Which Virginia Hazard Mitigation Plans Expire Next? The 2026–⁠2028 Calendar

Virginia writes its local hazard mitigation plans region by region, and most regions are keeping pace. Of the 13 Planning District Commission plans that have lapsed or expire by the end of 2028, 11 had an update under way on November 2, 2026, according to FEMA's plan records. Two did not: Central Virginia's, which expired on February 8, 2026 and covers 10 jurisdictions and about 260,000 people in the Lynchburg region, and Northern Shenandoah Valley's, which expires on September 11, 2028 and covers 21 jurisdictions and about 233,000 people.

The regional structure is set out in the Commonwealth's 2023 hazard mitigation plan: Virginia's cities and counties are organized into 21 Planning District Commissions, and each of the 20 local plans was completed on a regional basis through them. FEMA's 2025 planning handbook asks for at least 18 months from kickoff to approval, and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) adds its own review before FEMA's.

If your region's plan expires in 2028, the update should be funded now and started by spring 2027 at the latest. The calendar below lists every regional plan that has lapsed or expires through 2028, with its start-by and funding dates and how far each update has got.

We track these dates because we built the tool that shows them. CF Labs, Council Fire's software studio, turned FEMA's daily plan records into a public hazard mitigation plan tracker that covers every state. Council Fire, a certified B Corp since 2010, was an implementation and stakeholder engagement partner for Phase I of the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative, which included 18 months of community engagement on its own, and we have published the same calendar for Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Why does a regional plan's expiration date matter in Virginia?

Because federal mitigation money follows it. Under 44 CFR 201.6, a local government needs a FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan to receive FEMA mitigation project grants, and plans must be updated and resubmitted every five years. In a regional plan, each county, city and town has to adopt it to be covered, so a region can be on schedule while some of its towns are not.

VDEM applies the rule directly: for Flood Mitigation Assistance, its program page says subapplicants must have a FEMA-approved local hazard mitigation plan by the application deadline and when funds are obligated, except for mitigation planning itself. Planning districts are themselves eligible applicants for FEMA's mitigation programs through VDEM. That eligibility is worth real money now:

• Flood Mitigation Assistance. FEMA's fiscal 2026 round offers up to $400 million, with state applications due February 26, 2027. Virginia's subapplications go through VDEM, which sets its own earlier deadline. We track the round on our Flood Mitigation Assistance page.
• BRIC. FEMA's $1 billion fiscal 2024–25 round closed July 23, 2026 and is still under review, with no new round announced.
• The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. It opens only after a major disaster declaration, and it requires an approved plan too.

The return on that money is well documented: the National Institute of Building Sciences found that federal mitigation grants save $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent.

Who this is for: county administrators, town managers and elected officials deciding when to fund the update, and the planning district staff making the case to them.

Which Virginia plans expire next?

Ten regional plans expire by the end of 2028, and three have already lapsed. The number after each region is how many jurisdictions its plan covers. "Start by" is 18 months before expiration, FEMA's minimum timeline from kickoff to approval, and "Funding by" is the end of the plan's third year, when FEMA's handbook says the update should be scoped and its funding pursued. "Update on record" is the furthest stage FEMA's records show for the region's next plan.

Who this is for: planning district staff, local emergency managers, and the county, city and town officials who will adopt the next plan. To look up a single locality, open our tracker and choose Virginia.

Two regions show no update. What should they do now?

Central Virginia's plan expired on February 8, 2026, and Northern Shenandoah Valley's expires on September 11, 2028. FEMA's records showed no newer plan for either on November 2. That doesn't prove nothing is happening: the records depend on what the state reports, and a planning district may be scoping the work now. Both are short of time: Central Virginia's 10 jurisdictions are already without an approved plan, and Northern Shenandoah Valley is about four months from FEMA's suggested start date.

The steps are the same, at different speeds:

1. Confirm the status with VDEM. VDEM's regional planners are the state's technical reviewers for local plans and can say what has been submitted.
2. Fund it and start the team together. FEMA's handbook says securing funding can take up to 12 months, so assemble the planning team while the application is pending. Northern Shenandoah Valley passed the plan's third-year funding mark in September 2026, and FEMA's 18-month timeline puts its kickoff by March 2027.
3. Bring every locality into the update. FEMA's records list nine Northern Shenandoah Valley towns, among them Berryville, Front Royal, Luray, Stephens City and Strasburg, as approvable but not yet adopted under the current plan. A locality that hasn't adopted isn't covered, so the update is the moment to get every adoption done.
4. Book the reviews. VDEM asks for at least 30 days in the schedule for its review and at least a week for revisions, before FEMA's own review and local adoption.

Who this is for: staff at the Central Virginia and Northern Shenandoah Valley planning district commissions and their member localities, and any region whose plan expires within 18 months without an update under way.

What do the lapsed regions show?

That a gap can open even when a region is working on its update. Southside's plan lapsed on September 1, 2025 and Lenowisco's on May 17, 2026, and both had updates in progress on November 2, 2026. Until FEMA approves those updates and each locality adopts them, the two regions' 34 jurisdictions can't receive FEMA mitigation project grants. On the Eastern Shore, Accomack-Northampton's update is further along: FEMA has asked for revisions, with the current plan running to April 25, 2027.

The fix is to plan the end of the schedule as carefully as the start: state review, FEMA's review and every adoption vote have to fit before the old plan runs out. Our guide to hazard mitigation plan implementation covers what to do with the plan's actions once it's approved.

Who this is for: regions with plans expiring in 2027, all five of which have updates moving, including Hampton Roads and Richmond-Crater, whose plans together cover about 2.9 million people.

What does an on-time update look like?

Counted back from the expiration date, FEMA's guidance and VDEM's review imply a schedule like this one:

Who this is for: regions with plans expiring in 2029 and 2030, which are in the funding years now.

How do you pay for the update and the projects in it?

FEMA's mitigation programs pay for planning as well as projects, applied for through VDEM, and our resilience funding hub tracks each FEMA round's status and dates. Virginia adds a source of its own: the Department of Conservation and Recreation's Community Flood Preparedness Fund, created in 2020, offered $50 million in grants for capacity building and planning, studies and projects in its sixth round, which took applications from October 15 to December 1, 2025. Its manual sets the local share for planning at 25%, or 10% in low-income geographic areas, and DCR has published a draft seventh-round manual for public comment.

Before applying for anything, our free funding readiness scorecard flags the hard stops, including an expired plan, and our guides cover writing an RFP for a hazard mitigation plan update and applying for a FEMA mitigation grant. For the years between federal rounds, see our guide to funding resilience without federal grants.

Who this is for: grant and finance staff at planning districts and localities lining up the update's funding and the local match.

How we built this calendar

The dates come from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Plan Statuses dataset (OpenFEMA, version 1), retrieved November 2, 2026. We group localities by the regional plan they share, take each plan's expiration date from FEMA's records, and count back 18 and 24 months following FEMA's handbook. "Update on record" is the furthest stage FEMA lists for each region's next plan (in progress, revisions requested, in review, or approved and pending adoption); it depends on what the state reports, so a region can be further along than the record shows.

The calendar leaves out the separate plans that some Virginia universities and tribes keep for themselves. Population figures are FEMA's.

Who this is for: reporters, researchers and planners checking our numbers against FEMA's.

This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. The Federal Government or FEMA cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website(s).

Related Resources

Plan status and the update

• Hazard mitigation plan tracker: every U.S. jurisdiction's plan status from FEMA's data.
• The Maryland calendar: nine 2028 plans with no update on record.
• The Pennsylvania calendar: county plans, most of them started early.
• The Delaware calendar: Delaware, where the next deadline is adoption.
• How to write an RFP for a hazard mitigation plan update: scope, budget and evaluation.
• Hazard mitigation plan implementation: from action table to funded projects.

Funding

• How to apply for a FEMA mitigation grant: outside help with the application.
• Resilience funding readiness scorecard: 18 questions, with the hard stops flagged.
• Navigating federal climate funding in 2026: a playbook for municipalities.
• Funding resilience without federal grants: sources for the years between grants.

Delivering the plan

• How to prioritize climate resilience projects: which actions to fund first.
• How to build resilience into your capital improvement plan: getting projects into the budget.
• What is a resilience authority?: a regional financing vehicle.
• Aptation: the resilience planning and delivery platform CF Labs built.

Bring us your expiration date

Tell us your region's plan expiration date and where the update stands. We'll map the schedule back from that date, show which programs your projects could compete for and when, and say what belongs in the scope. Talk to us on our contact page and choose Climate resilience.

About the Author

George Chmael II is Council Fire's Founder & CEO. He has led the firm since its founding and through its B Corp certification in 2010. Council Fire's climate resilience practice works with cities, counties, ports and authorities on planning, funding and delivery, and CF Labs builds the software that holds that work together.

Written by

George Chmael II

Founder & CEO

Corporate lawyer turned social entrepreneur, guiding organizations toward three bottom lines for 25+ years.

Full bio →All 89 articles by George →

From the library

• Topic hubFunding Climate Resilience→
• RFP guideHow to Write an RFP for a Resilience Funding Strategy→
• County profilesMaryland Climate Risk by County→

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