product, and its public site explains its own rules and free access. For Virginia hiring, the relevant legal source is still the state statute and the DOLI guidance, not a platform policy page.

The short answer is simple: yes, Virginia job postings now need salary ranges, and no, employers may not ask applicants about pay history in ordinary hiring. The only carve-out is when the applicant volunteers prior pay first, and even then the employer’s use is limited.

What employers need to update first

Start with the job-posting template, then the application form, then the interview guide. Those three places usually contain the salary-range field or the pay-history question, and those are the first places compliance breaks when a company copies old language into a new law.

If the posting is internal, include the same range disclosure. If the company uses a recruiting agency, the agency’s version needs the same range and the same ban on salary-history questions. A compliant employer cannot fix the public ad and leave the recruiter script untouched.

What applicants should do if asked anyway

If a recruiter asks for salary history, answer with a boundary and move back to the posting range. The useful response is not an argument, it is a redirect: “I’d like to discuss the range in the posting and how my experience fits the role.” That keeps the conversation on the legal track and avoids volunteering old pay.

FAQ

Do all Virginia employers have to post salary ranges Covered job postings in Virginia must include a good-faith wage or salary range. The law applies to public and internal postings for jobs, promotions, transfers, and other employment opportunities.

Can an employer ask about salary expectations instead of pay history Yes. Asking what compensation a candidate expects is different from asking what the candidate previously earned. The Virginia rule bars wage or salary history questions, not discussion of the employer’s posted range or the candidate’s target compensation.

What if a candidate brings up prior pay on their own If the candidate voluntarily provides wage or salary history without prompting, the employer may rely on it only within the statute’s limits and only to support a higher offer. The employer still cannot use that as a backdoor to ask every applicant for prior pay.

Does the rule also cover promotions and internal transfers Yes. Virginia’s statute says the wage or salary range must appear in each public and internal posting for jobs, promotions, transfers, and other employment opportunities. That is the part many managers miss when they focus only on external recruiting.

Where should I check if I want the legal text Use the Virginia Code section on seeking wage or salary history and wage or salary range transparency, plus the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry’s employment law update on the July 1, 2026 rule. Those are the clearest primary sources for the current rule.