Veterans often ask how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) evaluates their disabilities and assigns them a rating that informs how much their monthly checks are. Our 2024 VA Disability Calculator will help you understand your rating, which is important because you could lose out on thousands of dollars in benefits each year if the VA miscalculates it.

You probably wonder why there might be a problem if calculations are straightforward. They are not. Instead of adding whole numbers to each other, the VA relies on a unique calculation to determine service-related claims. If you are rated for one injury, it will not be complicated. If you received a rating for a second or third disability, or if your injuries are bilateral (those that encompass both arms or legs), it can be difficult to figure out. Therefore, we have provided you with a simple, user-friendly Veterans disability benefits calculator of our own!

Breaking Down the VA Formula

The VA determines efficiency ratings as percentages in increments of 10. A healthy Veteran with no injury or illness connected to military service would be seen as 100 percent efficient. Veterans with severe disabilities rate lowest on the efficiency scale, and mild to moderate disabilities are somewhere in between. Each injury or illness, if you have more than one, is rated independently, unless one is responsible for another. For instance, your efficiency rating would be 60 percent if you received a disability rating of 40 percent for one disability, because the formula is calculated as 100 percent minus 40 percent.

But suppose you receive service-related disability ratings of 30 percent for a neck injury, 20 percent for a back injury, and 10 percent for a foot injury. Your first injury is calculated like a single injury, 100 percent minus 30 percent for a 70 percent efficiency rating. Your baseline for the second injury becomes 70 percent, because subsequent disability ratings are calculated as percentages and then subtracted from the prior efficiency rating instead of 100 percent like the first one.

For this example, the baseline of 70 percent is multiplied by 20 percent to get 14 percent, which is then subtracted from 70 percent for a new efficiency rating baseline of 56 percent. This calculation results in a disability rating of 44 percent but must be rounded to the closest increment of 10, which makes it 40 percent. Your new efficiency rating is 60.

The baseline for the 10 percent disabled foot is the 60 percent efficiency rating, which is multiplied by 10 percent, giving you 6 percent. Add the 6 percent to the 40 percent disability rating from the second calculation, and you get a 46 percent disability rating. This is then rounded up to 50 percent.

If that sounds confusing, do not worry: that’s what this calculator is for.

Bilateral Factor in Disability Ratings

When both legs, both arms, or paired skeletal muscles become disabled during military service, the VA applies the Bilateral Factor. This means the ratings for both sides are combined like in the example listed above, and then 10 percent of the combined value will be added before determining additional combinations or converting to the degree of disability.

Keep Things Simple By Using Our Online Veterans Disability Calculator

To get a better sense for how this works, take a look at our 2024 Veterans Disability Calculator and follow the prompts to input your information. Learning about how efficiency and disability ratings work means you can question irregularities and ensure the benefits you valiantly earned are exactly what they should be. You can discuss further with our experienced Veteran disability attorneys – we can work with anyone no matter where they are in the country.