Summary
Virginia Code section 58.1-609.3, subdivision 18, provides a sales-and-use tax exemption for specified computer equipment and enabling software used in a qualifying data center. The opened text says that window begins 1 July 2010 and ends 30 June 2035, except as subdivision 19 provides. Subdivision 19 can extend the exemption through 30 June 2040 if the operator meets a $35 billion investment and 1,000-job condition, or through 30 June 2050 if the operator meets a $100 billion investment and 2,500-job condition, after a memorandum of understanding entered on or after 1 January 2023. Because those extensions are conditional, this record does not store 30 June 2035 as a single program expiration. The exemption does not itself approve a land-use permit or require an operating facility to close.
Scope
Code of Virginia section 58.1-609.3, subdivision 18, exempts specified computer equipment or enabling software purchased or leased for processing, storage, retrieval, or communication of data, including listed enabling hardware, when it is used in a data center in a Virginia locality that meets the subdivision's capital-investment and job conditions. The subdivision states a window beginning 1 July 2010 and ending 30 June 2035, except as provided in subdivision 19. Subdivision 19 allows a data center operator that enters a memorandum of understanding on or after 1 January 2023 to continue using the exemption through 30 June 2040, or through 30 June 2050, only if the investment and job conditions in that subdivision are met. The exemption is not a finding that every Virginia data center qualifies, and it is not a siting permit or a shutdown order.
- Geographic scope
- Virginia
- Jurisdiction
- State
- Authority type
- Legislature
- Issuing authority
- Virginia General Assembly
Dates
- Adopted
- No adoption day is recorded
- Effective
- 1 July 2010
- Scheduled expiration
- See completion condition
- Ended
- Not recorded as ended
- Completion condition
- Subdivision 18 states a purchase window ending 30 June 2035 except as subdivision 19 provides. Subdivision 19 can extend use of the exemption through 30 June 2040 or 30 June 2050 for an operator that meets that subdivision's memorandum, investment, and job conditions. Those dates are not one expiration for every project.
- Source document
- The source page states no document date
- Last checked
- 3 November 2026
About this date
This record was last checked before the tracker date, 11 November 2026. An earlier check date does not by itself mean the record's status has changed.
What this does not establish
- Subdivision 17 describes an earlier exemption for specified equipment purchased or leased on or before 30 June 2011. That earlier clause is not this record.
- The job and investment thresholds in subdivision 18, including the lower thresholds for a distressed locality, are qualifications for the exemption. Meeting them is project-specific.
- The code page that was opened did not display a separate compilation date. The dates in this record are the dates written in subdivisions 18 and 19.
- The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study "Data Centers in Virginia" (9 December 2024) is recorded separately as va-jlarc-report-598-data-centers-in-virginia-study-2024.
Unresolved questions
- How many operators have entered the subdivision 19 memorandum, and whether any has met the extension conditions, was not counted.
- Local zoning restrictions in Virginia counties were not opened for this record.
Relationships
Supersession means a later instrument replaces the earlier legal effect. Repeal links identify the repeal instrument and the measure it ends. A later implementation or related letter is not treated as a replacement unless the record says so.
- Related, not a replacement JLARC study: Data Centers in Virginia (2024) (Informational—not binding)
Sources
Primary source: Virginia General Assembly page on law.lis.virginia.gov