40 Percent VA Disability Rating

How much does 40% VA disability pay in 2026?

Tax-free, and not reported as income. Rates effective December 1, 2025, from the VA’s published table.

What a 40% rating actually means

Most veterans reading about 40% are looking at the payment. The part worth filing away is that a single 40% condition is a building block the VA’s unemployability rules refer to directly — it matters later even if it means nothing today.

How the VA arrives at 40%

One condition at 40% — a spine with severe limitation of motion, significant nerve involvement, a knee at the top of its range — or a combination of smaller ratings that lands there.

What one more condition would actually add at 40%

VA ratings do not add up. Each new one applies only to the part of you the VA still counts as unimpaired, and the final figure is rounded to the nearest ten. From 40%, that arithmetic produces this:

Forty is where VA math starts taking a visible bite. A 10% condition still moves you from here, but the gap between what you add and what you gain begins to open, and the table below is where you can see it.

From 40%, even a 10% condition moves your combined rating. That stops being true higher up the scale.

This models one new condition against your current combined figure. The VA re-combines every condition from scratch, which can differ by a rounding step — the VA math calculator runs the exact version with your real list, and shows each step of the arithmetic.

What benefits come with 40%?

Health-care priority, copays, education, home-loan treatment and dependent eligibility all shift as the rating climbs, and the thresholds are not evenly spaced. Rather than repeat them here, the full breakdown lives in one place:

VA benefits by rating level — what unlocks at each step

VA.gov is the authority on current priority groups and eligibility.

Frequently asked questions about 40% VA disability

Why is a 40% condition mentioned in TDIU rules?

The schedular path to TDIU under 38 CFR §4.16(a) asks for either one condition at 60% or more, or a combined rating of 70% or more with at least one condition rated 40% or more. A 40% condition satisfies half of the second test.

Does 40% get me free VA health care?

Priority group and copay rules turn on the rating level, and they change again at 50%. The benefits-by-level guide covers what shifts where.

How much does 40% pay with a spouse and one child?

The table on this page computes it from the current VA rates. Dependent additions apply at every rating from 30% up.