Virginia Enacts New Restrictions on the Use of Noncompetes
Employers will soon be obligated to provide employees with severance benefits if they want to have an enforceable noncompete in Virginia and they also will be prohibited from entering into noncompetes with health care professionals, except in connection with the sale of a business. These obligations and several other new restrictions are part of Senate Bill 170 and House Bill 627 , landmark legislation recently passed by the General Assembly and slated to take effect on July 1, 2026. The new noncompete legislation applies to all employees and categorically bans noncompetes for almost all health care professionals, in sharp contrast to Virginia’s existing noncompete statutes, which currently cover only low-wage employees, including hourly employees. Moreover, because of recent case law from the Court of Appeals of Virginia in Sentry Force Security, LLC v. Barrera , 2026 WL 200848 (Va. Ct. App. Jan. 27, 2026), the new legislation will also apply to co...