Selling Timber in Virginia: The Seed Tree Law and Three Other Rules

The order of a timber sale in Virginia is the same as anywhere: find out what you have, get more than one offer, and put it all in a written contract. How to sell timber on your land goes through that order step by step.

The Virginia Department of Forestry adds one line worth taping to the fridge. On its selling timber page, read October 2026, it says: "Never use a verbal agreement to sell your trees."

This page is about what Virginia does differently. Four things:

1. A seed tree law that applies to a lot of pine sales, and that most landowners have never heard of.
2. The logger has to notify the Department of Forestry within three working days of starting.
3. A tax the mills pay helps fund replanting, and you can get some of that money back.
4. Someone who cuts your timber without permission owes you three times its value.

The seed tree law: the one that surprises people

If you sell pine in Virginia, read this part twice.

Virginia's seed tree law (Code sections 10.1-1162 to 10.1-1169, read October 2026) applies when someone cuts timber commercially from 10 or more acres where loblolly or white pine make up at least a quarter of the live trees on an acre.

On those acres, the law says to leave at least eight cone-bearing loblolly or white pines per acre, 14 inches or more across, standing and unharmed for at least three years. If an acre doesn't have eight trees that big, you leave two of the largest smaller pines for each one missing. The trees have to be healthy, windfirm, and carrying cones.

There's another way to meet it, and it's the one most people use: a planting or management plan approved by the State Forester. If you plan to replant after the harvest, a plan does the job of the seed trees. Send the plan by registered or certified mail, and if the State Forester doesn't answer within 60 days, the law treats it as approved.

Some land is exempt:

• Acres that already have 400 or more young loblolly or white pines at least four feet tall when the final cut is made.
• Land being cleared for farming, pasture or a building site (with deadlines to actually do it).
• Land zoned for something more intensive than farming or forestry.
• Landowners the State Forester allows to grow hardwoods instead.

Breaking the law is a misdemeanor: $30 for each seed tree cut, up to $240 an acre, and the area gets replanted, by you or by the state at your expense.

What to do with this: before you sign, decide whether you're replanting. If you are, get the plan approved. If you aren't, write the seed tree requirement into the timber sale contract so the logger leaves the right trees. Either way, this is your land and your responsibility, so don't assume the buyer will handle it.

The logger tells the Department of Forestry

Virginia requires the operator of a commercial timber harvest to notify the Department of Forestry no later than three working days after the harvest starts. That's Code section 10.1-1181.2, and the Department's own harvest notification policy says it is "the sole responsibility of the operator."

The notice includes the landowner's contact information, so don't be surprised if a Department forester gets in touch about the job. That same part of the law covers how logging is carried out, including around streams, so a visit is normal and not a sign anything's wrong.

Your part is small: ask the logger for the notification number once the job starts.

A tax the mills pay helps you replant

Virginia charges a forest products tax on wood products. For pine, Code section 58.1-1609 sets it at $1 per thousand board feet of lumber or 40 cents a cord of pulpwood. The money goes into, among other things, the Reforestation of Timberlands fund.

That fund is the part that matters to you. Under the state's reforestation law, the State Forester can examine your land, recommend how to replant, and pay part of the cost: up to 75 percent of the total or $90 an acre, whichever is less, for work done to the Forester's plan. Tracts over 500 acres under one owner, and acres already getting federal timber assistance, don't qualify.

So if you're replanting pine after the harvest, call your Department of Forestry forester before the trees come down. The same plan can cover the seed tree law and line you up for cost-share.

If someone cuts your timber without permission

Virginia law is direct about this. Under Code section 55.1-2836, anyone who cuts or removes your timber without the right to, or who tells someone else to, owes you:

• three times the value of the timber on the stump,
• your cost to replant, up to $450 an acre,
• the cost of finding out what the timber was worth, and
• your legal costs and reasonable attorney fees.

The law also gives you a fast route to settle the value. Within 90 days of finding the trespass and who did it, you can notify them and name an experienced timber estimator. They get 30 days to name their own. If the two disagree, they pick a third, neutral estimator, and that decision is final. If the other side does nothing, your estimator's number stands.

Clear lines prevent most of this. How to find property lines before selling timber covers getting them marked, and someone cut timber on my land without permission covers what to do if it's already happened.

What Virginia timber is selling for

Virginia has a good free price series. Virginia Tech's Forest Landowner Education Program publishes Virginia stumpage prices. For the second quarter of 2026:

• Pine sawtimber: $114.40 per thousand board feet (International 1/4 inch rule)
• Pine chip-n-saw: $18.54 a ton
• Pine pulpwood: $8.27 a ton
• Oak sawtimber: $43.97 a ton
• Hardwood pulpwood: $7.23 a ton

Pay attention to the units. Pine sawtimber here is priced by board feet, not tons, and hardwood sawtimber uses a different log rule again. A buyer quoting you in a different unit isn't necessarily low. How timber is measured explains the conversions, and Virginia timber prices has every product.

Where to get help in Virginia

The Department of Forestry offers management plans, pre-harvest plans, suggestions for sale contracts, and lists of private consulting foresters and timber buyers. It also explains the three ways timber is sold: sealed bids, a negotiated fixed price, and a negotiated percentage. A consulting forester can cruise the timber, put a value on it, and run the sale. Do I need a forestry consultant explains what that costs and what you get.

Before you sign in Virginia

• Pine on 10 acres or more? Decide now: seed trees, or an approved replanting plan.
• Call your Department of Forestry forester about cost-share before the harvest.
• Get it in writing. Never a verbal deal.
• Ask for the harvest notification number once the crew starts.
• Mark your lines.

Your next step this week: find the consulting foresters and timber buyers who work your Virginia county, and ask each one how they'd handle the seed tree law on your tract. The answer tells you a lot about who you're dealing with.