Tinnitus VA rating
The VA rates tinnitus under DC 6260, and most ratings land in the flat 10% under current rules range. What decides yours is the criteria below and what your record actually documents.
This code covers Tinnitus - ringing in the ears.
What the criteria ask for at each level
DC 6260 - 38 CFR §4.87
| Rating | What the record has to show |
|---|---|
| 10% | Recurrent tinnitus - a flat 10% whether in one ear, both ears, or the head. |
What the C&P exam actually measures
No instrument measures ringing. The tinnitus exam is largely an audiologist writing down what they are told, which makes what gets said the whole of it.
- An audiogram, which measures hearing thresholds rather than the ringing itself. It establishes the ear was exposed to something, not how loud the ringing is.
- Whether the tinnitus is recurrent. DC 6260 turns on that word and on nothing about severity.
- When it started, in relation to service dates. The examiner writes the answer given, and it is compared against the DD-214.
- The noise exposure behind it: the military job, the equipment, roughly when and where.
- Functional impact, usually sleep and concentration. It does not raise this rating, and it is what a secondary claim is later built from.
DC 6260 pays a flat 10% whether the ringing is in one ear, both, or the head, and only one evaluation is assigned. So this exam is not deciding a percentage. It is deciding service connection, and the door to everything downstream.
Our C&P Prepwalks through what this exam covers, in the schedule's own terms.
Two records, read against the criteria
Two records with the same symptom and the same job. One onset date separated them.
| Outcome | What the record held | How the criteria read it |
|---|---|---|
| Read at 10% | Artillery crewman, 2011 to 2019. A 2014 sick-call note records ringing after a live-fire exercise. The claim describes constant ringing beginning during that period and continuing since. | Recurrent tinnitus is documented, and the onset sits inside the service window with a contemporaneous note behind it. DC 6260 assigns its single 10%. |
| Read at no rating | The same job across the same eight years. No sick-call note. At the exam the onset was given as "about fifteen years ago" against a service period that ended seven years before. | That answer places the start of the ringing before enlistment, and the record holds nothing else to weigh against it. Without service connection there is no percentage to assign, so this is not a 0% rating - it is a denial resting on a date offered in passing. |
The second record is not a weaker case. It is the same case with a rounded number in it. These are general illustrations of how the criteria are written, not a prediction about any particular claim - only the VA decides that, on your own record.
The schedule's own words
Ratings turn on specific terms, and a record that describes the same reality in different language often reads as a lower rating. These are the words this code measures:
- recurrent tinnitus
- constant ringing
Evidence that moves this rating
- An audiology exam on record
- A lay statement describing onset during service and persistence since
What your statement has to cover
Doctors chart symptoms; they rarely chart consequences. That part is yours, and it is usually what separates a documented rating from a reported one.
- Name the in-service noise event: weapons, aircraft, machinery - when and where.
- State that the ringing is recurrent/constant and describe the impact: sleep loss, concentration, anxiety.
Our Statement Builderwalks through the questions that produce that kind of statement, in the schedule's own terms.
Where records for this condition fall short
Where tinnitus records commonly come up short:
- An onset given as a round number
Fifteen years, twenty years, since I was young. Rounded upward, it can land before enlistment, and the file then contains an account that argues against service connection.
- Noise exposure never named
Military job specialties are classified by probability of hazardous noise. Naming the job, the equipment and the period is what turns exposure from a claim into a record; without it there is only the ringing.
- Never mentioned to a primary care provider
Years of appointments with no reference to it reads as a symptom that came and went. Recurrent is the word the code turns on.
- Treated as the end of the claim
The flat 10% is the whole of DC 6260. Migraines, insomnia and mental health conditions documented alongside it are rated under their own codes and are where the remaining value sits.
What tinnitus can lead to 6 documented pathways
A secondary claim runs through a condition the VA already accepts, so the argument about your service is already won. What is left is the medical link - and a nexus opinion has to name the mechanism, not just the pair.
| Can lead to | The mechanism a nexus has to state |
|---|---|
| GERD (acid reflux) | Chronic stress from constant ringing increases stomach acid production. |
| Erectile dysfunction / FSAD | Severe distress, sleep disruption, and anxiety from tinnitus cause erectile dysfunction. |
| Migraine headaches | Constant ringing acts as a severe migraine trigger. |
| Depression | Chronic, inescapable noise disrupts sleep, focus, and mood. |
| Insomnia | Ringing interferes with falling and staying asleep. |
| Vertigo / vestibular disorder | The cochlea and the vestibular organs sit in the same labyrinth and share a blood supply and the eighth cranial nerve, so noise or blast damage severe enough to produce persistent tinnitus commonly disturbs balance alongside it. |
A pathway existing in the literature is not the same as your claim being granted - your records and the VA decide that. How secondary claims work covers the argument.
Before you spend money on this claim
VA ratings do not add. Each new rating applies only to the part of you the VA still counts as unimpaired, then rounds to the nearest ten - so from 70%, a new 10% condition leaves you at exactly 70% and changes your payment by nothing.
That does not make the claim worthless; it can still matter for TDIU, for SMC, or later when something else is added. But it is worth knowing before you pay for a nexus letter rather than after. Check what one more condition does at your rating - it takes a minute.