Buying or selling a cannabis business in Richmond, Virginia

One permit covers the whole region

Richmond does not have its own cannabis licensing system, and it does not have a market of individually tradeable dispensary licences. It sits inside Health Service Area IV, which covers the Richmond and Petersburg area. Under section 4.1-1602 of the Code of Virginia, one pharmaceutical processor permit is issued in each health service area, and up to five cannabis dispensing facilities may be permitted there, each owned at least in part by that area’s processor. Add the processor’s own dispensing location and the region has roughly six medical retail points, all under one owner. The statewide structure is on the Virginia page.

The one deal that sets the benchmark

Central Virginia’s permit changed hands in 2026, and the sequence is instructive. The Cannabist Company, formerly Columbia Care, had built the position through its 2021 purchase of Green Leaf Medical, which won the area licence in 2018. In late 2025 Cannabist announced a $110 million sale to Curaleaf, then called it off. In early February 2026 an entity tied to Boston-based Millstreet Capital Management closed a $130 million purchase instead.

What transferred: an 82,000-square-foot cultivation and production facility in South Richmond with a dispensary inside it, plus freestanding dispensaries in Carytown, Short Pump, eastern Henrico and Colonial Heights, with room under the permit for one more.

Two things follow for anyone pricing a Central Virginia asset. First, the buyer was a credit fund, not an operator, and credit funds are usually temporary owners; the pattern is described in MSOs and consolidation. Second, an announced price is not a completed price. The $110 million headline evaporated and the completed number was different.

Local rules that already bite: hemp and tobacco retail

Richmond has no adult-use cannabis zoning yet because there is no adult-use licence yet. What it does have is a recent, restrictive ordinance over the retail category that actually trades in the city today.

Council adopted Ordinance 2025-157 on 28 July 2025. It made retail sales of tobacco and hemp a conditional use in selected districts, with 1,000-foot spacing from residential districts, schools, day cares, parks, libraries and places of worship, and a ban on drive-through service. The definition is broad: a store counts if 10% or more of its inventory, floor space or revenue comes from tobacco or hemp-derived products. Businesses operating before 28 July 2025 are legally nonconforming and may continue, but that protection depends on holding a certificate of occupancy and not ceasing operations for two years.

That is the deal-relevant point. If you are buying a Richmond hemp or vape retailer, nonconforming status is a large part of what you are paying for, and it is fragile. Confirm the certificate of occupancy, confirm continuous operation, and confirm whether the use could be re-established if the store closed during a fit-out. The state layer matters too: from 15 August 2026 Virginia bars products over 2 milligrams of total THC per package from being sold as hemp, so the catalogue is shrinking at the same time as the footprint. See selling a hemp or CBD business and intoxicating hemp products: regulatory status.

The city has also been running a broader rewrite of its zoning ordinance under the Richmond 300 plan, with smoke and vape shop siting debated through 2025. That rewrite is the most likely vehicle for whatever Richmond decides about marijuana retail stores.

Tax and local control from 2027

Richmond cannot opt out of adult-use retail; the referendum mechanism was removed before enactment. It must levy a local cannabis tax of between 1% and 3.5% on top of the 6% state rate, which rises to 8% on 1 July 2029. A site’s usable value in Richmond will therefore turn on conditional-use permitting and buffer geometry rather than on winning a local licence, and the city’s approach to hemp retail is the best available signal of how strict it will be. General framework: local control and municipal approvals and zoning, buffers and conditional use permits.

Practical points for sellers and buyers

Sellers. If you own hemp retail in Richmond, your zoning status and your post-August-2026 product mix are the two things a buyer will underwrite hardest. Document both before you market. If you own commercial property near a corridor that clears the 1,000-foot buffers, you own something a future retail applicant will want, and a lease is often the cleaner trade; see cannabis real estate basics.

Buyers. There is one plant-touching business in this region and it traded in February 2026, so there is nothing to buy in medical Richmond right now. For 2027, the useful work is site control, a conditional-use path, and capital, not a purchase agreement. Anything sold today as a Richmond licence is a pre-revenue expectation; see valuing a pre-revenue license and buying a license vs applying for one.

This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. To talk through a Richmond sale or acquisition in confidence, book an intro call.