Step by step
Two conditions, each rated 50%
1. Start whole. VA sees you as 100% able-bodied.
2. Apply the worst condition first — 50%.
3. The second 50% applies to what is LEFT, not to the whole. 50% of 50 = 25.
Condition A — 50
B — 25
25 left
4. Add what was taken: 50 + 25 = 75. Convert to the nearest number divisible by 10 — 80%.
✅ The second rating never gets its full weight.
The step nobody tells you
The rounding rule
75 is not a rating. VA never pays 75%.
- The combined value is converted to the nearest number divisible by 10
- Values ending in 1 through 4 round down
- Values ending in 5 through 9 round up — the regulation says values ending in 5 are adjusted upward
- 75 ends in 5, so it goes up to 80%
- A combined value of 95 or higher converts to 100% — that is the difference between 90% and 100% pay
Round once, at the very end. With three or more conditions you keep combining the raw,
unrounded values and only round the final number. Rounding as you go gives you the wrong answer.
VA's own example: 50% and 30% combine to 65 → 70%. Two 10% conditions combine to
19 → 20%. Working it one step further with the table: 65 combined with 10 is 69 → still
70% — a third condition does not always move the paid rating.
✅ Rounding is worth real money.
The table
How to read it yourself
This is 38 CFR 4.25 — VA's combined ratings table. You don't have to trust anyone's math.
- Order your ratings from highest to lowest
- Find the first number down the left column
- Find the second across the top row
- Where they meet is your combined value
- Carry that value back to the left column and combine the next rating — repeat
- Round the final number to the nearest number divisible by 10
One thing about the real table. The left column runs from 19 to 94 and the top row only
has 10 through 90. Because you always put the higher rating in the left column you will never
need a smaller left-column value — with one exception. Two 10% conditions cannot be looked up;
VA answers that one with a note printed on the table itself: 10 combined with 10 is 19.
The three-by-three above is a teaching grid built from VA's values, not a slice you can find laid out
that way on VA's page. The full official table is linked at the bottom.
✅ Do the math yourself.
Don't miss this
The bilateral factor
Both arms, both legs, or paired muscle groups — there is an extra step.
- Applies only when you have compensable disability in each of two paired extremities, or paired skeletal muscles
- "Arms" and "legs" mean the upper and lower extremities as a whole — so a rated right knee and a rated left knee counts
- 38 CFR 4.26(a) says the terms are not meant to distinguish between the arm, forearm and hand, or between the thigh, leg and foot. A rated left hand and a rated right shoulder are still two arms. A rated right ankle and a rated left hip are still two legs. Do not let anyone tell you it has to be the same joint on both sides
- The two sides are combined as usual, then 10% of that value is added — added, not combined — before any further combining and before the conversion to the nearest 10
- That bundle is then treated as one disability for ordering and all further combining
- Authority is 38 CFR 4.26
Why it matters: the plain combining method can produce a combined value lower than the one
VA is required to use. It does not always change the final rounded rating — two bilateral 10% conditions
land on 20% either way — but it can. If you have both knees, both shoulders, both feet or both hands
rated, ask your representative to confirm the bilateral factor was applied.
And VA has to do it the way that helps you. 38 CFR 4.26(d): where including a bilateral disability
in the bilateral-factor calculation would produce a lower combined evaluation, VA must take it out and
combine it separately, to reach the combined evaluation most favorable to the veteran.
✅ Paired conditions get a bump.
Worked from the regulation
The bilateral factor, done right
38 CFR 4.26 carries its own example. I am giving it to you in the regulation's words, not mine.
"…with disabilities evaluated at 60 percent, 20 percent, 10 percent and 10 percent (the two 10's
representing bilateral disabilities), the order of severity would be 60, 21 and 20. The 60 and 21
combine to 68 percent and the 68 and 20 combine to 74 percent, converted to 70 percent."
- Combine the two bilateral ratings as usual. 10 and 10 = 19.
- Take 10% of that value and add it. 10% of 19 is 1.9. 19 + 1.9 = 20.9, which is 21.
- That 21 is now one disability. It is not two anymore
- Re-order everything from greatest down. 60, 21, 20 — the 21 now sits above the 20
- Combine starting with the greatest. 60 and 21 = 68. 68 and 20 = 74.
- Convert once, at the end. 74 → 70%.
Two places people wreck this. First, order. 38 CFR 4.25 requires the disabilities be arranged in
the exact order of their severity, beginning with the greatest — you start at the 60, not at the
small ones. Second, rounding. Nothing in that chain gets rounded to a 10. Not the 21, not the 68, not
the 74 until the very last line.
This is the one figure on the whole page that VA does not restate in plain language on its consumer
pages. The bilateral factor lives in the regulation. Read it yourself at
ecfr.gov — 38 CFR 4.26.
✅ Add the 10. Then re-order. Then combine.
The most expensive mistake
Round once — at the very end
38 CFR 4.25(a): the exact combined value is carried forward. You convert it to the nearest 10 only after every disability has been combined.
Right — 50%, 30%, 20%.
50 and 30 = 65. Carry the 65 exactly as it is.
65 and 20 = 72.
Round once, now that you are done. 72 → 70%.
Wrong — same three ratings, rounded as you go.
50 and 30 = 65, "call it 70".
70 and 20 = 76.
76 → 80%.
Those two answers are a full 10-point band apart. One rounding, done one step too early, moved
the answer 10 points. In this set it moved it up — so you walk into the office certain you are
owed 80% that the table never produced, and you burn a year on an argument you cannot win. Run the same
mistake on a different set of ratings and it moves the other way, and you talk yourself out of a band
you actually earned. Either way you are arguing from a number VA's table does not give.
VA says it in plain language on its own page: "We repeat the process for each additional
disability … until we've added all disability ratings. We then round the final value to the
nearest 10%." And: "We round combined values ending in 1 to 4 down, and those ending in 5 to 9 up."
✅ One rounding. At the end. Never in the middle.
The full table
Every rounding band, 0 to 100
Find your combined value in the left column. The right column is the rating that goes on the decision letter and sets your check.
What a carried-forward row looks like on VA's own table. Row 65, read straight off
va.gov/disability/about-disability-ratings:
65 with 10 =
69 · 65 with 20 =
72 · 65 with 30 =
76 ·
65 with 40 =
79. That 65 is a combined value, not a rating — and it still goes in the left
column as itself.
Where the bands bite. A combined value of 74 is 70% and 75 is 80% — one point, a whole band.
Check the last rating VA combined, and check whether a bilateral factor was owed, before you accept a
number sitting one point under a line.
✅ Know your band and the point above it.
Reaching 100%
You can still get to 100%
The math makes it harder. It does not make it impossible.
- More conditions. Each additional rating still moves the combined value, just by less each time
- A single 100% rating. Some conditions are rated 100% on their own under the schedule
- Individual Unemployability (TDIU). Paid at the 100% rate when service-connected conditions leave you unable to get or keep a job that supports you financially. Generally one disability ratable at 60% or more, or two or more with at least one at 40% or more and a combined 70% or more. Odd jobs and earnings at or below the Census poverty threshold for one person are "marginal employment" and do not count against you
- Temporary 100%. Hospitalization over 21 days (38 CFR 4.29) or surgical convalescence (38 CFR 4.30)
Before you rule yourself out on the TDIU percentages, read this. For the 60% or the 40%
requirement, 38 CFR 4.16(a) counts certain groups as one disability: disabilities of one or both
upper extremities, or one or both lower extremities, including the bilateral factor · disabilities
from a common cause or a single accident · disabilities affecting a single body system —
orthopedic, digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular-renal, neuropsychiatric · multiple injuries
incurred in action · multiple disabilities incurred as a prisoner of war. And if you are
unemployable but still miss the numbers, VA can refer the case for extra-schedular consideration under
4.16(b) — VA's own words: in certain cases, for example if you need to be in the hospital often, you may
qualify at a lower disability rating.
✅ Crossed out isn't closed off.
Free help
Get somebody accredited on it
You do not have to work your own math, and you should never pay to have your original claim filed.
An accredited
VSO representative works your claim for free — VA says their services on your VA
benefit claims are always free. An accredited
attorney or
claims agent may charge a fee,
but only for work after VA issues notice of an initial decision, and VA presumes a fee reasonable only
up to
20% of past-due benefits (38 CFR 14.636). That 20% presumption comes with a condition most
people never hear: it applies where the representative's representation
continued through the date
of the decision awarding benefits. Somebody who dropped your case mid-claim is not covered by it.
Nobody may charge you to file your original claim. Find and check anyone at
va.gov/get-help-from-accredited-representative
Post-9/11 veterans: Wounded Warrior Project registers warriors at no cost and has accredited
National Service Officers. Type the address, don't search for it:
woundedwarriorproject.org/programs/wwp-registration
Choose Warrior Registration, verify with ID.me or Login.gov, then ask for Benefits Services.
Resource Center: 888-997-2586, Monday to Friday, 9am to 9pm Eastern. WWP says the Resource
Center assists veterans of all eras, including those who cannot register.
✅ Free, accredited, verifiable.
Your own ratings
Where to see what VA actually has
- Sign in at VA.gov
- Go to "View your disability ratings"
- Compare each condition against your decision letter
VA does not host a public "what-if" calculator. VA.gov does have something it calls a disability
rating calculator, but it requires sign-in and only displays the ratings you already have — you cannot
type in two percentages and see what they make. Be careful with the calculator websites: they are not
VA, and several are front doors for paid claims operations. The combined ratings table is the authority.
✅ Trust the table, not a calculator site.
When the math is wrong
What to do about it, and by when
Checking VA's arithmetic is only worth something if you act on what you find. There are three lanes. They do not share a deadline.
- Higher-Level Review — a more senior reviewer looks at the same evidence. No new evidence allowed. One year from the date on your decision letter
- Board Appeal — to the Board of Veterans' Appeals. One year from the date on your decision letter
- Supplemental Claim — you submit new and relevant evidence. No filing deadline at all
"No deadline" is not the same as "no cost." On a Supplemental Claim, file within one year
of the decision letter and your original effective date is protected — back pay runs from your original
claim. File later and you keep the lane, but back pay generally starts from the date VA receives the
Supplemental Claim, not from when you first filed (38 CFR 3.2500). That silence can cost months or
years of money nobody will ever mention to you.
Contested claims are different. A contested claim is one where more than one person is claiming
the same benefit. There, Higher-Level Review is not available at all, and a Board Appeal must
be requested within 60 days of the date on your decision letter — not one year. A survivor who
relies on the printed "one year" in a contested case misses it by ten months.
An arithmetic error is exactly what Higher-Level Review exists for — it takes no new evidence, just a
second set of eyes on the same file. Read the lanes in VA's words at
va.gov/decision-reviews, and take an accredited
representative with you. That help is free.
✅ Find the error, then start the clock.