Virginia Expands Workplace Bias Protections Beginning July 2026

The Virginia Human Rights Act expanded its workplace protections on July 1, 2026, to cover employees of smaller businesses and more than double the time workers have to file discrimination claims. More Virginia employees than ever will be able to seek legal justice (and monetary compensation) if they’ve experienced discriminatory or retaliatory actions, such as a demotion or termination.

This article by TELG principal & general counsel Nicholas Woodfield and TELG senior associate Cassie Harrington was published by The Employment Law Group, P.C. on July 3, 2026.

IMPORTANT: The following article is intended as a general summary of facts and law and not as individual legal advice upon which you should rely or act. Every case is unique and specific. This article represents our firm’s best knowledge as of July 2026.

Thousands more Virginia workers are able to pursue workplace discrimination and retaliation claims with amendments to the Virginia Human Rights Act (VHRA) going into effect on July 1, 2026.

Lawmakers expanded the law’s definition of “employer” and significantly extended the deadline for filing discrimination charges. The revisions expand the reach of Virginia’s employment discrimination law, especially for employees working for small businesses.

Governor Abigail Spanberger signed the amendments into law in April.

Smaller Employers Now Covered Under the VHRA

The VHRA, which was significantly expanded by the Virginia Values Act in 2020, forbids employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy and related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and military status.

The VHRA covers more protected traits than the better-known federal law Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which ostensibly meant the VHRA offered significantly more workplace protections. However, not all employees who are members of those protected classes had access to the law’s remedies.

Previously, the law generally applied only to employers with at least 15 employees for most discrimination and retaliation claims. An exception allowed discriminatory discharge claims against employers with more than five employees, while age discrimination discharge claims applied to employers with more than five but fewer than 20 employees.

This left many employees in a position where neither state nor federal law could protect them. Employees may have been a part of a protected class under the VHRA but worked for an employer too small (or in the case of age discrimination discharge claims, too big) to allow for a lawsuit. Federal laws either have similarly high or even higher thresholds or don’t cover the same protected classes. This meant that, as an example, employees of businesses with less than 15 workers who alleged discrimination based on marital status had no legal protection — until the July 2026 amendments addressed that blind spot.

Now, any Virginia employer with five or more employees is covered under the VHRA for all protected classes and all forms of unlawful employment discrimination and retaliation. The change eliminates both the 15-employee threshold that applied to most claims and the size limitation that applied to age discrimination discharge cases.

The practical effect is that employees of many small businesses who previously had no legal remedy will now be able to pursue claims under the VHRA and seek monetary compensation.

Access to Damages for Small-Business Employees and Employees with Age Discrimination Claims

Employees who work for larger employers have long benefited from the VHRA’s wider availability of damages compared to federal laws. Unlike the VHRA, Title VII, for example, puts a cap on compensatory damages. The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) does not permit compensatory damages at all.

If their employer had at least 15 employees, a worker could generally turn to the VHRA to receive more monetary remedies. Employees with age discrimination claims, however, had to meet specific criteria — bringing only a claim for termination against an employer with 5-20 employees — to have an avenue towards recovering compensatory damages, which could only be done under the VHRA and not the ADEA. Small-business employees were also mostly left out.

The 2026 amendments opened a door for many employees. For the first time, employees of small employers can recover compensatory damages for employment claims against a discriminatory demotion, hostile work environment, and other unlawful actions that didn’t fall under the VHRA’s prior threshold exceptions. Employees with age discrimination claims are no longer blocked from seeking compensatory damages based on their specific type of claim or the size of their employer.

Filing Deadline Extended to Two Years

The new legislation substantially expands the statute of limitations for filing a charge of discrimination or retaliation under the VHRA. Beginning July 1, employees will have two years — rather than 300 days — to file their claims.

The extended filing period could prove helpful in cases where employer retaliation is not immediately apparent.

Consider a salesperson whose territory is reduced for discriminatory reasons. They may not consider it worth going to court until the financial consequences become clear a year later when lower sales lead to missed quotas and a layoff based on poor performance. Under the previous 300-day deadline, the employee may have been able to seek compensation for the termination but not for the territory reduction, which fell outside of the filing period. Any losses that occurred in between the territory reduction and the termination that fell outside the past 300 days would have then been ineligible for compensation.

The new two-year limitations period would have allowed the salesperson to challenge both the earlier discriminatory action and the later termination.

Similarly, an employee who receives a discriminatory performance evaluation may not suffer an immediate financial loss. They may try to prove their good work performance rather than turning to legal avenues right away. If the evaluation eventually results in the loss of a bonus or termination, the expanded filing period will allow the employee to include the evaluation as part of the overall discrimination claim.

These changes are some of the most significant expansions of Virginia’s employment protections in recent years. If you’re facing workplace bias and retaliation, contact The Employment Law Group to see what legal remedies are available to you.