Free Passage on Virginia Toll Roads — a Disability Route, Not a Veteran One, and the VA Can Sign It
Va. Code § 33.2-613(D) lets a driver with a severe physical disability use Virginia toll bridges, toll roads and other toll facilities free. The certification may come from a physician or from the Adjudication Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — but the test is upper limb mobility, not a rating, and the exemption only works once the Department of Transportation window sticker is on the glass.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
Va. Code § 33.2-613(D) lets a driver with a severe physical disability use Virginia toll bridges, toll roads and other toll facilities free. The certification may come from a physician or from the Adjudication Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — but the test is upper limb mobility, not a rating, and the exemption only works once the Department of Transportation window sticker is on the glass.
What it's worth: No toll on Virginia toll bridges, toll roads and other toll facilities, once the window sticker is issued
- Four conditions must all be met under subsection D: (1) the vehicle "is specially equipped to permit its operation by an individual with a disability"; (2) the driver "has been certified, either by a physician licensed by the Commonwealth or any other state or by the Adjudication Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as having a severe physical disability and having permanent upper limb mobility or dexterity impairments that substantially impair his ability to deposit coins in toll baskets"; (3) the driver "has applied for and received from the Department of Transportation a vehicle window sticker identifying him as eligible for such free passage"; and (4) the sticker "is properly displayed on the vehicle".
- The driver must hold a valid driver’s licence or other document issued under Chapter 3 of Title 46.2 or the comparable law of another jurisdiction.
- Subsection D requires that a copy of the subsection be posted at all toll bridges, toll roads and other toll facilities in the Commonwealth, and requires the Department of Transportation to provide envelopes for toll payments by exempt persons and to accept those payments.
- Subsection G separately allows any vehicle operated by a quadriplegic driver free use of toll facilities controlled by the Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority, subject to the same four conditions.
- Subsection F restricts who may use the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Richmond Metropolitan Transportation Authority facilities and Public-Private Transportation Act facilities toll-free, but by its own words it operates "notwithstanding the provisions of subsections A, B, and C" and does not name subsection D.
- The twenty categories exempt under subsection A are official ones — the Commissioner of Highways, Commonwealth Transportation Board members, Department of Transportation employees, State Police, local police, sheriffs and their deputies, regional jail officials, animal wardens, Department of Wildlife Resources officers, firefighting and emergency medical services operators, school bus operators, commuter and public transit bus operators, and others. No military decoration and no veteran status appears among them.
Who is entitled to it
- The exemption follows the driver, not the household.
- A service-connected disability is what brings the VA Adjudication Office into the certification route.
- Your home is in Virginia.
Not sure whether that describes you?
Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.
How to claim it
- 1Read the test before you apply. It is about upper limb mobility or dexterity that substantially impairs the ability to deposit coins in toll baskets — not about a percentage on a rating letter, and not about the loss of a leg.
- 2Ask the VA Adjudication Office to certify, if that is easier than a physician appointment. The statute names it in terms as an alternative certifier, and most people applying do not know that.
- 3A physician licensed in the Commonwealth or in any other state may certify instead. An out-of-state doctor is expressly good enough.
- 4The vehicle itself has to qualify. Subsection D 1 asks that it be specially equipped to permit its operation by an individual with a disability — hand controls, a left-foot accelerator, a spinner knob.
- 5Apply to the Department of Transportation for the window sticker and then display it properly. Steps 3 and 4 of the subsection are conditions, not paperwork: without the sticker on the glass there is no exemption.
- 6Do not expect your DV, Purple Heart or Medal of Honor plates to do this. Section 33.2-613 was read end to end this session and none of them appears in it.
- 7Ask for the payment envelopes if you find yourself at a plaza that will not honour the sticker. The Department is required to provide them and to accept payments made that way.
- Form
- Application to the Virginia Department of Transportation for a toll-exemption window sticker
- File with
- Virginia Department of Transportation
- Documents you will need
- va benefit summary letter
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
Sources
Why only one source type: The section states the whole test, names the certifying bodies and names the Department of Transportation window sticker as the operative document; the Department publishes no separate page for the sticker that was reachable this session, and the application detail is recorded as a candidate rather than guessed at.
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.