VA Disability Ratings · Mental Health

0% to 100%: What Each Mental Health Rating Level Means

The mid and high levels of the rule VA uses to score most mental health claims, in VA's own words — and the parts a bare chart leaves out.

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What this page is. This is 38 CFR 4.130, the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders — the rule VA uses to rate PTSD, depression, anxiety, and most other mental health conditions. I cover all six levels here: 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 100%. This page is for the veteran, and for the Family member or caregiver trying to understand what a rating means.

This is still the rule VA uses today. The wording hasn't changed since 1996; the section was last updated in 2014 to match the DSM-5 (the diagnostic manual VA and mental health providers use). A 2022 proposal to score mental health claims a different way was never finalized. It is not the law.

Diagnosed, But Not Interfering

38 CFR 4.130, quoted exactly.

"A mental condition has been formally diagnosed, but symptoms are not severe enough either to interfere with occupational and social functioning or to require continuous medication."

★ Both tests matter here: interference with work and social life, and continuous medication.

10%

Mild or Transient Symptoms

38 CFR 4.130, quoted exactly.

"Occupational and social impairment due to mild or transient symptoms which decrease work efficiency and ability to perform occupational tasks only during periods of significant stress, or symptoms controlled by continuous medication."

★ Symptoms controlled by continuous medication fit this level on their own.

30%

Occasional Decrease in Work Efficiency

38 CFR 4.130, quoted exactly.

"Occupational and social impairment with occasional decrease in work efficiency and intermittent periods of inability to perform occupational tasks (although generally functioning satisfactorily, with routine behavior, self-care, and conversation normal), due to such symptoms as: depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness, panic attacks (weekly or less often), chronic sleep impairment, mild memory loss (such as forgetting names, directions, recent events)."

★ Panic attacks weekly or less often are a 30% example. More than once a week is a 50% example.

50%

Reduced Reliability and Productivity

38 CFR 4.130, quoted exactly.

"Occupational and social impairment with reduced reliability and productivity due to such symptoms as: flattened affect; circumstantial, circumlocutory, or stereotyped speech; panic attacks more than once a week; difficulty in understanding complex commands; impairment of short- and long-term memory (e.g., retention of only highly learned material, forgetting to complete tasks); impaired judgment; impaired abstract thinking; disturbances of motivation and mood; difficulty in establishing and maintaining effective work and social relationships."

★ Flattened affect is its own example — it doesn't have to come with abnormal speech too.

70%

Deficiencies in Most Areas

38 CFR 4.130 — some of the examples, quoted exactly.

"Occupational and social impairment, with deficiencies in most areas, such as work, school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood, due to such symptoms as:"

"obsessional rituals which interfere with routine activities"
"near-continuous panic or depression affecting the ability to function independently, appropriately and effectively"
"impaired impulse control (such as unprovoked irritability with periods of violence)"
"difficulty in adapting to stressful circumstances (including work or a worklike setting)"
"inability to establish and maintain effective relationships"

★ This isn't the full list. Read every example at eCFR — a symptom not shown here can still count.

100%

Total Occupational and Social Impairment

38 CFR 4.130, quoted exactly.

"Total occupational and social impairment, due to such symptoms as: gross impairment in thought processes or communication; persistent delusions or hallucinations; grossly inappropriate behavior; persistent danger of hurting self or others; intermittent inability to perform activities of daily living (including maintenance of minimal personal hygiene); disorientation to time or place; memory loss for names of close relatives, own occupation, or own name."

★ This is the top of the schedule. It isn't the only way to get paid at the 100% rate — see TDIU below.

Know This

The List Is Examples, Not a Checklist

The symptoms listed are examples, not a checklist — you don't have to show every one (Mauerhan v. Principi). But symptoms alone aren't enough: you also have to show that your symptoms produced the level of work and social impairment that tier describes, and any symptom you rely on that isn't on the list has to be comparable in severity, frequency, and duration (Vazquez-Claudio v. Shinseki).

★ Bring proof of both: the symptoms, and what they cost you at work and at home.

The Rules Behind The Rating

How VA Weighs the Evidence

38 CFR 4.126(a) — VA rates you on the level of impairment shown by all the evidence: frequency, severity, duration, how long your remissions last, how well you adjust during them. Not just how you looked on the day of your C&P exam (the one-time evaluation VA schedules to assess your condition). A good day at that exam shouldn't cost you your rating.
38 CFR 4.126(b) — your social impairment counts, but it can't be the only reason VA picks your rating.
38 CFR 4.7 — if your case sits between two rating levels, VA has to give you the higher one when your picture more nearly matches it. This is the rule that wins close 30-vs-50 and 50-vs-70 calls.

★ Know these numbers. They decide the close cases.

TDIU

Can't Hold a Job? Ask About TDIU

TDIU is Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability.

If you can't secure and follow substantially gainful work because of a service-connected disability, VA can pay you at the 100% rate without you meeting the 100% criteria above.

38 CFR 4.16(a) — you qualify on the numbers alone with one disability rated 60% or more, or a combined 70% with at least one disability rated 40% or more.
38 CFR 4.16(b) — if you don't meet those numbers, you can still get TDIU. It is VA policy that every veteran unable to secure and follow substantially gainful work because of a service-connected disability is entitled to a total rating. The rating board is required to send your case to the Director, Compensation Service, for review outside the normal rating chart (called "extraschedular" consideration). Ask for it in writing.
Marginal employment — generally earnings at or below the Census Bureau poverty threshold — does not count as substantially gainful. It does not disqualify you.

★ A Soldier rated 70% for PTSD who can't work and never files for TDIU loses real money every month.

Fresh Out

Mental Health Condition Started In Service?

38 CFR 4.129 — if a mental disorder that developed in service from a highly stressful event was severe enough to cause your release from active duty, VA has to assign not less than 50 percent, and schedule your re-examination within six months of discharge.

★ Know this number if you're within your first year out.

Eating Disorders

Anorexia, Bulimia and Other Eating Disorders

38 CFR 4.130 — General Rating Formula for Eating Disorders (diagnostic codes 9520 and 9521), quoted exactly.

100 percent

"Self-induced weight loss to less than 80 percent of expected minimum weight, with incapacitating episodes of at least six weeks total duration per year, and requiring hospitalization more than twice a year for parenteral nutrition or tube feeding."

60 percent

"Self-induced weight loss to less than 85 percent of expected minimum weight with incapacitating episodes of six or more weeks total duration per year."

30 percent

"Self-induced weight loss to less than 85 percent of expected minimum weight with incapacitating episodes of more than two but less than six weeks total duration per year."

10 percent

"Binge eating followed by self-induced vomiting or other measures to prevent weight gain, or resistance to weight gain even when below expected minimum weight, with diagnosis of an eating disorder and incapacitating episodes of up to two weeks total duration per year."

0 percent

The regulation defines an incapacitating episode as "a period during which bed rest and treatment by a physician are required." Diagnostic codes 9201 to 9440 use the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders above; codes 9520 and 9521 use this one.

★ Eating disorders are scored on weight and incapacitating episodes, not on the symptom list above.

The Exam Form

VA's Exam Questionnaires (DBQs)

VA publishes blank Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQs) that an examiner fills out. They show what the examiner is asked.

Mental Disorders DBQ (VA form dated 2025-10-14): diagnoses, a symptom checklist, evidence reviewed, history, behavioral observations, competency to manage finances, and a choice of six levels of occupational and social impairment, from no mental disorder diagnosis to total occupational and social impairment. It covers mental disorders other than PTSD and eating disorders.
Eating Disorders DBQ (VA form dated 2024-07-31): diagnosis (bulimia, anorexia, other specified feeding or eating disorder), medical history, findings that match the rating levels above (binge eating with vomiting or other weight-prevention measures, incapacitating episodes by length, hospitalization more than twice a year, resistance to weight gain, weight below 80 or 85 percent of expected minimum), other symptoms, and functional impact on work.

Source: VA's blank forms, Mental Disorders and Eating Disorders. I read them through a text reader, so check the current forms on VA's site.

★ The eating disorders form asks about the same findings the rating levels use.

Also Know

What's Not On This Page

Evidence for a PTSD claim based on military sexual trauma or personal assault is covered on the women veterans page (38 CFR 3.304(f)(5)).
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are rated under a different rule — the General Rating Formula for Eating Disorders, which is quoted in full in the section above.
Disagree with your rating? A Supplemental Claim (you refile with new evidence) has no deadline. A Higher-Level Review (a senior reviewer looks again for error) or a Board Appeal (you take your case to the Board of Veterans' Appeals) both have to be filed within one year of the decision you're appealing.

★ Know your deadline before you pick your appeal path.