VA DISABILITY RATING CALCULATOR

One of the most misunderstood parts of VA disability is how multiple conditions combine. It feels natural to assume that a 50% rating and a 30% rating add up to 80%. The VA does not work that way. Instead, it uses a method often called the “whole person” theory, captured in the VA Combined Ratings Table.

The idea is that a veteran starts as 100% of a whole, healthy person. The first and most severe disability is applied to that full 100%. Each additional disability is then applied only to the percentage of the person that is still healthy, the efficiency left over after the previous conditions. Because each new rating works on a smaller and smaller remainder, the combined total grows more slowly than simple addition, and it can never exceed 100%.

Here is a worked example. Suppose you have a 50% rating and a 30% rating. First, sort them from highest to lowest: 50%, then 30%. Start with 100% of a whole person. Apply the 50% rating: that removes 50, leaving 50% of you still healthy. Now apply the 30% rating to what remains, but only to that remaining 50%, not the original 100%. Thirty percent of 50 is 15, so 15 more is removed, leaving 35% healthy. That means the disabling portion is 100 − 35 = 65%.

The final step is rounding. The VA rounds your raw combined figure to the nearest 10%. A raw value of 65 rounds up to a final rating of 70%. Values ending in 5 always round up. This is why two veterans with the same conditions on paper can land on the same official rating, and why adding a small additional disability sometimes does not change the rounded result at all. The calculator above runs exactly this process for up to ten conditions and then looks up your 2026 monthly compensation, including any dependent add-ons you qualify for at 30% and above.