Virginia Knife Laws
Virginia treats a folding metal blade under three inches as a pocket knife you may carry. Dirks, bowie knives, machetes and razors are restricted. Automatic knives came off the possession restrictions on 1 July 2022 and off the concealed carry list on 1 July 2023.
This is not legal advice, and we are not lawyers. It is a plain reading of published summaries and the statutes they cite, kept current on a fixed schedule. Local ordinances are frequently stricter than state law and are not all captured here. Check the statute, and check your city, before you carry.
Virginia knife law at a glance
| Concealed carry blade limit | A folding metal blade under three inches is treated as a pocket knife and may be carried. Dirks, bowie knives, ballistic knives, machetes and razors are restricted. |
|---|---|
| Automatic and switchblade knives | Possession and transfer restrictions were repealed on 1 July 2022, and automatics came off the concealed carry list on 1 July 2023. |
| Knife types banned outright | None outright, though ballistic knives are barred in practice by the transfer rules. |
| Statewide preemption | No, except at airports under section 18.2-287.01. |
| The statutes | Virginia Code 18.2-308, 18.2-308.1, 18.2-282.1, 18.2-283.1 and 18.2-311 — read them |
Source last revised 4 February 2025
Next review 15 November 2026
How fresh this is, and how you can tell
Two dates sit above, and they are not the same thing. Checked by us is the last time a person went back to the sources and confirmed this page still matches them. Source last revised is when the American Knife and Tool Institute last updated its own Virginia page. A 2021 revision date is not automatically wrong — it usually means nothing has changed since — but it does mean nobody had looked recently, and that is exactly the gap this page exists to close.
Crossing the Virginia state line
Knife law stops at the border and the next state does not have to agree with this one. If you drive, these are the states you are most likely to carry into, and what changes when you do.
| State | Automatic knives | Concealed blade limit |
|---|---|---|
| Maryland | Legal with conditions | Only a manual folding knife may be carried concealed. Anything that is a switchblade or spring-activated may not be, at any length. |
| District of Columbia | Restricted or banned | Concealment is not the test. Any knife can count as a dangerous weapon, and carrying a dagger, dirk, razor, stiletto or a blade longer than three inches with intent to use it unlawfully is the offense. |
| North Carolina | Legal | No blade length is defined. An ordinary pocket knife carried closed is excepted, and the statute does not say what ordinary means. |
| Tennessee | Legal | No blade length governs and concealment is not an issue. |
| Kentucky | Legal with conditions | No blade length governs from 21, or with a concealed weapon license. Open carry is unrestricted. Kentucky courts have never drawn a clean line on what counts as an ordinary pocketknife, and one jury treated a five to six inch blade as a deadly weapon, so carry conservatively. |
| West Virginia | Legal with conditions | Age is the line, not length, for adults. Under 21 you may not carry a concealed deadly weapon, and three and a half inches is the figure that applies to a dagger, dirk, poniard, stiletto or pocketknife. At 21 and over there is no concealment limit beyond place rules. |
A knife that is lawful in your pocket at home can be unlawful the moment you cross, and nobody stops you at the line to tell you. The map for all fifty states covers the rest.
Common questions about Virginia knife laws
What size knife is legal to carry in Virginia?
A folding metal blade under three inches is treated as a pocket knife and may be carried. Dirks, bowie knives, ballistic knives, machetes and razors are restricted.
Are switchblades legal in Virginia?
Possession and transfer restrictions were repealed on 1 July 2022, and automatics came off the concealed carry list on 1 July 2023.
Which knives are banned outright in Virginia?
None outright, though ballistic knives are barred in practice by the transfer rules.
Does Virginia have knife preemption?
No. Virginia has no statewide preemption, so a city or county can be stricter than the state code, and several are. Check your local ordinance as well as the statute.
Can I keep a knife in my car in Virginia?
Where a state has a concealed carry limit, a knife in a glovebox or a door pocket is generally treated as concealed. Read the concealed line above and apply it to the vehicle. If that line says concealment is not the issue in this state, the vehicle is not the issue either — but where you drive to still is, because schools and courthouses are barred everywhere.
Where this comes from
Two independent sources, cross-checked against each other, and the statute text where they disagree. The automatic knife column is the American Knife and Tool Institute’s state automatics table, checked against Knife Rights’ own switchblade legality table and their legislative update log. Everything on a state page is quoted or closely tracked from that state’s AKTI page, and we print the date AKTI last revised it so you can see for yourself how fresh the underlying work is.
Where a source is older than a change we know about, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving the old answer up. That is the whole reason this is checked every two months.
Elsewhere on Popular EDC
The knife law map for all fifty states, the knife steel comparison chart for choosing the blade itself, and every Popular EDC tool in one place.
Data updated September 2026. Virginia knife law checked against the published sources on 15 September 2026, and due for review again on 15 November 2026.