The Virginia Department of the Treasury runs the Unclaimed Property Program, and its programme page describes what it returns in plain terms: money, stocks, bonds, dividends, utility deposits, insurance proceeds, tangible property and more, to anyone who has moved, lost a check or forgotten about a bank account. The Treasury's own description of unclaimed property draws the boundary of the programme, which covers abandoned financial assets and the proceeds of safe deposit boxes but reaches neither real estate nor vehicles, and it explains the sequence behind every record: the company holding the asset tries to produce activity through a login, correspondence, a withdrawal or deposit or an update to the owner's details, and only when none of that works does the asset go to the state of the owner's last known address. Once it arrives, the Treasury says, it stays in state custody for as long as it takes for the owner or an heir to come forward.
What makes Virginia different is that for a large part of that property the owner no longer has to come forward at all. The Treasury's notice is unambiguous, that it is now automatically returning unclaimed property and eliminating the need to file a claim, and the programme behind it is VA Cash Now. For everything the automatic route does not cover, the search sits at the Treasury's Click and Claim database, questions go to ucpmail@trs.virginia.gov or 1-800-468-1088, a paper inquiry form can be requested on that number by anyone without internet access, and claim evidence goes to the Unclaimed Property Division at PO Box 2485, Richmond, VA 23218-2485. A visit needs an appointment, booked on the same number, because of building security. For Virginia records held locally, see the Virginia county pages.
- Paid without a claim: VA Cash Now returns single owner properties worth up to $5,000 automatically, with a notification letter and then a check inside 45 days.
- Still a claim: anything over $5,000, anything with more than one owner, and every business, heir, estate or trust claim goes through the Treasury search site.
- Dormancy: three years for most property types, so an account touched at least once every three years does not reach the programme.
- Holders: November 1 for corporations and public entities, May 1 for insurance companies, with written due diligence notices for items worth $100 or more.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Virginia's own systems: the Virginia Department of the Treasury unclaimed property page, the Treasury's VA Cash Now flyer, the Treasury's what is unclaimed property page, the Treasury's general questions on unclaimed property, the Treasury's how to claim unclaimed property page, the Treasury's reporting guidelines page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
VA Cash Now, and the line it draws
The Treasury's notice of the programme sets out both the mechanism and its limits. The General Assembly approved new legislation establishing VA Cash Now, which for the first time empowers the Treasury to send unclaimed property back to its rightful owner without a claim. The Treasury can do this for single owner properties valued at up to $5,000. Where the information in the state's unclaimed property database matches verified taxpayer and address details, notification letters are posted to the owners with nothing required of them, and the Treasury's instruction to those owners is simply to expect the check within 45 days.
Above $5,000, where a property has more than one owner, and for any claim made by a business or an heir, the old route applies and the claimant starts at the search site and supplies the documents asked for. Two things follow for an owner wondering what to do. A letter from the Treasury announcing a payment is not necessarily a scam, because this is now how the programme works, and a letter from anyone else offering to recover Virginia money for a fee is selling a free public service, which is why the Treasury pairs the announcement with a warning about unauthorised fee based services.
The programme has been running a long time, since 1961, and has returned more than $1.2 billion to Virginians.
Searching and claiming the rest
The Treasury's claiming guide runs to four steps, search for property, submit a claim, complete the claim and track its progress, and the search itself is forgiving: a first name, a last name or both go into the last or business name field, and where the results run long they are narrowed by adding a city or a postcode. Property that looks right is selected with the claim button and the claim begins from there. The site keeps two tools for a claim already filed, a status check and a document upload, and it carries separate general information for heir, estate and trust claims, which are the ones that need the most paperwork.
Anyone who cannot use the website can ask for an inquiry form on the Treasury's freephone number and deal with the programme by post instead, and all correspondence and claim evidence goes to the Richmond post office box or the programme's claims email address. The Treasury does not operate a counter service: the division can be visited, but only by appointment.
What counts, and how to keep property out of the programme
The Treasury's questions page lists the property types that end up in the database: checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit, overpayments, insurance checks, payroll checks, utility refunds, money orders, uncashed checks, dividends, stocks, bonds and the contents of safe deposit boxes, among others. It describes unclaimed property as an obligation a company is holding for another person or business, which is the useful way to think about a search result, since the record exists because some company still owes the money.
The trigger is inactivity: where there has been no activity for the set period, three years for most property, and the holder cannot find the owner, the property is presumed abandoned and must be reported to the Unclaimed Property Division. The Treasury's prevention advice follows from the same rule and is specific about timing, saying to keep accounts active by making a deposit or withdrawal, updating contact details or simply contacting the financial institution at least every three years.
For an account nobody touches, such as an old certificate of deposit or a dormant savings account kept for a child, that is the only thing standing between the account and the state.
What the law asks of companies
The reporting guidelines fix two deadlines, November 1 for corporations, public entities and the general run of holders, and May 1 for insurance companies, and publish the property type codes with their dormancy periods, the owner relationship and type codes and a date chart alongside the general reporting and payment instructions. Due diligence is required for items worth $100 or more: written notice must go by first class mail to the owner's last known address on the holder's records, must attempt to communicate with the owner and take the steps needed to stop abandonment being presumed, and must be posted at least 60 days before the report.
Section 55.1-2540 sets the penalty for skipping it, a fine not exceeding $50 applied to each account on which due diligence was not performed. Securities are delivered at the same time as the report under the Treasury's own instructions, with depository, agent bank and account details published for the transfer and a separate registration for mutual funds in the Commonwealth's name. Tangible property is handled separately again, must be pre approved before anything is sent to the Commonwealth, is reported apart from intangible property, and has its own supervisor on 804-225-3170.
Virginia will take property owed to another state within limits, no more than nine items and no more than $1,000 for any one state, $500 in the case of Arkansas, with California having opted out of reciprocal reporting altogether and securities not accepted that way at all, and the same limits apply to a holder wanting to report Virginia property through its own home state. Reports are prepared as NAUPA II files using third party software, which the Commonwealth lists without endorsing, and one requirement is still ahead of holders rather than behind them: the instructions for reporting digital assets carry a delayed requirement until November 2027.
Reading a Virginia result
A record in the Click and Claim database is a debt a company could not pay to the person it belonged to, filed under the name and address it had, so a search is worth running on a maiden name, an initial, an old city and a business name. Two results change what happens next. A single owner record worth $5,000 or less may need nothing at all, because the Treasury can match it and pay it, and the right response to the letter that follows is to wait the 45 days.
Anything larger, or shared, or claimed for an estate or a company, needs the claim and the documents behind it. Neither route costs anything, and the Treasury makes the point itself that this is a free public service, so a fee quoted to recover Virginia money is a fee for something the Commonwealth already does.
Questions about unclaimed property in Virginia
Related Virginia records
Virginia's other public records guides on this site are the Virginia background check guide for the State Police criminal history service, the Virginia court records guide for the circuit court clerks, the Virginia arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Virginia county pages for every county office.