The lifetime dollar value of your VA benefits — personalized to you.
A 100% Permanent and Total VA disability rating is worth far more than the monthly compensation check, and most veterans never add up the rest. This calculator puts a dollar figure on the whole package: tax-free compensation at 2026 rates, CHAMPVA health coverage for your family, Chapter 35 education benefits for each dependent, your state's property tax exemption, VA health care and Class IV dental, the home loan funding fee waiver, and Total and Permanent Disability student loan discharge. You enter your rating, state, and family size; it returns a monthly, annual, and lifetime value personalized to you, along with what you would gain by reaching 100% P&T if you are not there yet. Property tax figures reflect each state's actual exemption structure and assessment basis, verified against state statutes in August 2026.
Compensation. Monthly rates come from VA's published 2026 tables, effective December 1, 2025 after the 2.8% COLA, including dependent combinations and every Special Monthly Compensation level. VA disability compensation is exempt from federal and state income tax, so we also estimate the tax you would owe on equivalent earned income.
Property tax. Each state's veteran exemption is modeled against the basis its statute actually uses — market value, assessed value, or taxable value — and converted using that state's residential assessment ratio. This matters more than it sounds: Wyoming's $6,000 exemption is written against assessed value at a 9.5% ratio, so it is worth roughly $63,000 of market value. Effective tax rates are derived from Census American Community Survey aggregates rather than median-based tables.
Projections. Lifetime figures multiply annual value by your projection period. COLA is off by default; when you turn it on you choose between a conservative 2.6% assumption, roughly the twenty-year average, and 3.1%, the average of the last ten COLAs. We default to the lower figure deliberately.
What we do not do. We do not model county-level property tax variation, local-option exemptions that individual municipalities may or may not have adopted, or means-tested programs whose value depends on income we do not ask for. Where a state's benefit depends on something we cannot know, the tool says so rather than guessing.
For 2026, 100% VA disability pays $3,938.58 per month for a single veteran and $4,318.99 with a spouse and one child, all federally tax-free. The compensation is only part of it. CHAMPVA health coverage for your family caps out-of-pocket costs at $3,000 a year, Chapter 35 DEA pays each dependent up to $56,664 for school, most states exempt some or all of your property tax, and federal student loans are discharged tax-free. Across a 30-year projection those add up to well over a million dollars for most families.
Permanent and Total means VA has determined your disability is both totally disabling and not expected to improve, so you are removed from routine future examinations. It is not an absolute legal guarantee — VA can still act on evidence of fraud or clear and unmistakable error — but in practice a P&T rating is protected, and ratings held for 20 years or more are protected from reduction below that level by statute.
The jump from 90% to 100% P&T unlocks benefits that have no partial version. CHAMPVA health coverage for your spouse and children requires P&T. Chapter 35 DEA education benefits for dependents require P&T. Most state property tax exemptions key off 100% or P&T specifically. Total and Permanent Disability student loan discharge requires it. Commissary and exchange access is the exception — since 2020 that extends to any service-connected rating.
No. VA disability compensation is exempt from both federal and state income tax everywhere in the United States. What varies by state is the treatment of military retirement pay, which is a separate payment. Most states now fully exempt military retirement, but several still cap the exclusion or tax it as ordinary income.
Your surviving spouse may receive Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, which is $1,699.36 a month tax-free for 2026, plus $421 for each child under 18 and an additional $360.85 if you were rated totally disabled for eight continuous years. Survivors also keep CHAMPVA, Chapter 35 education benefits, and property tax exemptions in many states. If a surviving spouse remarries at 55 or older, DIC continues — Congress lowered that age from 57 in 2021.