VA Loan Limits in Virginia, Maryland, DC, and West Virginia (2026 Guide)

The 2026 ceiling across the Washington metro is $1,249,125. For most buyers it is not a ceiling at all.

By Ken Byrne, NMLS #187129 · ALCOVA Mortgage LLC, NMLS #40508 · Updated September 2026

Two numbers govern every VA file in this region, and almost nobody needs either of them. Below is what the 2026 limits actually are, which jurisdictions in Virginia, Maryland, the District and West Virginia carry which figure, and the single situation where the number in the table genuinely binds. If you would rather skip to your own answer, the JB Financing, the Ken Byrne Team at ALCOVA Mortgage desk will pull your entitlement and tell you your real zero down ceiling the same day.

The number you came here for probably does not apply to you

Search for VA loan limits and you will be handed a county table. It is real, it is current, and for most of the people reading it, it governs nothing. Since January 2020 the VA has not capped loan size for veterans with full entitlement.

The VA states the position in one line on its own loan limits page: “You don’t have a loan limit (as long as you can afford the loan amount and the property appraisal supports the purchase price of the home).” That is the whole rule for the majority of borrowers.

The two 2026 numbers that matter

The Federal Housing Finance Agency sets conforming loan limits each November, and the VA adopts them. There are two: a national baseline and a ceiling for expensive metros.

Source: FHFA, “FHFA Announces Conforming Loan Limit Values for 2026”. FHFA states that “house prices increased 3.26 percent, on average, between the third quarters of 2024 and 2025. Therefore, the baseline CLL in 2026 will increase by the same percentage,” and that the statute sets the ceiling “at 150 percent of the baseline limit.”

The ceiling is always exactly 1.5 times the baseline, which is why both moved by the same percentage.

Which counties here get the high ceiling

FHFA assigns limits by metropolitan area rather than by individual county, and it publishes a flat file of all 3,235 counties and county equivalents every November. Of those, 3,075 sit at the baseline and 160 are above it. Here is every jurisdiction in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and the District that clears the baseline in 2026.

Source: FHFA, full county loan limit list for 2026, HERA-based final. The $1,249,125 group is the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan area, CBSA 47900. Calvert County belongs to the Lexington Park micropolitan area rather than the Washington metro, which is why it lands one tier lower despite being in the region, and Madison County carries an area-specific limit outside any metro.

The bottom row is worth pausing on. A veteran buying in Martinsburg, twenty minutes from Charles Town, is working with $832,750. Cross into Jefferson County and the same borrower has $1,249,125. Nothing about the borrower changed. Jefferson is the only West Virginia county inside the Washington metro, and the only one in the state above the baseline.

VA loan limits by state, 2026

The table above is the whole picture in one block. Most people want their own state, so here it is broken out, with the practical consequence in each.

VA loan limits in Virginia

Seventeen Virginia jurisdictions carry the $1,249,125 ceiling: Arlington, Clarke, Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Rappahannock, Spotsylvania, Stafford and Warren counties, and the independent cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Manassas and Manassas Park. Madison County sits alone at $1,209,750. Every other Virginia county and city is at the $832,750 baseline, including Richmond, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Roanoke and Charlottesville.

The spread inside one state is the thing to notice. A veteran with partial entitlement buying in Stafford has $416,375 more guaranty room than the same veteran buying in Hanover, one county outside the metro boundary. We lend across the whole state, and the county map is the first thing we check on a partial entitlement file. Our Virginia home loans page covers what else changes by jurisdiction here.

VA loan limits in Maryland

Four Maryland counties are at $1,249,125: Montgomery, Prince George’s, Frederick and Charles. Calvert County is at $1,209,750. Everything else in the state, Baltimore City and Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Howard and Harford counties included, is at $832,750.

Howard and Anne Arundel are the ones that surprise people, because both are expensive and both feel like Washington commuter territory. FHFA assigns limits by metropolitan area, and those two belong to the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson metro rather than the Washington one. If you are shopping across that line, the relevant details are on our Maryland mortgage page.

VA loan limits in Washington, DC

The District is a single jurisdiction at $1,249,125, the highest tier available in the continental United States. There is no intra-District variation, so a partial entitlement buyer in Anacostia and one in Georgetown work from the same guaranty figure even though the price points have nothing in common.

In practice the District is where the ceiling is least likely to be theoretical, because it is where the top of the market runs furthest above it. Local specifics sit on our Washington DC home loans page.

VA loan limits in West Virginia

Jefferson County is at $1,249,125. Every other county in West Virginia, all fifty four of them, is at the $832,750 baseline. That includes Berkeley County, which is where Martinsburg is, and which shares a border with Jefferson.

This is the single sharpest limit boundary in the region. Two houses fifteen minutes apart, one in Charles Town and one in Martinsburg, sit $416,375 apart in guaranty room for a partial entitlement borrower. For a full entitlement borrower it makes no difference at all, which is exactly why the distinction is worth getting right before you assume it matters. More on lending in the Eastern Panhandle is on our West Virginia mortgage page.

What full entitlement is, and how you know you have it

You have full entitlement if

You have never used a VA home loan. Or you used one, paid it off in full, and sold the property. Or you had a VA loan that was foreclosed or short sold and you repaid the VA in full. Your Certificate of Eligibility is the document that settles it, and it will show basic entitlement of $36,000.

That $36,000 figure confuses people constantly. It is not your loan limit. The VA explains that the amount “shows your lender the amount of your VA loan guaranty if the loan amount you want to get is $144,000 or less.” Above $144,000 a second tier of entitlement, sized off the county limit, does the work. Pull your Certificate of Eligibility before you shop; it takes minutes and it settles the question.

What replaces the limit

Four things, and lenders apply all of them. Your income and debts, through the debt-to-income ratio. Residual income, which is a VA-specific test of what is left over each month after the mortgage, taxes, insurance, debts and an allowance for maintenance and utilities. Your credit. And the appraisal, because the VA is explicit that “the maximum VA loan on an individual property is either the appraised value of the property or the purchase price, whichever is lower.”

Overlays are rules a lender adds on top of VA policy, commonly around credit score, reserves and maximum loan size. They are not VA requirements and they are not uniform, which is the practical reason to get a second opinion on any file that came back smaller than expected.

The one case where the limit really does bite

You bought a house on a VA loan at your last duty station. You get orders. You want to keep the first house, rent it out, and buy where you are going. The first loan is still on your entitlement, so the county limit is now doing real work.

Keeping the first house is where the county limit stops being trivia.

Here is the arithmetic, using a $400,000 VA loan still outstanding on the old home and a purchase anywhere in the Washington metro.

And above that ceiling you are not shut out. You simply cover the shortfall in guaranty.

Calculated as 25 percent of the purchase price minus $212,281 of remaining entitlement. A conventional buyer putting 20 percent down on that $950,000 house brings $190,000.

This is the scenario behind most of the confusion, and it is common around every installation in this region. If you are PCSing to Fairfax County specifically, we work the local version of this problem in our guide to buying near Fort Belvoir.

Buying above the ceiling with full entitlement

There is no such thing as a VA jumbo loan in the statute. The phrase is lender shorthand for a VA loan larger than the conforming limit, and with full entitlement the VA imposes no cap on it at all. What you run into instead is the lender.

Overlays are the lender’s own rules layered on top of VA policy. They vary considerably, which is why two lenders can quote the same veteran very different maximums on the same house.

Practically, above roughly a million dollars you should expect questions about reserves and residual income even with full entitlement, and you should expect answers to differ by lender. If the VA route does not work for a particular file, the conventional alternative at that size is covered on our jumbo loans page.

The cost nobody puts in the county table

The VA funding fee is the price of the guaranty, it is charged once, and it can be financed into the loan. It is also the single largest number most VA buyers do not budget for.

VA.gov purchase loan funding fee table, rates effective April 7, 2023 and unchanged for 2026.

On a $760,599 purchase, which is the typical Fairfax County home value, the fee is $16,353 on a first use with nothing down and $25,100 on a subsequent use. Putting 5 percent down cuts it to $11,409, which is a rare case where a down payment pays for itself twice. We break the tiers down further in our guide to the VA funding fee in 2026.

How the ceiling compares to what homes here actually cost

Worth seeing in one table, because it explains why the limit is a non-issue for most buyers in this region and a live constraint for almost none.

Source: Zillow Home Value Index. Woodbridge and Alexandria as of July 31, 2026; Fairfax County as of August 31, 2026.

Even in Fairfax County, the ceiling sits roughly two thirds above the typical house. A full entitlement buyer would have to be shopping well into the top of the market before the number appeared on their radar, and at that point the binding constraint is the payment, not the guaranty. In ten years of files in this region the county limit has never once been the reason a full entitlement buyer could not buy.

Getting entitlement back

Entitlement is not spent forever. Sell the property and pay the VA loan off in full and it restores automatically once you request it. Pay the loan off in full but keep the house and you can use a one-time restoration, which is exactly what it sounds like: available once.

The paperwork is a VA Form 26-1880 request for a Certificate of Eligibility, and it is worth doing before you start shopping rather than during. A COE that still shows the old loan against your entitlement will shrink your zero down ceiling on paper even though the loan is gone.

Where the limit shows up on a refinance

Two different VA refinance products, and the county limit behaves differently in each.

The interest rate reduction refinance

An IRRRL replaces an existing VA loan with another VA loan at a lower rate. Your entitlement is already committed to the property, so the transaction does not ask the county limit a new question. There is no appraisal in most cases and no fresh entitlement calculation. The funding fee on an IRRRL is 0.5 percent, far below any purchase tier.

The cash-out refinance

This one is a full new loan with a full underwrite, and it does re-engage entitlement. If you hold partial entitlement, the same subtraction applies: the county figure sets the guaranty available, and the loan you are paying off releases the entitlement it was holding at the moment it closes. The practical effect is that the two events net out, and most borrowers refinancing their only VA loan never see the limit at all.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a maximum VA loan amount in 2026?

Not for veterans with full entitlement. The VA removed the cap for full entitlement borrowers effective January 1, 2020. What limits you is what a lender will approve and what the appraisal supports.

What is the VA loan limit in Virginia for 2026?

It depends on the county, and only if you have partial entitlement. Every Northern Virginia county and independent city inside the Washington metro carries $1,249,125. The rest of Virginia is at the $832,750 baseline.

What is the VA loan limit in Maryland, DC and West Virginia?

The District of Columbia is $1,249,125. In Maryland, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Frederick and Charles counties are at $1,249,125, Calvert County is at $1,209,750, and the rest of the state is at $832,750. In West Virginia, Jefferson County is at $1,249,125 and every other county is at $832,750.

Can I have two VA loans at once?

Yes, provided you have entitlement left. Your zero down ceiling on the second loan is the county limit minus the VA loan still outstanding on the first. If the first loan is $400,000 in the Washington metro, you can buy at $849,125 with nothing down.

How much down payment do I need if I exceed my remaining entitlement?

Twenty five percent of the purchase price, minus your remaining entitlement. On a $950,000 purchase with $212,281 of entitlement left, that is $25,219, or 2.7 percent. A conventional buyer would be bringing $190,000 to the same table.

Does the county loan limit cap how much house I can buy?

No. It caps the VA’s guaranty, which in turn caps how much you can borrow with nothing down when your entitlement is partial. You can always buy above it by covering the difference in cash.

Is a VA jumbo loan a real product?

It is lender shorthand, not a VA program. A VA loan above the conforming limit is still an ordinary VA loan. With full entitlement the VA sets no maximum, so the practical ceiling comes from the lender’s own overlays.

Do I pay the funding fee on a second VA loan?

Yes, and at a higher rate. Subsequent use with nothing down is 3.3 percent rather than 2.15 percent. Putting 5 percent down drops both first and subsequent use to 1.5 percent. If you are exempt, you are exempt on every VA loan, first or fifth.

What are the VA loan limits for 2026?

The 2026 baseline is $832,750 for a one unit property and the high-cost ceiling is $1,249,125. Both rose 3.26 percent over 2025, tracking the FHFA house price index. The ceiling is fixed by statute at 150 percent of the baseline.

Did the VA loan limit go up in 2026?

Yes. The baseline moved from $806,500 to $832,750, an increase of $26,250, and the high-cost ceiling moved from $1,209,750 to $1,249,125, an increase of $39,375. The percentage change is identical because the ceiling is always 1.5 times the baseline.

Which counties near Washington DC are not at the high-cost ceiling?

Calvert County, Maryland and Madison County, Virginia are at $1,209,750 rather than $1,249,125, because neither belongs to the Washington metropolitan area as FHFA defines it. Anne Arundel and Howard counties in Maryland are at the $832,750 baseline for the same reason: they sit in the Baltimore metro.

Does the loan limit affect my VA refinance?

Not on an interest rate reduction refinance, which does not re-open the entitlement calculation and carries a 0.5 percent funding fee. A cash-out refinance is a full new loan and does engage entitlement, though for most borrowers the loan being paid off releases the entitlement the new one needs.

What is residual income and why does it matter more than the limit?

It is the VA test of what is left each month after the mortgage, taxes, insurance, debts, and an allowance for utilities and maintenance. It varies by family size and region. It is one of the reasons a VA file can be approved where a conventional one is declined, and one of the reasons a VA file can be cut back even when the county limit is nowhere near binding.