Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E, Chapter 31) can pay for a veteran to start a business: the equipment, the opening inventory, the licenses, and a short course to run it. Almost nobody uses it, because the rules live in 38 CFR 21.257 and a chapter of VA's M28C manual that most counselors rarely open. Those rules are specific. The track funds startups only. VA may not pay for land, buildings, leases, rent, or any vehicle. The business plan must pass a seven-part feasibility analysis, an SBA referral is mandatory, and a panel in the VR&E office reviews it. Nobody signs the plan until the VR&E Officer concurs, or the Executive Director of VR&E Service at $50,000 and up. This tool reads your startup list against those rules item by item, shows who has to sign at your cost, scores the feasibility elements you already have, maps the process with the form at each step, and drafts the statement that asks for self-employment as your vocational goal. It cannot write your business plan or judge your case. That takes a person, and a free SBA counselor.
What brings you here?
How this tool works
The three buckets. Every item on your startup list is read against two texts. 38 CFR 21.257(d) lets VA provide vocational training, incidental training in running a business, license and other fees, necessary tools and supplies, and employment services to anyone whose self-employment goal is approved; 38 CFR 21.214(e) adds minimum stocks of inventory, essential equipment and machinery, and business license fees, framed as what is "necessary to begin operations," and VA's manual (M28C.IV.C.5 5.04.a) lists the same things as approvable self-employment assistance. Those are the fundable bucket. 38 CFR 21.214(f) prohibits land and buildings, leases and rent, vehicles, and farm stocking; the manual adds cannabis and recreational-substance businesses. That is the prohibited bucket. Marketing, insurance, working capital, and payroll appear in neither text; the tool labels them "not on the list," tells you to ask and to budget them yourself, and never counts them as fundable. The regulation also keeps a two-tier structure: the fuller inventory-and-equipment package is written for veterans whose limits make self-employment "the only reasonably feasible vocational goal" (21.257(b)). The current manual does not use tier names. The tool uses the regulation's words and never says "Category I" or "Category II."
Who signs. A counselor cannot approve a self-employment plan alone. Phase One, the feasibility work and the SBA referral, needs no concurrence because nothing is bought. Once the business plan is approved, the manual requires the VR&E Officer's concurrence at a total cost of $49,999 or less and the Executive Director of VR&E Service's at $50,000 or more (M28C.IV.C.5 5.05.b.2, change date June 21, 2023). The regulation the manual cites, 38 CFR 21.258 as amended in 2022, draws the line at $25,000 instead, and 38 CFR 21.430(c) adds a non-delegable VR&E Officer review of program costs above $25,000 in a calendar year for small-business supplies. The tool shows the manual's figure as what your office uses and the regulation's figure beside it, labeled. We do not reconcile them for you, because VA has not.
The eight elements. Seven come from 38 CFR 21.257(f), which says the feasibility analysis "must include" an economic viability analysis, a cost analysis of what VA will provide, a market analysis, non-VA financing, evidence of SBA coordination, the site and its cost, and a training plan. The eighth is the business plan itself, which the manual says must "serve as a stand-alone document that addresses all business concerns and can describe the business to a potential lender." Each is marked documented, thin, or missing from your answers. There is no percentage and no approval probability, because no data exists to support one.
The statement. The Self-Employment Goal Statement follows the seven-section structure The Better Veteran uses with one-on-one clients, rewritten for this track: background, employment handicap and why self-employment fits it, the business, the feasibility work done, what you are asking VR&E to consider (fundable items only), the training plan, and the request. Everything you type into it stays in your browser; it is never sent to us, never in the share link, and never in the emailed results link. Nothing here is legal advice. The counselor decides suitability under 38 CFR 21.257(a), the panel and VA decide feasibility under 21.257(f), and this tool cannot read your rating decision, write your business plan, or tell you whether your case is strong. Rules verified against eCFR and KnowVA on the data stamp shown in the footer.