The rule
What the regulation actually says
38 CFR 3.400. The section is titled "General."
It sits under the heading "Effective Dates" in Part 3,
Subpart A of Title 38 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The current text reads:
"Except as otherwise provided, the effective date of an evaluation and award of pension,
compensation, or dependency and indemnity compensation based on an initial claim or supplemental
claim will be the date of receipt of the claim or the date entitlement arose, whichever is later."
- Note the first three words. Except as otherwise provided. The exceptions are the
point of this page
- The law behind the regulation is 38 U.S.C. 5110, which is the section actually titled
"Effective dates of awards." If you are quoting the phrase, cite the statute, not 3.400
- Read it yourself:
ecfr.gov — 38 CFR 3.400
✅ "Except as otherwise provided" is your opening.
Plain English
The default, and why the default is not your ceiling
By default, VA picks the LATER of two dates.
- The date VA received your claim
- The date you met the requirements for the benefit
Do not stop reading here. If someone told you VA benefits can never start before the day
VA received your claim, that is the general rule stated as if it were the only rule. It is not.
Every panel below is a way the date moves earlier. Some move it by a year. Two of them can move
it by decades.
Where do the exceptions live? In 38 CFR 3.400(b) through (z) and 38 CFR 3.401, plus
separate sections — 3.114, 3.105(a), 3.155, 3.156(c), 3.816 and 3.2500. The general rule alone is
rarely the best date available to you.
✅ The default is a floor, not a ceiling.
Do this first
Intent to File holds your date for a year
38 CFR 3.155. The single cheapest way to protect back pay.
You tell VA you intend to file. That freezes your date
while you go get your evidence. The regulation says it directly:
"If VA receives a complete application form prescribed by the Secretary ... within 1 year of
receipt of the intent to file a claim, VA will consider the complete claim filed as of the date
the intent to file a claim was received."
Three ways to do it, per the regulation:
- Start and save an electronic application on VA.gov
- Submit the prescribed written intent-to-file form — that is
VA Form 21-0966, "Intent to File a Claim for Compensation and/or Pension, or Survivors
Pension and/or DIC" (revised May 2026):
va.gov/find-forms/about-form-21-0966
- Tell VA out loud, to someone who records it in writing
You get one year, not forever. File the complete claim inside twelve months of the intent
to file or the protected date is gone. Put the deadline on a calendar the day you file the intent.
✅ Five minutes today can be a year of back pay.
Transitioning
File within a year of getting out
38 CFR 3.400(b)(2)(i) and 38 U.S.C. 5110(b)(1).
If VA receives your claim within one year after you
separate from active service, the effective date is the day following separation — not the
day you filed. VA states it plainly: the effective date can be as early as the day following
separation.
This is the most valuable single rule on this page for a Soldier walking out the gate. Nine
months of terminal-leave-and-job-hunting delay costs you nothing if the claim lands inside the
twelve months.
Presumptive conditions, same window, slightly different date. If your condition is granted
on a presumption and VA receives the claim within one year of your release from active duty, the
effective date is the date the disability began — the date entitlement arose — rather than the
date you filed.
Past the year? You are not out of luck, you are just out of this rule. Go to the Intent
to File panel, then check new service department records, liberalizing law, and CUE below.
✅ Twelve months from separation. Do not waste them.
No deadline
New service department records — the one nobody tells you about
38 CFR 3.156(c). This overrides the general rule on its face.
If VA later receives relevant official service
department records that existed but were not in your file when VA first decided your claim,
VA must reconsider that claim. There is no deadline to bring those records forward.
- The award is effective on the date entitlement arose, or the date VA received the
previously decided claim, whichever is later — 3.156(c)(1) and (c)(3)
- The provision opens with "Notwithstanding any other section in this part," which is why it
beats the general rule instead of bending to it
- It can reach back decades. If your 1994 claim was denied because a unit record or a
buried service treatment record never made it into the file, and that record surfaces now, the
1994 date is on the table
Two limits. It does not apply to records that did not exist at the time of the first
decision, and it does not apply where you failed to give VA enough information to find them —
3.156(c)(2). So when you ask, be specific: unit, dates, location, record type.
✅ Old denial plus a newly found service record equals an old effective date.
Back to 1985
Agent Orange and herbicide claims — the Nehmer dates
38 CFR 3.816. Court-ordered effective dates that ignore your filing date.
If your claim is for a herbicide presumptive condition,
a separate regulation governs your effective date because of the Nehmer court orders. This is where
"benefits cannot start before VA received your claim" is most badly wrong.
- If you — or a survivor — had a claim for the same condition denied between
25 September 1985 and 3 May 1989, the effective date is the date of that earlier
claim
- Same result if a claim for that condition was pending when the presumption took effect
- That date can be in the 1980s — decades before the claim you are filing now
- For survivors, a DIC award traces back to the veteran's death, or to the first day of the
month of death where the claim is made within a year of the death
This is not a one-year look-back. It is an override. If you or your parent or your spouse was
ever denied for a condition that later became a herbicide presumptive, say the word "Nehmer" and
cite 38 CFR 3.816 in writing.
✅ An old denial is an asset here, not a dead end.
Keep your date
Supplemental Claim — one year to protect the original date
38 U.S.C. 5110(a)(2) and 38 CFR 3.2500.
- A Supplemental Claim filed within one year of notice of a VA decision, with the
issue continuously pursued, reverts to the date of your initial claim. You keep the
original date and everything that came with it
- A Supplemental Claim itself has no filing deadline — you may file it at any time after
VA issues notice of a decision. The one-year clock governs the effective date, not your right to
file
- Higher-Level Review and Board Appeal must be filed within one year of the
decision
Continuously pursued matters. If you let a year lapse, file the Supplemental Claim anyway —
you have every right to. Just know the effective date will likely run from the new filing rather
than the original one, and then go look at 3.156(c) and CUE for a route back further.
✅ Inside one year, you keep your date.
Still alive
Reopened claims and new evidence
38 CFR 3.400(q) and 38 CFR 3.400(r). Both still in force.
You may hear that the reopened-claim route was
abolished. It was not. When the Appeals Modernization Act framework took effect on
19 February 2019, "a claim reopened after final disallowance" and "a claim for increase" came
out of the introductory sentence of 3.400 and were replaced with "an initial claim or
supplemental claim." The reopened-claim effective-date paragraphs themselves stayed.
- 3.400(q) — new and material evidence other than service department records. Where it
applies, the effective date is set "as though the former decision had not been rendered." That is
the more generous of the two
- 3.400(r) — reopened claims
- These paragraphs still govern legacy-system claims and reconsiderations. VA's own
plain-language effective-date page still carries a "Reopened claims" heading
Nobody should ever tell you this door is gone. If a prior decision went against you and you have
evidence that was not before VA, ask which paragraph applies to your date — (q), (r), or
3.156(c) — and ask in writing.
✅ The route exists. Ask for it by paragraph.
Worse now
Increased rating — up to a year of back pay before you filed
38 CFR 3.400(o)(2).
When a service-connected condition gets worse, the
increase is effective from the earliest date it is
"factually ascertainable based on all evidence of record that an increase in disability had
occurred if a complete claim or intent to file a claim is received within 1 year from such date."
- Translation: if a treatment note from 8 February shows the condition had already worsened,
and your claim or intent to file lands within one year of that date, 8 February can be your
effective date
- That is up to twelve months of back pay ahead of your filing date
- This is why the medical record date matters more than the filing date. Get the records that
show when it got worse, not just that it is worse now
Over a year since it worsened? The date then generally runs from receipt of the claim. File
it regardless — an increase you never claim is an increase you never get paid for.
✅ Find the date the record first shows it worsened.
New presumptives
New law, new VA issue — the one-year window that decides everything
38 CFR 3.114(a). Three branches. Know which one you are in.
- 3.114(a)(1) — if VA reviews your case on its own initiative, or at your request
received within one year of the effective date of the new law or VA issue, benefits may be
authorized from the effective date of that law. Not one year back from your claim — all the
way back to the change
- 3.114(a)(2) and (a)(3) — if the review comes more than a year out, you get benefits for
only one year prior to the administrative determination or to your request
- The floor, both directions: the effective date "shall not be earlier than the effective
date of the act or administrative issue." No new law reaches back before itself
This is decisive for every newly added presumptive condition. File within one year of the
change and you reach the change date. File later and you are capped at one year of back pay. When
a new presumptive is announced, that is the day the clock starts — not the day you hear about it.
✅ New presumptive announced? File inside twelve months.
No time limit
Clear and Unmistakable Error — the only route to a very old date
38 CFR 3.105(a). No one-year cap. No deadline at all.
If VA made a clear and unmistakable error in a prior
decision and that decision is revised, the effective date is the date the benefit would have
started had the error never been made. The regulation allows CUE to be raised
"at any time after a decision is final."
- There is no time limit on raising CUE and no one-year ceiling on the back pay it produces
- VA describes these as errors where "effective dates go back to when benefits should have
started"
- The bar is high — it has to be an undebatable error on the record as it stood, not a
disagreement about how the evidence was weighed. But when it is there, it is the furthest reach in
the whole scheme
A 1998 decision that applied the wrong diagnostic code, or overlooked a document that was sitting
in the file, is worth raising in 2026. Nothing expired.
✅ Old decision, undebatable error, no clock.
Survivors
Dependency and Indemnity Compensation dates
38 CFR 3.400(c) — death benefits.
Survivors get their own effective-date rules, and they
are more generous than the general rule. Families routinely never hear this.
- Where the death occurred in service, or where VA receives the claim within one year
of the death, the effective date is the first day of the month in which the veteran
died
- For herbicide presumptive cases, survivors are covered by the Nehmer rules in 38 CFR 3.816 as
well — a DIC award traces back to the veteran's death, or to the first day of the month of death
where claimed within a year
- A survivor can also raise 38 CFR 3.156(c) on newly surfaced service department records, and
CUE on an old decision, exactly as the veteran could
More than a year since the death? File anyway. The date generally runs from receipt of the
claim instead, but the claim itself has not expired and the Nehmer and 3.156(c) routes are still
open to you.
✅ Inside one year of death, the date reaches back to the month of death.
Read this twice
Your effective date is not the date money starts
38 CFR 3.31. The single most common wrong expectation.
Payment of an original, supplemental or increased award
may not be made for any period before the first day of the calendar month following the month
in which the award became effective.
Worked example. Effective date 14 March. Payment runs from 1 April. You do
not get paid for 14 March through 31 March. Build your back-pay math that way and the number VA
sends will not blindside you.
- A few things are carved out of that rule — statutory cost-of-living increases, a surviving
spouse's benefits for the month of the veteran's death, and others listed in 3.31
- So there are two separate questions to ask VA: what is my effective date, and from what month
does payment run
✅ Effective date sets the amount. 3.31 sets the first check.
Action
What to ask VA for, in writing
Do not assume the date you filed is the best you can get.
- Ask for the earliest effective date the evidence of record supports, and ask VA to
state which paragraph of 38 CFR 3.400 it applied
- Name the routes you believe apply — intent to file, one year from separation, 3.156(c) new
service department records, 3.816 Nehmer, 3.114 liberalizing law, 3.400(o)(2) increase,
3.400(q), 3.105(a) CUE
- If you are within one year of a decision, file the Supplemental Claim and say in it
that you are continuously pursuing the issue
- If service records are missing, tell VA exactly what to look for — unit, dates, location,
record type. Vagueness is what 3.156(c)(2) uses to say no
- Put every request in writing and keep a copy with the date on it
A wrong effective date is not a closed case. It is an issue you can raise, and in the case of
3.156(c) and CUE you can raise it with no deadline at all. Never give up on the date.
✅ Ask for the earliest date the evidence supports.
Money
Who can charge you, and how much
38 CFR 14.636. Effective-date fights are where fees get big.
- Free. Recognized organizations — including their accredited representatives acting as
such — and individuals recognized under 38 CFR 14.630 are not permitted to receive fees.
An accredited VSO representative costs you nothing. 14.636(b)
- Paid, and only later. An accredited agent or attorney may charge a fee only after
the agency of original jurisdiction issues notice of an initial decision on the claim, with
a compliant fee agreement and power of attorney on file. 14.636(c)
- The band. A fee not exceeding 20 percent of past-due benefits is presumed
reasonable where representation continued through the date of the decision awarding benefits.
A fee exceeding 33-1/3 percent is presumed unreasonable. 14.636(f)
Why this sits on the effective-date page. Move an effective date back four years and the
past-due award is large. A percentage of a large number is a large number. Anyone charging you
before VA has issued an initial decision is not operating inside the rule. And do not let anyone
tell you every accredited representative is free — the VSO is; the agent or attorney may not be.
✅ Know which one you hired before you sign.