The 2026 Reston Association assessment is $890 per lot, due January 1, with late fees after March 1. Members who qualify for the Fairfax County Tax Relief Program pay $445. The assessment is the annual charge every RA member owes, and the board sets it each November for the year ahead.
Membership is not something a buyer opts into. The deed that created Reston attaches it to the lot, and a new owner inherits it at settlement along with the roof and the driveway.
Every Reston lot owes $890 in 2026, and the bill arrives January 1
Reston Association bills the assessment once a year rather than monthly. Payment is due January 1, and late fees attach to anything paid after March 1.
Four payment routes exist. Online through RA’s bill locator portal, which adds a 3% surcharge on credit card payments. By mail to a Baltimore lockbox. In the outdoor drop box at RA headquarters on Sunrise Valley Drive. Or by phone with a card.
A six-month installment plan is available through Member Services, with administrative fees added. Owners who want it have to ask for it.
The reduced rate cuts the bill in half. Members enrolled in the Fairfax County Tax Relief Program, which covers owners over 65, owners who are totally disabled, and owners who meet the county’s income test, pay $445 for 2026 rather than $890. RA requires the documentation by July 31.
Administration and grounds take the two largest shares of every $890
Reston Association’s 2026 budget spends $24.2 million. Assessments supply $19.4 million of that, or about 80%, and program fees and other revenue cover the rest. Scaled to a single $890 assessment, the budget breaks down like this:
| Category | Share of every $890 |
|---|---|
| Administration, finance and member services | $218 |
| Grounds, pathways, lakes and natural areas | $154 |
| Facilities and field operations | $127 |
| Pools | $118 |
| Capital projects and reserves | $105 |
| Covenants and design review | $80 |
| Camps, nature center, events and Lake House | $62 |
| Tennis and pickleball | $25 |
A reserve is money set aside now for the next pool renovation or pathway rebuild rather than for this year’s operating costs, and a thin reserve produces a special assessment later. Reston Association’s 2026 contribution to capital projects and reserves is $2.85 million.
The grounds and recreation lines cover the physical plant. RA maintains 15 pools, 54 tennis courts, 55 miles of paved pathways, more than 1,300 acres of open space, four lakes and three ponds, plus a 72-acre nature education center, along with ballfields, playgrounds, multipurpose courts, picnic areas and garden plots. (Reston has five lakes. Lake Fairfax, the fifth, belongs to the Fairfax County Park Authority rather than to RA, which is why association materials count four.)
Across all of it, RA runs roughly 96 full-time employees and nearly 350 seasonal staff through the summer.
Pools, tennis and pickleball come with membership; camps, boats and garden plots do not
Recreation passes for RA pools, tennis courts and pickleball courts are included in the assessment at no extra charge. That changed in 2024, when the board folded passes that members used to buy separately into the annual bill.
RA publishes a full fee schedule each year, and these are the lines a Reston household runs into most often:
| Included in the $890 | Billed separately |
|---|---|
| Pool access for the household | Guest pool passes |
| Tennis and pickleball court access | Court reservations and lessons |
| 55 miles of pathways and the natural areas | Boat registration, by hull size |
| Lakes and ponds | Canoe and boat storage at the RV yard |
| Walker Nature Center grounds and trails | Summer camps and nature programs |
| Design review and covenants administration | Garden plot rental |
| Community events and senior programs | Lake House and conference room rentals |
A few 2026 figures for scale: garden plots run $45 to $275 depending on size, boat registration runs $84 for a hull under 100 square feet up to $220.50 for one over 180, and canoe storage costs members $135 against $215 for non-members. Court rentals run $20 to $30 an hour.
Non-use is not a defense, because the deed ties the charge to the lot
Buyers who plan to skip the pools sometimes ask whether the assessment is optional. The Deed of Dedication, which is the recorded document that created Reston Association and binds every lot inside its boundary, answers that directly in Section V.1:
No Owner may waive or otherwise escape liability for the Assessments by non-use of the Common Area, or Common Area facilities, or programs offered by the Association, or abandonment of his Lot.
Section V.2 makes each assessment a continuing lien on the property, attaching the moment the board establishes it. A lien is a recorded claim against the property that has to be cleared before a sale can close.
Section V.10 sets what unpaid assessments cost. Late fees up to 10% of the assessment, interest up to the maximum the law allows, and the association’s collection costs including attorney’s fees and court costs, all added to the lien.
None of that is unusual for a Virginia association. It matters here because Reston Association covers roughly 22,000 residential units and more than 60,000 people, which makes it the largest such obligation most Northern Virginia buyers will meet.
Covenants and design review take $80 of the assessment, and they reach your front door
Reston Association’s Design Review Board reviews exterior alterations and improvements on every covenanted property in Reston, including cluster common areas and commercial parcels. Paint colors, doors, windows, fences, sheds, decks, additions and tree removal all run through it.
The timeline is short but it is not optional. Applications handled at the consultation level usually get a written decision within three days of the meeting, and panel or full board reviews go out about a week after. An owner cannot start work, including cutting down a tree, until the written decision arrives. Approved projects have to begin within six months and finish within eighteen.
Clusters add a second layer. Cluster standards govern what the cluster board allows inside its own boundary, so a townhouse owner often needs approval from both the cluster and the DRB for the same change.
The covenants side of that $80 keeps 60-year-old neighborhoods looking coherent, and it also produces the design and maintenance violations a resale packet reports against a property. A violation that has not been cured is a closing problem, and it belongs on a buyer’s list of things to check rather than a seller’s list of things to mention.
The assessment has risen $172 since 2021
The board adopts a budget and an assessment each November for the following year. The last six:
| Year | Assessment | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $718 | |
| 2022 | $740 | +$22 |
| 2023 | $763 | +$23 |
| 2024 | $817 | +$54 |
| 2025 | $848 | +$31 |
| 2026 | $890 | +$42 |
That is a 24% increase over five years. The $54 jump into 2024 carried the recreation passes into the assessment, so part of it moved a cost rather than added one.
The board approved the $24 million budget on a 7-2 vote and cut $175,000 from the swimming pool budget, moving operating hours back toward the 2024 schedule after 1,400 hours added in 2025 produced about 20,000 fewer pool visits. The board also pushed phase two of the Hook Road Recreation Area renovation to 2027 and moved tot lot work at Lake Anne Park and Lake Newport to 2028.
Two directors voted against it on pool grounds. At-large director John Farrell said the community survey put pools second only to trails among the features members value.
For a buyer, the trajectory matters more than any single year. An assessment that has moved between $22 and $54 annually for six years is a line item to carry forward in a budget, not a fixed number.
Reston Association is one of up to three association bills, not the only one
A Reston homeowner can owe three separate associations at once, and the assessment is only the first.
Most Reston townhouses and many of its detached homes sit in a cluster, which is Reston’s word for a sub-association covering a defined group of homes. The cluster owns the shared parking, the shared open space and often the private roads. It has its own board, its own budget and its own fee, and that fee is on top of the $890.
Condominium owners add a third. A condominium fee covers the building, and it runs alongside the RA assessment rather than replacing it.
Cluster and condominium fees vary widely enough by community that no average is worth quoting. The resale packet gives the exact figures for a specific address, which is one reason we read every packet with a buyer before the contingency runs.
Not every address inside Reston belongs to Reston Association
RA membership follows the deed, and not every deed inside Reston’s boundary carries it. FFXnow reported in 2023 that more than 3,000 approved housing units in Reston’s transit station areas came through without an RA membership commitment. Comstock, EYA and Apeture had declined to join. Sekas, Pulte and Toll Brothers had signed on.
Properties inside Reston Town Center answer to the Reston Town Center Association instead.
The practical consequence sits on both sides of the ledger. A condominium near a Metro station without RA membership skips the $890 and skips pool access with it. Ask about membership for the specific address rather than assuming it either way.
At closing, Virginia sets what the resale packet can cost
A Reston seller orders the resale disclosure packet, and RA delivers it through WelcomeLink within 14 days of receiving payment. The packet reports design and maintenance violations against the property, the assessment status, recreational information and community maps.
RA does not set the price. Virginia’s Resale Disclosure Act puts fee caps in the hands of the Common Interest Community Board, which publishes a maximum schedule that adjusts every five years against the Consumer Price Index. The seller pays for the packet and any financial update. A purchaser can be charged a post-closing fee for establishing ownership in the association’s records.
Virginia also gives a buyer a cancellation window after delivery of the packet. Reading it inside that window is the whole point of the window.
Budget $890, confirm membership for the address, and read the packet inside the window
Budget $890 a year, or $445 if you qualify for county tax relief, and treat it as a January expense rather than a monthly one.
Add the cluster or condominium fee on top, and get both numbers in writing before the contingency expires rather than after.
Confirm RA membership for the specific address, particularly anything built recently near Wiehle-Reston East or Reston Town Center.
Read the resale packet when it arrives. Reserve funding, pending special assessments and the last two years of board minutes tell you what the next few years of ownership cost.
For everything else about the community, from school assignment to what homes cost by type, our guide to living in Reston covers the rest.
We sell homes across Reston and Herndon every week, and association questions come up at almost every showing. If you want the specific numbers for a street, a cluster or a building, reach out and we will pull them.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
