Who the law puts the ticket on
The short version of the law is that the duty follows the dirt rather than the trade. Whoever makes or begins the excavation owes the locate request. Virginia's exemption list names the owner or the occupant in a single item, one that covers hand digging they do themselves. A crew we send is never inside that, because we are neither. You are not inside it either the moment you put a trencher, a two man auger or a mini excavator on the job yourself.
We are not going to work the statutes twice on this site. Both dig laws section by section, with the carve-outs, the enforcement path and the hand digging duties around a marked line, are on our 811 and utility locates page. This page is about how a ticket fits a pour.
Our own part is short. We place the locate request for the digging we do. Setting the trailer pump on the drive is not excavation. The hole the concrete goes into was, and whoever opened that hole owed the ticket. Under section 56-265.18 a Virginia ticket also names the person the dig is for, so yours carries your name and you can ask to see that one went in for your address.
Three working days, counted from two different places
Both states land near three working days, and they count them from different ends. In Virginia the three days are the operators' own deadline to mark, running forward from the day the request goes in, unless the excavator gives the center a scheduled excavation date. That date "shall not be less than 48 hours nor more than 12 working days from the date of the locate request," and the marks are then due by 7:00 a.m. on it. In North Carolina the three days are your notice, counted backward from the start date you write on the ticket. So in both states a start date set further out can stretch the wait to that date, and North Carolina's G.S. 87-122(c)(4) lets work begin before the waiting period ends only once every operator has responded with an appropriate positive response.
Working day is a defined term in both and neither counts a weekend or a state holiday. Virginia 811 posts the holidays it skips, and the dates move from one year to the next, so a job running into a holiday week gets counted off that list, not off a printed calendar.
Watch for the wrong version of this, because it errs toward digging too soon, and that is how lines get hit. Anybody who tells you Virginia is a 48 hour notice state has read a floor written for something else as though it were a notice period. What that floor is actually under is on the statute page linked above.
What actually clears a shovel to go in
On the morning of a dig, the count of days since the call is not what matters. Three days going by does not clear you to dig. In both states what normally lets a shovel in is the response coming back, operator by operator, through the notification center's own system, so the excavator checks what has answered before anybody starts.
Where an operator has gone quiet the two states part company, and North Carolina gives an excavator a route out that Virginia does not write. Which route applies, what it asks for and what it does about a visible meter or pedestal in the work area is statute rather than scheduling, and the statute page carries it.
How long a ticket stays good, and the two states do not match
Virginia gives a ticket 15 working days of life. North Carolina gives one 28 calendar days, counted from the work start date on the notice. The numbers differ and so do the units, and neither converts into the other, so a crew working both sides of the line keeps two separate counts.
The failure mode on concrete work is undramatic and it is the one that actually happens. Forms go up over the paint, stone goes down on it, a week of rain takes the rest, and the schedule slips behind the plant. Once the paint cannot be read, Virginia expects a call to the center however much time the ticket has left, and it counts that call as an extension. On a footing job that matters more than the original call did, because the trench is often opened days after the paint went down.
Be careful with the North Carolina figure if you are reading up on your own job. That number changed, and the notification center's own older handout is still posted with the one it replaced on it. Which document says what and when it moved is worked through on the statute page rather than here.
And a ticket covers a dig, not a property. Virginia 811's own FAQ says a new ticket is needed each time you want to dig, because erosion and plant growth can shift where lines sit and utilities may have added lines since the last marks.
What that looks like on your job
Sometimes the first thing that happens on a site is a can of white paint. Where the dig area cannot be described precisely enough in the ticket itself, both states ask the excavator to premark the dig in white, Virginia before the ticket goes in where that is practical, and North Carolina before the operator performs the locate. White on the ground before anybody else arrives is a normal step and not a sign that something is wrong.
Before anything goes into the ground there is a short verification the Virginia rules spell out: be at the correct location, check the marks against what the positive response system says came back, and look for unmarked lines to the best of your ability. Virginia's definition of excavation reaches any operation in which earth is "moved, removed, or otherwise displaced by means of any tools, equipment, or explosives," which can take in a stake driven with a hammer, so on prep day that check belongs before the outline is staked, not just before the sod comes off.
Working a machine in close to a mark carries duties of its own, and they are not the same duty in both directions, because a trench crossing a line and a trench running alongside one owe different things. That is law rather than scheduling and it is written out on the statute page. What it means for your date is only this: a footing trench near a marked line is slower than one in open yard.
If you want the wider picture of what gets built on top of all this, the footings side of the work is where it lands.
If something gets hit anyway
If a strike releases gas or electricity, or puts anybody in danger, people come first: get everyone clear and call 911. North Carolina's statute covers that case, damage that discharges electricity, lets any flammable, toxic or corrosive gas or liquid escape, or endangers life, health or property. It requires immediate notice to emergency responders, including 911 services, the notification center and the operator, and reasonable measures to protect the excavator, anyone in immediate danger, the public, property and the environment until the operator or emergency responders arrive and complete an assessment of the situation. Where the damage creates an emergency, Virginia's statute requires the person responsible for the excavation to "take immediate steps reasonably calculated to safeguard life, health and property." For any damage to a line, even to its coating, the operator gets told immediately, and in North Carolina the notification center does too, and nothing is backfilled around that line until the operator has repaired it or cleared the backfill. On either side of the line, those calls come before any call to us.
None of this is a reason to dread a pour. It is the reason to get the ticket in early, and to find out what is buried on the place while the date is still being picked rather than while a truck is on the road.
Which lines a free ticket actually reaches, and which ones nobody is coming to mark at all, is a different question from this one, and the answer to it sits under who marks utilities before digging. The statutes behind everything above sit on the 811 and utility locates page. If your question is really about permits rather than digging, the Virginia permits page is the better starting point.