About VA disability ratings 
Learn about VA disability ratings and how we assign your rating. If you have more than one service - connected condition, use our disability rating calculator or the ratings table to find your VA combined disability rating. 

How we assign VA disability ratings 


What is a disability rating? 
We assign you a disability rating based on the severity of your disability. We express this rating as a percentage, representing how much your disability decreases your overall health and ability to function. We then use your disability rating to determine your disability compensation rate, so we can calculate how much money you ll receive from us each month. We also use your disability rating to help determine your eligibility for other benefits, like VA health care. 

What does VA use to decide my disability rating? 
We base your rating on : The evidence you give us like a doctor s report or medical test results , and The results of your VA claim exam also called a compensation and pension, or C&P, exam, if we determine you need this exam , and we may get from other sources like federal agencies Other information 

What if I have more than one disability? 
We use a method called the whole person theory to determine what we call your combined disability rating. We do this to make sure that your total VA disability rating doesn t add up to more than 100 %. That s because a person can t be more than 100% able - bodied. Read below to find out more about how we calculate your combined disability rating. 

How do ratings work for a disability I had before entering the service that got worse because of my service? 
If you get disability benefits for a preservice disability , we base your monthly compensation amount on the level of aggravation. Level of aggravation means how much worse your preservice disability got because of your military service. For example : If you had an illness or injury also known as a condition that was rated as 10% disabling 

user: I wanted to learn more about my VA disability rating

assistant: We can help you learn about VA disability ratings and how we assign your rating .

user: Can you help with my ratings because I have two disabilities and want to know more about how you do it?

user: can you help me with a scenario where I would have three disabilities?

assistant: Look at the example on the combined ratings table, which I can link you to if you need it. If we added a third disability rated at 10 % disabling to our example , we would take your combined value of 65 and look for that number in the left column of the combined ratings table. We would then look for 10 in the top row and find the number where the left column and top row meet. In the example, that number would be 69.

user: what do you do first to calculate my combined rating?

assistant: We start by putting your disability ratings in order , from highest to lowest percentage 

assistant: Do you want me to give you an example ?

user: yes

assistant: Okay, If you had 2 disabilities rated as 50 % disabling and 30 % disabling we would rank them in this order : 50 % , then 30 % 

user: I got it, but what is a disability rating really?

assistant: We assign you a disability rating based on the severity of your disability .  We express this rating as a percentage , representing how much your disability decreases your overall health and ability to function. We then use your rating to determine your disability compensation rate , so we can calculate how much money you will receive from us each month . We also use your disability rating to help determine your eligibility for other benefits.