VA Rating Pay Chart: What Each 10 Percent Is Worth Per Month

Effective December 1, 2025, the monthly rate for a veteran with no dependents is $180.42 at 10 percent, $356.66 at 20 percent, $552.47 at 30 percent, $795.84 at 40 percent, $1,132.90 at 50 percent, $1,435.02 at 60 percent, $1,808.45 at 70 percent, $2,102.15 at 80 percent, $2,362.30 at 90 percent, and $3,938.58 at 100 percent.

These are the rates VA publishes on its own page titled 2026 Veterans disability compensation rates. One rate per combined rating. There is no separate payment per condition, and there is no rate at any figure between the tens, because 38 CFR 4.25 converts a combined value to the nearest number divisible by 10 before anything is paid.

Some readers will land here from a search engine holding a chart that does not match. Check its effective date first. VA's hub page for compensation rates carried a last-updated stamp of March 6, 2025 as of August 21, 2026 and states no effective date at all, so a chart copied from it can be a year out of date without looking wrong.

This is the math behind the chart rather than the chart. Each figure below is the difference between two adjacent published rates, for a veteran with no dependents, effective December 1, 2025.

10 to 20 is $176.24 a month. 20 to 30 is $195.81. 30 to 40 is $243.37. 40 to 50 is $337.06. 50 to 60 is $302.12. 60 to 70 is $373.43. 70 to 80 is $293.70. 80 to 90 is $260.15. And 90 to 100 is $1,576.28. All nine, effective December 1, 2025.

The steps do not climb steadily, which surprises most people. Effective December 1, 2025, the 40 to 50 step ($337.06) is larger than the 50 to 60 step ($302.12). After the 60 to 70 step ($373.43) the steps shrink three times in a row, down to $260.15 for 80 to 90. Then the last one goes vertical.

Twelve months at the December 1, 2025 rates, veteran alone, no dependents: 10 to 20 is $2,114.88 a year. 20 to 30 is $2,349.72. 30 to 40 is $2,920.44. 40 to 50 is $4,044.72. 50 to 60 is $3,625.44. 60 to 70 is $4,481.16. 70 to 80 is $3,524.40. 80 to 90 is $3,121.80. And 90 to 100 is $18,915.36.

Nothing is being predicted here. Each of those is the monthly step multiplied by twelve at rates effective December 1, 2025, and a real year contains a December, which is when rates change.

Because the published table makes it so. Effective December 1, 2025, the step from 90 to 100 is $1,576.28 a month. The largest of the other eight steps, 60 to 70, is $373.43. The last step is 4.2 times the biggest one below it and 8.9 times the smallest.

Put the whole ladder together and the gap is starker. Effective December 1, 2025, the eight steps from 10 all the way to 90 add up to $2,181.88 a month, which is the difference between the 10 percent rate and the 90 percent rate. The single step from 90 to 100 is $1,576.28, roughly 72 percent of everything the eight steps below it total together.

That fact is on VA's own published table and it is almost never stated. It is reported here as math on a rate schedule. It is not a goal, and the rating criteria in 38 CFR part 4 decide percentages from the medical record without reference to what any of them pay.

One hundred and twenty months at the December 1, 2025 rates: the 90 to 100 step comes to $189,153.60, and the 40 to 50 step comes to $40,447.20. Any other step can be worked the same way, monthly figure multiplied by 120, at rates effective December 1, 2025.

Read that number for what it is. Rates move with the cost-of-living adjustment every December. This figure applies none of them, not one, in either direction. It is math on today's published table, not a projection of what anyone will be paid over ten years, and this library does not make projections.

Because of how 38 CFR 4.25 combines. Each additional evaluation is applied to what is left of the whole person rather than added on top, so the same 10 percent is worth less the higher the running value already sits.

One procedural point before the example. 38 CFR 4.25(b) states that conversion to the nearest degree divisible by 10 happens only once per rating decision, follows the combining of all disabilities, and is the last procedure. The comparisons below are between finished decisions, not steps in a running tally.

Take a set of evaluations that combines to a value of 40. One more evaluation at 10 percent brings the combined value to 46, and 46 converts to 50. Now take a set that combines to 80. An added 10 percent gets it to 82 and an added 20 percent gets it to 84, and both of those convert back to 80. It takes 30 percent to reach 86, which converts to 90. At a combined value of 90, nothing below 50 percent moves it: 90 combined with 40 percent is 94, which converts to 90, while 90 combined with 50 percent is 95, and 4.25 adjusts a value ending in 5 upward, to 100.

Now lay the money against it, all effective December 1, 2025, veteran alone. The 40 to 50 step, which took 10 percent of new evaluation in the example above, is $337.06 a month. The 80 to 90 step, which took 30 percent, is $260.15 a month. The 90 to 100 step, which took 50 percent, is $1,576.28 a month. Both halves are true at once: more new evaluation is required at each level, and the amount attached to the step is larger at the top.

Not at the bottom two levels. VA states it plainly on its own rates page: 'If you have a 10% to 20% disability rating, you won't receive a higher rate even if you have a dependent spouse, child, or parent.' The dependent columns on that table begin at 30 percent.

For a veteran with a spouse and no children or parents, the monthly rates effective December 1, 2025 are $617.47 at 30 percent, $882.84 at 40 percent, $1,241.90 at 50 percent, $1,566.02 at 60 percent, $1,961.45 at 70 percent, $2,277.15 at 80 percent, $2,559.30 at 90 percent, and $4,158.17 at 100 percent.

Compared with the veteran-alone column, effective December 1, 2025, that spouse difference is $65.00 a month at 30 percent, $87.00 at 40 percent, $109.00 at 50 percent, $131.00 at 60 percent, $153.00 at 70 percent, $175.00 at 80 percent, $197.00 at 90 percent, and $219.59 at 100 percent.

One dependent comparison is shown here and no more. The full table has columns for a spouse, a spouse and one parent, a spouse and two parents, one parent alone, two parents alone, children in several combinations, aid and attendance for a spouse, and an additional amount per child beyond the first. Reproducing all of that on a third-party page is how stale numbers get into circulation. For a particular household, VA's own rates page is the authority and it is linked below.

Every December. The rates on this page took effect December 1, 2025, and the ones before them took effect December 1, 2024.

VA states the mechanism on its own page: 'We're required by law to match the percentage of cost-of-living adjustments made to Social Security benefits.' For the December 1, 2025 rates that adjustment was 2.8 percent. That can be checked directly against VA's own past-rates page rather than taken on faith. The 10 percent rate went from $175.51 to $180.42 and the 30 percent rate went from $537.42 to $552.47. Apply 2.8 percent to each of the older figures and round to the cent and the newer figure is what comes out, both times.

The next adjustment is not known here and is not guessed at. It is set through the Social Security process and announced in the autumn.

A free accredited Veterans Service Organization representative can sit down with a particular decision and read it line by line, at no cost. VSO representatives are accredited and they do not charge. That is the first thing to say about a specific document, because everything below is about the general table rather than anyone's file.

This page reports what the published table pays at a combined rating. It is not what any individual receives. Amounts can be offset, and there are situations where a payment is reduced or withheld for reasons that have nothing to do with the rating percentage.

The table also does not include special monthly compensation, which is a separate structure with its own rates and its own criteria, and which can apply on top of a combined rating.

And the chart says nothing about how a percentage is arrived at. That is decided from the medical record against the criteria in 38 CFR part 4. The pay chart is the last step in that process, not the first.