The VA rates PTSD at six possible levels: 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, or 100%. Each level corresponds to how much your PTSD symptoms interfere with your ability to work and function socially. The rating you receive determines your monthly tax-free compensation, which currently ranges from about $171 per month at 10% to over $3,900 per month at 100% for a single veteran with no dependents.
How Each Rating Level Is Defined
The VA uses the same rating formula for nearly all mental health conditions, including PTSD. The key factor at every level is “occupational and social impairment,” meaning how much your symptoms affect your ability to hold a job and maintain relationships. Here’s what each rating requires:
0% means you have a formal PTSD diagnosis, but your symptoms don’t interfere with work or social functioning and don’t require ongoing medication. You won’t receive monthly compensation at this level, but having a service-connected rating at 0% still matters: it establishes the connection to your service and makes it easier to file for an increase later.
10% covers mild or temporary symptoms that only reduce your work performance during periods of significant stress, or symptoms that are controlled by continuous medication. If you’re generally functioning well but notice flare-ups under pressure, this is where the VA places you.
30% reflects occasional dips in work efficiency with periods where you can’t fully perform your job tasks, even though you’re generally getting by. Typical symptoms at this level include depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness, panic attacks once a week or less, trouble sleeping, and mild memory problems like forgetting names or recent events.
50% means your reliability and productivity at work are noticeably reduced. The VA looks for symptoms like panic attacks more than once a week, difficulty understanding complex instructions, short and long-term memory problems (forgetting to complete tasks, retaining only well-practiced material), impaired judgment, mood disturbances, and difficulty building or keeping work and social relationships.
70% indicates impairment in most areas of your life, including work, family, judgment, thinking, and mood. Symptoms at this level can include suicidal thoughts, obsessive rituals that disrupt daily routines, near-constant panic or depression that makes it hard to function independently, unprovoked irritability with episodes of violence, neglect of personal hygiene, and an inability to maintain effective relationships.
100% represents total occupational and social impairment. This rating applies when symptoms are so severe that you cannot work or function socially at all. The VA describes this level with symptoms like persistent hallucinations or delusions, grossly inappropriate behavior, being a persistent danger to yourself or others, inability to perform basic daily activities like personal hygiene, disorientation to time or place, and forgetting your own name, your occupation, or the names of close relatives.
What the Exam Actually Evaluates
To determine your rating, the VA schedules a Compensation and Pension (C&P) exam with a psychologist or psychiatrist. The examiner uses a standardized questionnaire that walks through a checklist of specific symptoms, from depressed mood and anxiety to spatial disorientation and hallucinations. Each symptom on the checklist maps to one of the rating levels described above.
At the end of the exam, the clinician selects a single summary statement about your overall level of occupational and social impairment. These statements mirror the rating criteria almost word for word. So while the examiner doesn’t technically assign your percentage, their summary heavily influences the rating decision. The VA rater then reviews the exam, your treatment records, and any other evidence to assign the final number.
One thing that trips up many veterans: the symptom lists at each rating level are examples, not checklists you have to match exactly. You don’t need to have every symptom listed at the 70% level to get a 70% rating. The VA is supposed to look at your overall functional impairment, not count symptoms. When there’s genuine doubt about whether you fall at one level or the next, the VA is required to assign the higher rating.
Why You Get One Rating for All Mental Health Conditions
Many veterans with PTSD also have depression, anxiety, or another mental health diagnosis. You might expect separate ratings for each condition, but the VA almost never does this. Because all mental health conditions are rated on the same scale of occupational and social impairment, assigning separate ratings would count the same symptoms twice. The VA calls this “pyramiding,” and it’s prohibited.
In practice, this means you’ll receive a single rating that covers all your service-connected mental health diagnoses together. The upside is that all your psychiatric symptoms, whether they stem from PTSD, depression, or anxiety, get factored into one combined picture of impairment. The VA is required to assign overlapping symptoms to whichever diagnosis benefits you most.
Getting Paid at the 100% Level Without a 100% Rating
If your PTSD is rated at less than 100% but still prevents you from holding steady employment, you may qualify for Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability (TDIU). This pays you at the same rate as a 100% rating even though your actual percentage is lower.
To qualify, one of these must apply: you have a single service-connected disability rated at 60% or more, or you have two or more service-connected disabilities with at least one rated at 40% or more and a combined rating of 70% or more. The core requirement is that your service-connected conditions prevent you from maintaining “substantially gainful employment,” meaning a steady job that supports you financially. Odd jobs or marginal part-time work don’t count against you.
What You Need for Service Connection
Before the VA assigns any rating, you need to establish that your PTSD is connected to your military service. This requires two things: a doctor has diagnosed you with PTSD, and the traumatic event (the “stressor”) happened during your service. For combat veterans, the VA generally accepts your account of the stressor without requiring corroborating evidence, as long as the stressor is consistent with the circumstances of your service.
If your claim is for a non-combat stressor, such as military sexual trauma or a training accident, the evidence requirements are different. The VA will look for supporting documentation like service records, buddy statements, or changes in behavior noted in your personnel file. Regardless of the type of stressor, the diagnosis itself must come from a qualified mental health professional.
How Your Rating Affects Compensation
Your PTSD rating doesn’t exist in isolation. If you have other service-connected disabilities, the VA combines them using a formula that accounts for diminishing impact (called “VA math”). For example, a 50% PTSD rating combined with a 30% rating for a knee injury doesn’t simply add up to 80%. Instead, the VA applies the second rating to the remaining percentage of your whole-body function, which often results in a combined rating lower than you’d expect from straight addition.
Your number of dependents also affects your monthly payment, but only if your combined rating is 30% or higher. Veterans rated at 10% or 20% receive a flat amount regardless of family size. At 30% and above, each additional dependent (spouse, children, dependent parents) adds to the monthly benefit.