Veterinary Non-Competes in Virginia

The statute's operative sentence bars an employer from entering into, enforcing, or even threatening to enforce a covenant not to compete against either of two named classes: a "low-wage employee" or a "health care professional." That is broader than a bar on enforcement alone — an employer is not supposed to put the covenant in front of a covered worker in the first place.

Whether a particular veterinarian falls inside either class turns entirely on those two definitions, not on job title or employer type.

A veterinarian outside both classes is not automatically clear of the statute, though: subsection C separately makes any employee's covenant — no low-wage or health-care-professional test required — unenforceable if the employer discharges that employee without severance benefits or other monetary payment, unless the discharge was for cause, and requires any severance amount to be disclosed when the covenant is signed.

Subsection E backs both bars with a civil penalty of $10,000 per violation, payable to the Commonwealth.

The row records "health care professional" as meaning someone licensed or certified by six named boards: Medicine, Nursing, Counseling, Optometry, Psychology, or Social Work.

Virginia licenses veterinarians through the Board of Veterinary Medicine, a separate board that does not appear anywhere on that list.

That means a 2020s-era "health care worker non-compete ban" headline about Virginia does not describe a veterinarian's covenant here — the protection stops at the six license types the definition names, regardless of how the veterinarian's income compares to anyone else's.

Being excluded from "health care professional" does not automatically put a veterinarian's covenant outside this statute, because the ban also covers any "low-wage employee." That class is a worker whose average weekly earnings fall below the Commonwealth's average weekly wage under Va.

Code § 65.2-500, or who is overtime-eligible under 29 U.S.C. § 207; it also reaches interns, students, apprentices, and trainees.

For an independent contractor, the test is more specific: an hourly rate below the Commonwealth's median hourly wage for all occupations, as reported for the preceding year by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The definition then carves a class back out — it excludes any employee whose earnings come in whole or predominant part from sales commissions, incentives, or bonuses, which can put a production-based associate's pay outside this prong regardless of the dollar amount.

The research behind this page did not confirm the current dollar figures those wage tests translate to, so checking whether a veterinarian falls under this prong needs the current figures, not an older number.

The statute's own definition of "covenant not to compete" carries a limit that applies to every employee, not just the two banned classes: it does not cover a restriction that would stop an employee from providing a service to a customer or client of the employer, as long as the employee did not initiate contact with or solicit that customer or client.

In practice, a clause purporting to bar a veterinarian from continuing to treat a client who follows them on their own, without the veterinarian soliciting that client, falls outside what the statute treats as an enforceable "covenant not to compete" element in the first place.

Separately, subsection I.2 lets an employer of a "health care professional" write an enforceable non-solicitation clause reaching that person's own prior customers — but that safe harbor is written for health care professionals specifically, and a veterinarian is not one under this statute's definition, so it does not extend a Virginia veterinary employer's non-solicitation options beyond the general rule above.

The row records that § 40.1-28.7:8 was originally enacted in 2020 and amended again in 2026 through Acts 2026, chapters 883, 1113 and 1114.

The statute's own history note, in the saved copy of the current text, also lists a 2025 amendment, Acts 2025, chapter 585.

The research behind this page did not confirm what substance any of those amendments changed — only that the section was amended in those years.

Anyone relying on a specific detail of the current text should confirm it against the statute as currently published rather than an older summary.

The research behind this page reads the statute's bars on low-wage-employee and health-care-professional covenants, its severance/for-cause protection, and its customer/client non-solicitation proviso, along with subsection D's remedies for a covenant that violates one of those bars — a court may void it, enjoin the employer's conduct, and award liquidated damages, lost compensation, damages, and attorney fees and costs, with subsection F adding the claimant's own suit costs and fees.

None of that reaches a covenant that neither subsection B nor subsection C reaches — for example, a veterinarian paid above the statute's wage tests and not mainly by commission, who is discharged without cause but given the severance and disclosure subsection C requires.

For that gap, this page does not say how a Virginia court treats the covenant.

It also does not cover whether a covenant tied to selling a veterinary practice or an ownership interest is treated differently.

Those gaps are left blank here rather than filled from another state's rule — take them to a Virginia attorney with the whole agreement in hand.