Moving to Alexandria, Virginia: A Relocation Guide

Updated August 2026

You have a start date, a moving quote, and a list of things you are supposed to do in a city you don't live in yet.

Most of that list is the same anywhere. A few pieces are specific to here, and those are the ones that catch people: two separate registration deadlines that both run 30 days, a tax bill with line items you won't recognize, and a city line that doesn't match the mailing address on half the listings you've been saving.

Here's how it actually works, roughly in the order you'll hit it.

The short version

• Alexandria is an independent city. It is not part of Fairfax County, and an Alexandria mailing address is not proof you're inside the city line.
• You have 30 days to register your vehicle with Virginia DMV, and a separate 30 days to register with the City of Alexandria. Two deadlines, two agencies.
• Real estate tax comes due June 15 and November 15. Vehicle personal property tax comes due October 5.
• There is no local income tax in Alexandria. State and federal only.
• Alexandria City recorded 171 home sales in July 2026 at a median sale price of $707,000, with 399 homes for sale as of August 14, 2026 (Bright MLS, via Long & Foster's August 2026 market report).
• DASH, the city bus system, is fare free throughout Alexandria.

First, confirm you're actually moving into the city

Alexandria is an independent city under Virginia law, which means it isn't part of Fairfax County the way a town sits inside a county elsewhere. It runs its own assessor, its own school division, its own parking districts, its own trash pickup.

Here's the part that trips up relocating buyers: plenty of addresses with an Alexandria, Virginia mailing address sit outside the city line, in Fairfax County. The post office and the city boundary are two different maps.

That one fact decides your tax bill, your school assignment, your parking permit, and who picks up your trash. Before you get attached to a house, confirm the jurisdiction of record with the City rather than reading it off the envelope.

Ask us and we'll confirm it for any address you're looking at. It takes a minute and it saves a bad surprise.

The 30-day clock, and why it's really two clocks

This is the single most useful thing on this page, so it gets its own section.

When you move to Virginia, you have 30 days to register your vehicle with Virginia DMV. Separately, you have 30 days to register with the City of Alexandria. Both deadlines come from the City of Alexandria's Tax Guide for New City Residents. They are two different obligations at two different agencies, and finishing one does not finish the other.

City registration is what enrolls your vehicle for annual personal property tax. That's why it exists as its own step.

One useful accommodation, and it's stated plainly on the City's page rather than being something we're reading into it: you can register with the City before you finish your DMV registration if you need a residential parking permit first.

About that permit. Residential parking permits are required in the City's permit districts for residents parking on the street, and the City advises getting one right away to avoid citations. The fee varies by how many vehicles you have, and it's added to your personal property tax bill instead of arriving as its own charge. The City's page doesn't publish the dollar amounts by vehicle count, so we're describing the mechanism and not quoting a price.

New resident deadlines, City of Alexandria, Virginia. Source: City of Alexandria, Tax Guide for New City Residents.

What lands on the tax bill

Four things about Alexandria's tax setup are worth knowing before you write a budget. Three come from the City of Alexandria's Tax Guide for New City Residents, and the refuse and stormwater fees come from the City's tax rates page.

There's no local income tax. Residents pay state and federal income tax and that's it. If you're coming from a jurisdiction with a local add on, that line disappears.

Two fees ride along with the real estate tax bill. A residential refuse fee and a stormwater utility fee are billed with your real estate taxes in installments rather than showing up as separate bills. Buyers moving in from out of state routinely miss both when they estimate carrying costs, because they're looking for a trash bill and a water bill that never come.

The windshield decal is gone. Alexandria abolished the City decal as of Tax Year 2019 and folded it into the personal property tax rate. If you lived here before 2019, or you're reading an older relocation guide, there's no sticker to buy.

A returned check costs $35 in penalty under state law.

One gap, stated once. We are not printing tax rates or fee amounts on this page. The City's tax rates page we can point to is labeled FY 2026 and carries a last updated stamp of October 17, 2025, the rate is set annually by City Council, and the refuse and stormwater fees reset annually too. Pull current figures directly from the City of Alexandria's tax rates page when you build your number, and talk to your CPA about how any of it lands on your return.

What homes are selling for

The figures below come from Long & Foster's August 2026 Community Market Report for Alexandria City, with data from Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. Alexandria City recorded 171 home sales in July 2026 at a median sale price of $707,000. As of August 14, 2026, there were 399 homes for sale in Alexandria City.

If you're weighing Alexandria against the other places your search probably includes, here is the same month across five markets.

Median sale price, July 2026. Alexandria City, Fairfax, and Arlington are Virginia jurisdictions as labeled in the Bright MLS data; the Fairfax and Arlington labels do not specify city versus county, so we use them exactly as given. Capitol Hill and Georgetown are Bright MLS neighborhood areas in Washington, DC with no published boundary definition in this data, so we name them without describing where they begin or end. Source: Bright MLS, via Long & Foster's August 2026 market reports. Bars start at zero. Sales behind each median: Alexandria 171, Fairfax 148, Arlington 226, Capitol Hill 35, Georgetown 31.

In July 2026, Alexandria City's median sale price of $707,000 sat below Arlington's $827,450 and below Fairfax's $731,000, and well below the two DC neighborhood areas in the set, Capitol Hill at $990,000 and Georgetown at $1,575,000 (Bright MLS, July 2026). The ranking is ours, calculated from those five Bright MLS figures for the same month.

Inventory is the other half of the picture, and it behaves differently.

Homes for sale as of August 14, 2026, Alexandria City, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia. Labels are used exactly as they appear in the Bright MLS data, which does not specify city versus county for Fairfax and Arlington. Only Virginia jurisdictions are shown; DC neighborhood areas are a different geographic level and are not mixed in. Source: Bright MLS, via Long & Foster's August 2026 market reports. Bars start at zero.

Alexandria City and Arlington were carrying roughly the same number of active listings as of August 14, 2026, 399 and 420, while Fairfax carried 264, about two thirds as many (Bright MLS, August 14, 2026). That comparison is ours, from those three figures.

Two honest limits on all of this. First, it's one month. These are snapshot figures with no prior period attached, so nothing here tells you which direction anything is moving, and we're not going to imply it does. Second, active listings and monthly sales are not months of supply. Turning one into the other takes a sales pace input this data doesn't carry, so we've left it alone.

What the numbers do tell you: Alexandria is the lower priced of the close in Virginia options in this set, with meaningful choice on the shelf. What they can't tell you is what your house costs, which depends on the block, the era, the condition, and whether it has parking. That's a conversation, not a chart.

Schools

Alexandria City Public Schools enrolled 15,928 students as of September 30, 2025 for the 2025-26 school year, across 18 schools: one Pre-K school, twelve elementary schools, two K-8 schools, two middle schools, and one high school (ACPS Fast Facts, 2025-26).

That last count surprises relocating parents, so it's worth spelling out. Alexandria has one high school, and it operates across four campuses. "Which school" and "which building" are two separate questions here, and the answer depends on your address and the program.

For the Class of 2026, ACPS reports 1,028 graduates, 414 of whom earned an Advanced Studies Diploma.

Attendance zones, program placement, and enrollment paperwork all run through ACPS directly, and they're the right source for how any of it applies to a specific address. Note that school assignment follows the city line too, so the jurisdiction question from the top of this page decides your division before it decides anything else.

Getting around

DASH, the city's bus system, is fare free throughout the City of Alexandria (City of Alexandria, Alexandria Transit). Neither the City's page nor DASH's own site states a start date for fare free service, so we'll say it's free and leave the history alone.

DASH runs 11 lines: eight daily routes, which are Lines 30 through 36 A/B plus the King Street Trolley, and three weekday only commuter lines, 102 through 104 (DASH, Schedules and Maps).

The King Street Trolley runs every day from 11AM to 11PM at 15 minute frequency, between the King Street Metro station and City Hall / Market Square. One caution: DASH's schedules page flags that the City Hall / Market Square stop may be temporarily closed for City Hall construction, so check DASH before you plan around that end of the route.

DASH connects to Metrobus, Metrorail, and Virginia Railway Express. Its routes serve Metrorail stations including Van Dorn, King Street, Braddock Road, Potomac Yard, and Pentagon (DASH, Schedules and Maps). Read that as the list of stations DASH routes reach, not as a roster of Alexandria's own stations. Pentagon is in Arlington.

The corridors DASH names in its routing are a decent map of where daily life happens: Old Town, Commonwealth Avenue, Mount Vernon Avenue, Shirlington. Mount Vernon Avenue is Del Ray's main street, and if you want to understand why people who move here tend to stay, spend a Saturday morning on it.

Four questions worth asking before you write an offer

None of the four below is a statistic, and we're not citing anything for them. They come from watching relocating buyers move into this city for more than twenty years, and they are the questions people most often wish they'd asked in week one.

Which jurisdiction is this address in, on the record? Not on the mailing label. Ask early, because it sets the tax bill and the school division.

Is the property in a historic district, and what does that mean for the work I want to do? Alexandria has historic districts with design review, and the scope of what's reviewed is a question for City planning staff, not for a blog post. Ask before you budget an exterior renovation, not after.

Is this property in a special flood hazard area, and what would flood insurance cost? Get the answer in writing from the City and from an insurance agent, early enough that it can still affect your offer.

Is the block in a residential permit parking district, and how many permits come with the property? In parts of Old Town this is the difference between two cars working and two cars not working.

Every one of those has a documented answer available before you go under contract. The cost of asking is a phone call. The cost of not asking shows up after closing.

When you're ready to talk

Elizabeth founded The LizLuke Team in 2003 and has been selling these blocks ever since. She has lived in Del Ray since 1993, which is long enough to know which streets flood in a hard rain and which block of the Avenue gets the good light in the evening. Most of our business comes from referrals and repeat clients. We work the whole market, small condos through the high end.

If you're moving in from out of the area, the useful first conversation usually isn't about houses. It's about which part of the city fits how you actually live, and what the real monthly number looks like once the tax calendar and the parking situation are in it. If you already know it's Old Town, here's the step by step version of that move.

Elizabeth Lucchesi and The LizLuke Team at LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE INC are in Old Town at 110 N Royal St, and we're glad to be the people you call with the small questions before you're anywhere near an offer. Reach out through lizluke.com whenever you're ready.

Sources

• City of Alexandria, Tax Guide for New City Residents: alexandriava.gov/taxes/tax-guide-for-new-city-residents (registration deadlines, parking permits, due dates, City decal history, no local income tax, returned check penalty)
• City of Alexandria, Tax Rates: alexandriava.gov/taxes/tax-rates (page labeled FY 2026, last updated October 17, 2025; refuse and stormwater fees billed with real estate taxes; current rates and fees should be read here directly)
• Alexandria City Public Schools, Fast Facts 2025-26: acps.k12.va.us/about-us/fast-facts (enrollment as of September 30, 2025; school counts and structure; Class of 2026 outcomes)
• City of Alexandria, Alexandria Transit: alexandriava.gov/mobility/alexandria-transit (DASH fare free citywide; connections to Metrobus, Metrorail, VRE)
• DASH, Schedules and Maps: dashbus.com/schedules (line count and numbering, King Street Trolley span and frequency, Metrorail stations served, City Hall stop construction note)
• Long & Foster Real Estate, Community Market Reports, August 2026, for Alexandria City, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia, and for the Capitol Hill and Georgetown neighborhood areas, Washington, DC. Data provided by Bright MLS and Williamsburg Area AOR MLS. Sales figures are July 2026 closings. Inventory counts are active listings as of August 14, 2026.

This is general information and is not legal or tax advice.

The LizLuke Team at LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE INC. 110 N Royal St, 3rd Floor, Alexandria, VA 22314. Office 703.683.0400. The LizLuke Team (703) 868-5676. Virginia License #0225069250.

Equal Housing Opportunity.

All information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.