Arlington County, VA Building Safety: Door Locking Hardware (2026)

A requires that, in a multiple dwelling building, every exterior door other than balcony doors two or more stories above grade be equipped with a vertical bolt, deadlock, or deadbolt with a minimum throw of five-eighths (5/8) inch, and that the main entrance door lock be operable by key from outside and turn-knob from inside; the County Manager may approve alternate devices offering at least equal security. Units are also required to allow visual detection before entry is granted, and exterior doors to ground-floor or near-ground apartment units must have security devices the County Manager finds adequate.

Windows less than 10 feet above grade, or otherwise accessible from outside, need working latches. 1 requires lock cylinders on individual-unit entry doors to be changed or re-keyed whenever a tenant vacates, or whenever a tenant or landlord loses a key, and lets the landlord charge the tenant for re-keying costs tied to a tenant's lost key. 2 requires common-area locks, such as those on laundry rooms and storage facilities, to be changed or re-keyed at least once every three years. Owners of multiple dwelling buildings had one year from the chapter's effective date to come into compliance under subsection B.

Subsection C extends the operative-lock requirement to smaller rental buildings: any dwelling with fewer than three units must have all exterior doors equipped with operative latching or locking devices, plus the same under-10-foot window latch requirement.