Budget Explorer · City of Virginia Beach

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of Virginia Beach, on the same Census classification used for every city, county, and state in the Library — so the figures line up with peers rather than with the government's own budget book. Latest year: FY ending Jun 30, 2024. City of Virginia Beach's own FY2027 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 456K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$2.36B

$5,188 per resident

Total spending

$2.62B

$5,746 per resident

Spending per resident

$5,746

75th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$1.71B

$3,759 per resident · 48th percentile of 70

Own-source share

71%

25th percentile of 71

Capital share

17%

47th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$2.36B total

Own-source revenue (taxes, charges, interest) versus aid from other governments. Utility and trust revenue are shown alongside general revenue but run on their own books.

Property tax$902M38%
General sales tax$92M4%
Selective sales taxes$204M9%
License & other taxes$87M4%
Federal aid$41M2%
State & local aid$618M26%
Charges & fees$245M10%
Interest, fines, other$101M4%
Utility revenue$73M3%

Own-source share of general revenue 71% · federal aid 2% · property tax is 70% of taxes

Where it goes

$2.62B total

Current operations plus capital outlay, grouped by Census function. Interest on debt and transfers to other governments are broken out so they are not hidden inside services.

Education$1.10B42%
General government$397M15%
Public safety$309M12%
Environment & housing$218M8%
Transportation$163M6%
Culture & recreation$127M5%
Health & hospitals$93M4%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$81M3%
Public welfare$75M3%
Interest on debt$31M1%
Transfers to other governments$24M1%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
K-12 education	Education	$1.02B	$76M	$1.10B
General (unallocable)	General government	$113M	$135M	$248M
Highways	Transportation	$100M	$56M	$156M
Police protection	Public safety	$133M	$4.4M	$137M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$79M	$52M	$130M
Fire protection	Public safety	$111M	$806K	$112M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$81M	$25M	$105M
Health	Health & hospitals	$92M	$938K	$93M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$57M	$24M	$81M
Public welfare	Public welfare	$75M	—	$75M
General public buildings	General government	$0	$58M	$58M
Corrections (institutions)	Public safety	$56M	$410K	$57M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$41M	$3.3M	$44M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$43M	$110K	$43M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

Nominal dollars. The Census Bureau cautions that single-government series are edited only for aggregates — read direction, not decimals.

Revenue

+10% over 2 yrs

$2.15B → $2.36B

Spending

+18% over 2 yrs

$2.22B → $2.62B

Debt outstanding

+18% over 2 yrs

$1.46B → $1.71B

How it compares · 71 cities and counties in the Library

Percentile within the cohort on each place's latest Census year. Higher is not better — the last column says what a high reading means so you can decide whether it matters here.

Measure	City of Virginia Beach	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$5,746	$3,741	75th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$5,188	$3,548	70th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$2,822	$1,328	85th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$3,759	$3,865	48th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	71%	81%	25th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	2%	7%	15th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	17%	18%	47th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	1%	4%	6th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	0.72×	1.05×	28th	more leveraged

About this data

Census classification categories, not this government's own budget structure. Figures are audited actuals for the fiscal year shown, not the adopted budget.
The Census Bureau edits unit-level data only to produce state and national aggregates and advises against reading it as a precise time series for any single government; treat year-over-year moves under ~5% as noise.
Employee-retirement-system revenue is excluded (published separately by Census). Utility and insurance-trust revenue are shown separately from general revenue.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances (Individual Unit public-use files), unit 512810202751 (Virginia Beach City). Retrieved 2026-09-07. Classification manual.

Spot an error, or know a better source for this place's adopted budget? Suggest an edit on the assessment.

Adopted budget · FY2027

City of Virginia Beach's own budget, in its own structure, read from its published budget book and checked against the total the document itself prints. This is the current year — more recent than the Census series above, but only comparable to this city's own history. Totals cover 65 departments.

$3.96B total

Public Education$1.46B37%
Transfer to Other Funds$725M18%
Public Works$243M6%
Debt Service$217M5%
Human Services$163M4%
Police$150M4%
Public Utilities$119M3%
Fire$96M2%
Parks and Recreation$82M2%
Sheriff and Corrections$77M2%
Reserve for Contingencies$71M2%
Information Technology$65M2%
All other (53)$498M13%

Parsed from the published budget book (pages 14-28) — all funds, each department summed across every fund it appears in, before internal service funds and transfers are removed.
Figures are checked against the total the document itself prints before publishing.
This is the gross figure. Removing internal service funds ($350.5M) and interfund transfers ($724.9M) gives Virginia Beach's net appropriation of $2,886,575,513.
Includes public education and non-departmental lines — debt service, transfers to other funds and reserves.
Source: FY2026-27 Adopted Operating Budget (Fund Summary) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-13. Open the source document.

Looking for how this fits City of Virginia Beach's capacity to deliver? The fiscal dimension, binding constraint, and pathways live in the City of Virginia Beach capacity assessment.