How VA ratings work

The rule-book: the VASRD

38 CFR Part 4, the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities, is the federal rule-book the VA uses to score every service-connected condition. Each condition has a diagnostic code, a list of severity levels, and a percentage attached to each level (0, 10, 20, 30, up to 100).

Why it matters: your monthly compensation, your healthcare priority group, and several state benefits key off your combined rating. Knowing which code applies to a condition, and what evidence moves it up a tier, is the difference between a 10% and a 30% rating on the same diagnosis. Bring the relevant page to your C&P exam, your VSO, or your appeal. You can search the schedule condition by condition in our rating browser.

Why ratings do not add

Multiple service-connected ratings are not added together. The VA treats you as a “whole person” with 100 points. Each rating takes its percent of the points still left, starting with the highest rating. The final number rounds to the nearest multiple of 10 (38 CFR § 4.25).

The classic example: 50% and 30% make 70%, not 80%. The 50% rating takes half of your 100 points, leaving 50. The 30% rating takes 30% of those remaining 50 points, which is 15 more. That is 65 points total, and 65 rounds to 70.

This is why a new 10% rating often changes nothing: at a combined 86, ten percent of the remaining 14 points is 1.4, and 87.4 still rounds to 90 the same as before. The higher your rating, the less each new condition moves it.

The bilateral factor

When conditions affect both sides of the body (both knees, both arms, both ears), the VA combines that pair first and adds 10% of the pair's value as a bonus before folding it into the rest of your ratings (38 CFR § 4.26). Two 20% knees combine to 36, plus the bonus makes 39.6, which then counts as a single rating in the overall math.

Pyramiding: one symptom, one rating

The rule: the same disability cannot be rated twice under different diagnostic codes (38 CFR § 4.14). If two codes could technically apply, the underlying symptom still only counts once.

What it blocks:

• Knee pain rated under both arthritis (DC 5003) and limitation of flexion (DC 5260) when the pain itself is what limits the range of motion: the pain would be counted twice.
• PTSD at 50% and depression at 30% when the depressive symptoms are part of the PTSD diagnosis. Mental health conditions with overlapping symptoms get one combined rating.

What still stacks: distinct symptoms under distinct codes. A knee with limited flexion (5260) and separate instability (5257) can be rated under both, because instability is a different clinical finding, not the same pain measured twice. Radiculopathy running down a leg is its own rating, separate from the back condition that caused it.

The practical takeaway: at your C&P exam, describe each symptom in its own terms rather than lumping them together. A VSO can help translate your experience into the separate criteria the rater looks for.