Eligibility

To get VA Disability Compensation benefits, both of these must be true:

• You have a current illness or injury (called a condition) that affects your mind or body, and
• You served on active duty, active duty for training, or inactive duty training.

Plus, at least one of the following must be true:

• Your illness or injury began while you were serving in the military, and your current condition is linked to this illness or injury (an in-service disability claim)
• Your illness or injury began before you joined the military, and serving made it worse (a pre-service disability claim), or
• Your disability is related to your active-duty service, but your condition didn’t appear until after you ended your service (a post-service disability claim).

Note: Even if you meet these requirements, you might not be eligible for VA disability benefits if you received an other than honorable, bad conduct, or dishonorable discharge when you left the military. In that case, you can try to qualify for disability benefits by applying for either a discharge upgrade or a character of discharge review.

What qualifies as a service-connected disability?

The VA approves Disability Compensation benefits if it agrees that there is a link between your medical condition and your military service. To prove that your condition is connected to your military service, you typically need to provide documents showing:

• A current diagnosis of an identified disability
• An in-service event, injury, or illness that either caused your condition or made it worse, and
• A medical link between the present condition and the in-service incident.

Learn more in the VA’s video, Compensation 101: What is Service Connection?

In addition to the loss of a limb or other injuries, many other conditions may qualify as a disability for VA benefits if they are service-related. These can include:

• Chronic (long-lasting) back pain that results in a current diagnosed back disability
• Breathing problems resulting from a current lung condition or lung disease
• Severe hearing loss
• Scar tissue
• Problems moving your body (loss of range of motion)
• Ulcer
• Cancers or other conditions caused by contact with toxic chemicals or other dangers
• Anxiety
• Depression
• High blood pressure (hypertension)
• Diabetes
• Arthritis
• Mental or physical health conditions related to military sexual trauma (MST)
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Note: Your child may qualify for benefits if you served in Vietnam or Thailand, or in or near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and your child has spina bifida or certain other birth defects. Learn more about monthly payments, health care, and other benefits your child may be able to get.

Presumptive Conditions

For some conditions, you don’t need to prove that your military service caused the illness or injury, because the VA automatically assumes (or “presumes”) that your service caused your condition. The VA calls these “presumptive conditions,” and there are three categories:

• A long-lasting (chronic) illness that appears within a year after your discharge
• An illness caused by contact with toxic chemicals or other hazardous materials
• An illness caused by your time spent as a prisoner of war

Learn more about presumptive conditions.

VA Disability Ratings

The VA gives you a specific disability rating for each disability you have, based on the evidence supporting your claim. These ratings use percentages to show how much your service-connected disability limits your ability to work.

Ratings are given in amounts of 10%, starting at 0%, then 10%, 20%, and so on, up to 100%. The VA uses your disability rating to decide if you can get benefits. If you have more than one disability, the VA uses a formula to calculate your combined disability rating.

The VA calls this the “whole person theory.” With it, your total VA disability rating can’t add up to more than 100%, because a person can’t be more than 100% able-bodied. This final combined rating usually isn’t the same as just adding together the ratings for each individual condition. For example, one condition with a 30% rating and another with a 20% rating would only give a combined rating of 40%, not 50%. Some people call this “VA math.”

The VA explains its disability ratings and also offers a video on Compensation 101: How did I get this Rating?

If you are approved for VA Disability Compensation benefits, your disability rating will also be used to decide how much you get each month. Learn more about how the VA calculates your Disability Compensation benefits.