Virginia — financial stress by county

The Financial Stress Index (FSI) combines renter cost burden, eviction rate, and debt in collections into a 0–100 score. 130 of 133 Virginia counties have all three inputs and receive a score. The average FSI across reporting counties is 61.6. Portsmouth, VA has the highest score at 98.

Data note: The eviction rate component draws from the Princeton Eviction Lab's last national county release (2018). Post-pandemic eviction trends are not reflected in these scores — counties with high pre-2020 eviction activity may score differently if updated data were available. Rent burden and debt figures use 2024 ACS and Urban Institute data; the debt-collections input reflects credit-active adults only — those with a credit-bureau file.

Among states with reliable FSI coverage (≥60% of counties scored), Virginia ranks #7 of 36 states. The average FSI of 61.6 is 17% above the national average FSI of 52.6.

Virginia ranks #6 of 12 in the South by average FSI score — between Georgia (61.7) just above and West Virginia (56.4) just below.