Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Virginia City Spending Rankings
Virginia has 16 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.5M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 51/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Virginia's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 51/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Virginia cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
Virginia Fiscal Profile
Across all covered Virginia cities, the largest aggregate spending categories are education at $50.9B and parks at $3.9B. That mix reflects Virginia's overall service-delivery model, in some states police and fire dominate; in others, education or roads take the largest aggregate share when cities operate their own school districts.
Healthiest and Most Stressed Cities
Top Fiscal Performers
Most Fiscally Stressed
All 16 Cities in Virginia
Virginia Beach, VA
Pop. 458K
Chesapeake, VA
Pop. 249K
Norfolk, VA
Pop. 237K
Arlington, VA
Pop. 236K
Richmond, VA
Pop. 227K
Newport News, VA
Pop. 185K
Alexandria, VA
Pop. 158K
Hampton, VA
Pop. 137K
Roanoke, VA
Pop. 99K
Portsmouth, VA
Pop. 97K
Suffolk, VA
Pop. 95K
Lynchburg, VA
Pop. 79K
Dale City, VA
Pop. 74K
Centreville, VA
Pop. 73K
Reston, VA
Pop. 62K
Harrisonburg, VA
Pop. 52K
How These Rankings Are Calculated
City Fiscal Health Scores combine budget balance and reserves (25%), debt burden per capita (20%), pension funded ratio (20%), spending efficiency (15%), revenue diversity (10%), and three-year trend direction (10%). All inputs come from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district and county overlap. Pension data comes from the Public Plans Database. Best-practice weighting follows guidance from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). Read the full methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cities in Virginia are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 16 cities in Virginia with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 2.5M in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Virginia's average Fiscal Health Score?
Virginia's 16 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 51/100. The score combines budget balance and reserves, debt burden per capita, pension funding, spending efficiency, revenue diversity, and three-year trend direction. Each city is benchmarked against population peers, so a 200,000-resident city is compared to other mid-size cities, not against the largest cities in the country.
Where does Virginia city spending data come from?
Every figure on this page is drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, with population estimates from the American Community Survey. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district overlap. Federal grant flows come from USASpending.gov; pension data, where available, comes from the Public Plans Database.
Which Virginia cities have the strongest fiscal health?
Portsmouth (B), Suffolk (B), Hampton (C) rank among the top fiscal performers in Virginia. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Virginia cities are most fiscally stressed?
Newport News (F), Harrisonburg (D), Lynchburg (D) rank toward the bottom of the Virginia fiscal health distribution. Common stress signals include pension underfunding, elevated debt service, and revenue concentration in a single tax source. A low score is a screening signal, not a verdict, always read the city's audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (ACFR) before drawing conclusions.
Virginia has 16 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 2.5M in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 51/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Virginia's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 51/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Virginia cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
For this entity, the underlying data on this page comes from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. The breakdown above is the federal record; the paragraphs below add the per-entity context that makes the headline numbers usable for a real decision rather than just a data lookup.
Every number on this page links back to the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the methodology page describes the inputs, refresh cadence, and known limitations of the underlying data product.
Practical use of this page is in combination with the comparison and ranking pages elsewhere on the site, which surface the same data for this entity’s peers within U.S. cities, counties, and states. A single-entity reading without peer context can be misleading when an entity is an outlier on one axis but typical on another.