Class 4 Misdemeanor in Virginia: A $250 Fine and Nothing More

A Class 4 misdemeanor is the least serious criminal offense in Virginia. Va. Code § 18.2-11(d) authorizes one punishment and only one: a fine of not more than $250. No jail, no suspended jail sentence, no probation-or-else. It is still a crime, though, and the fine is not the whole bill — a district court adds a $61 statutory fee to a misdemeanor conviction.

What a Class 4 misdemeanor carries in Virginia

Section 18.2-9 creates Virginia’s four misdemeanor classes; § 18.2-11 sets what each one authorizes. Clause (d) is nine words long: “For Class 4 misdemeanors, a fine of not more than $250.”

Everything follows from that. A court cannot impose jail, because the statute does not authorize it. There is no minimum, so the fine can be anything up to $250. And because no incarceration is possible, the case is decided on the papers and the testimony in a single short hearing, usually the same morning it is called.

Because the ceiling is low, a Class 4 charge is often handled by mail. Section 16.1-69.48:1 assumes as much: it assesses the same court fee on “a written appearance with waiver of court hearing and entry of guilty plea” as on an appearance in person. Waiving the hearing and pleading guilty is a conviction, though, with the same record consequences as a conviction after a contested trial — so it is a decision about whether the charge is worth defending, not an administrative formality.

What a Class 4 misdemeanor is not is the default for an offense with no stated punishment. That trips up readers who assume “unclassified” means “least serious.” Section 18.2-12 provides the opposite: “A misdemeanor for which no punishment or no maximum punishment is prescribed by statute shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor” — the top of the scale, not the bottom.

No offense in Virginia’s reckless driving or speeding articles is a Class 4 misdemeanor. The Commonwealth’s criminal traffic offenses sit at Class 1 (reckless driving, § 46.2-868; driving while suspended), Class 2 (eluding; aggressive driving) and Class 3 (operating an uninsured vehicle), which is set out in the table of Virginia’s misdemeanor classes. Class 4 misdemeanors live elsewhere in the Code, and the only reliable way to know which class an offense is is to read the section number written on the summons.

Why the fine is not the whole bill

Va. Code § 16.1-69.48:1 fixes what a district court charges in fees, and the amounts do not depend on the offense’s class. Subsection B assesses $61 as court costs in any misdemeanor tried in district court; subsection D assesses $51 in a traffic infraction. So a $100 fine on a Class 4 misdemeanor is a $161 bill, and the fee alone can exceed a small fine.

The fee is assessed on a finding of guilt, on a written appearance with a waiver of hearing and a guilty plea, on a trial in absence that ends in a finding of guilt, and on several deferrals and compliance dispositions listed in the section. It is charged once per incident: a defendant with several charges from one incident is not taxed the fixed fee more than once, though charges from separate incidents are each taxed. The full breakdown of Virginia court fees covers the higher fees and the surcharges.

Paying a Class 4 fine you cannot afford

Va. Code § 19.2-354 is the section to know, and it applies to any defendant convicted of a traffic infraction or a criminal offense who is sentenced to pay a fine. Two routes sit in it.

The first is time. The court “shall authorize the clerk to establish and approve individual deferred or installment payment agreements,” so a fine and costs can be paid over months rather than at the counter. Where restitution is owed it is paid first. If the defendant cannot pay in full within 90 days of sentencing, the court may assess a one-time fee of up to $10 for managing the account, and a defendant on an agreement must tell the court about any change of mailing address.

The second is work. Subsection C requires every court to establish a program allowing a defendant “to discharge all or part of the fine or costs by earning credits for the performance of community service work.” The court’s program sets the rate at which credits are earned.

Virginia has also repealed the statute that required the DMV to suspend a driver’s license for unpaid court fines and costs, so non-payment by itself is no longer a ground for suspension. The debt remains enforceable and the court can still act on it; it simply no longer costs a licence on its own.

No jail means no court-appointed lawyer

Va. Code § 19.2-160 conditions the appointment of counsel on the possibility of incarceration: the court’s duty to examine the accused about waiving counsel arises “if the charge against the accused is a crime the penalty for which may be incarceration.” A Class 4 misdemeanor carries none, so no lawyer is appointed at public expense.

The same section runs the other way on jailable charges. Where the court states in writing before trial that a sentence of incarceration will not be imposed, it may try the case without appointing counsel — and in that event no sentence of incarceration may be imposed at all.

Failing to appear costs far more than the fine

This is the part of a Class 4 charge worth taking seriously, because the arithmetic is lopsided. For a misdemeanor, § 46.2-936 has the officer issue a summons with a court date at least five days out and release the driver on a written promise to appear. Signing is not an admission of guilt.

Breaking that promise is its own offense. Va. Code § 19.2-128(C) makes a person charged with a misdemeanor who “willfully fails to appear before any court as required” guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor — up to 12 months in jail and a fine of not more than $2,500. So missing court on a $250 charge risks a sentence up to ten times the maximum fine on the original offense, plus the $35 failure-to-appear fee § 16.1-69.48:1 adds unless good cause is shown at a hearing.

The statute defines the standard carefully: “willfully fails to appear” means “intentional conduct for the purpose of avoiding the judicial process,” prior isolated non-appearances are not evidence of willfulness, and the court must consider mitigating circumstances including illness, unforeseen transportation problems and an inability to obtain dependent care. It also requires the court to weigh “any affirmative steps taken by a person to communicate or remedy his failure to appear” — which is the statutory reason to call the clerk rather than wait.

Expungement and sealing after a Class 4 conviction

Two different statutes, two different answers.

Expungement under § 19.2-392.2 applies where the charge ended in an acquittal, a nolle prosequi or a dismissal. There is no filing fee, the petition goes to the circuit court of the city or county where the case was disposed of, and a petitioner with no prior criminal record who was charged with a misdemeanor is entitled to expungement absent good cause shown by the Commonwealth. A conviction is outside it.

Sealing under § 19.2-392.12 is the route for a conviction. A person convicted of, or who had a charge deferred and dismissed for, a misdemeanor with an offense date on or after 1 January 1986 may petition to have the criminal history record information and court records sealed. No court fees are charged for filing. The section has real limits: the petition goes to the circuit court, the Commonwealth is a party and may object, charges from different incidents cannot be combined in one petition, and a petitioner may have only two petitions granted in a lifetime. Whether a specific conviction qualifies, and whether spending one of two lifetime petitions on it is sensible, is a question for a Virginia attorney.

Appealing a Class 4 misdemeanor conviction

Va. Code § 16.1-132 gives any person convicted in a district court of an offense that is not felonious the right to appeal to the circuit court “at any time within ten days from such conviction, and whether or not such conviction was upon a plea of guilty.” The circuit court tries the case over from the start.

On a fine-only charge that cuts both ways. The appeal is free of any requirement to show error in the first hearing, which is why it is described as a right rather than a petition; but the new trial is genuinely new, so the circuit court is not bound by the district court’s sentence and the outcome can be worse as well as better. What the appeal involves is set out in the page on appeals from a Virginia district court.

Class 4 compared with the other three classes

Class	Maximum jail	Maximum fine	Appointed counsel possible?
Class 1 misdemeanor	Up to 12 months	Fine of not more than $2,500	Yes
Class 2 misdemeanor	Up to 6 months	Fine of not more than $1,000	Yes
Class 3 misdemeanor	None	Fine of not more than $500	No
Class 4 misdemeanor	None	Fine of not more than $250	No

A Class 4 conviction is the mildest criminal outcome Virginia has, and it is still a criminal outcome: misdemeanor convictions can appear on background checks, and the record is public unless it is sealed. The classes above it are covered on the punishment for a Class 3 misdemeanor in Virginia and the Class 1 misdemeanor penalty in Virginia, and a charge someone has called a Class A misdemeanor is one of these four under another state’s name.