How to search Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions

1. Open the search

The Board's home page links to its decision search as “Search Decisions.” The search runs at search.usa.gov, needs no account, and each result opens the full text of one decision on VA.gov.

Source: the Board's home page (opens in new tab)

2. What to type: the condition and the outcome

By law, a Board decision includes an order that grants or denies what was asked for. The Board can also remand an issue, sending it back to the VA office that decided it to fix an error or gather more evidence first; a remand is not a final decision. Each outcome is stated in a plain sentence, for example: “Entitlement to service connection for tinnitus is granted.” So type the condition and the outcome you want to read about: granted, denied, or remanded.

Sources: 38 U.S.C. 7104(d) (opens in new tab), 38 CFR 20.802 (opens in new tab), 38 CFR 20.904 (opens in new tab), 38 CFR 20.1100 (opens in new tab), a 2026 Board decision (A26037057) (opens in new tab)

One decision often rules on several issues, so a result can grant one and deny or remand another. Open the decision and read the outcome for the issue you care about before you count it.

3. Narrow by year

After you search, the tool offers links to repeat the search in a single year, back to 1992. The year is the year the Board decided the appeal, not the year of the VA decision being appealed.

That matters because VA changed to a new appeals process on February 19, 2019. Appeals of VA decisions dated before then can continue in the older legacy process, and VA says a legacy review by a Veterans Law Judge at the Board could take 5 to 7 years. Appellants can also opt in to the new process at two points along the way. So a recent decision may come from either process.

Sources: the decision search (opens in new tab), VA.gov: manage a legacy VA appeal (opens in new tab)

4. Read a decision

By law, every Board decision states its findings and conclusions, the reasons or bases for them, and an order granting or denying relief. In the decision text those appear under headings like these:

Order

What the Board granted, denied, or dismissed.

Remanded

Issues sent back for more work, listed under their own heading after the order, with the Board's reasons for each remand later in the decision.

Finding of fact

What the Board decided the evidence shows.

Conclusion of law

Whether the legal requirements are met, with the law it applied.

Reasons and bases

How the Board weighed the evidence and why: the Board's reasoning in that case.

Sources: 38 U.S.C. 7104(d) (opens in new tab), a 2026 Board decision (A26037057) (opens in new tab), a 2026 Board decision with a remand (26003157) (opens in new tab)

5. Using what you find

• Look for what the decisions have in common: the kind of evidence the Board discussed and the reasons it gave. Each appeal is still decided on its own facts.

  Source: 38 CFR 20.1303 (opens in new tab)

• If you disagree with a Board decision on your own appeal, VA lists two options: file a Supplemental Claim with new and relevant evidence, or appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims within 120 days from the date on the decision.

  Source: VA.gov: after a Board Appeal decision (opens in new tab)

• An accredited attorney, claims agent, or Veterans Service Organization representative can help you request a decision review, and VA's search finds one near you.

  Source: VA.gov: accredited representatives (opens in new tab)