Virginia titles an imported vehicle at the DMV on the strength of the foreign ownership documents and the U.S. Customs and DOT import paperwork, the same federal-entry proof any 25-year-old JDM car uses to come into the country. The step that catches out-of-country buyers is the safety inspection: Virginia is one of the states that still runs an annual State Police safety inspection program, and every registered vehicle has to pass that inspection every 12 months regardless of age, so a right-hand-drive import is not exempt on account of being old.

Emissions testing, by contrast, is regional rather than statewide. Virginia only requires an emissions inspection in some Northern Virginia localities — the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Stafford, along with a handful of nearby cities — and even there, gasoline vehicles more than 25 years old are exempt from the test (the registration still carries a small emissions fee). Register a JDM import anywhere else in the state and there is no emissions inspection at all; the annual safety inspection is the requirement that actually applies to most owners.