An 80% rating sits one step below 90% and two below 100%, and VA’s 2026 schedule prices that position at $2,102.15 a month for a veteran alone. With a spouse and one child on the award, the same rating is listed at $2,406.15. The number reflects a percentage that VA calculates, not one that anyone simply adds up.
Ten-point steps, priced by the schedule
VA describes a disability rating as a percentage, and says in its explanation of disability ratings that the rating decides how much compensation is paid each month and which other benefits are open to the veteran. The ratings move in 10-point increments, and the department’s 2026 rate table, effective December 1, 2025, attaches a dollar figure to each.
The 80% row reads $2,102.15 for a veteran alone, $2,277.15 with a spouse and $2,406.15 with a spouse and one child. Each additional child under 18 adds $87.00. The next row up, 90%, is listed at $2,362.30 for a veteran alone. Ten points of rating are worth $260.15 a month at that stage of the schedule, or $3,121.80 over twelve months.
Why two ratings never simply add up
Many veterans carry several service-connected conditions rather than one, and VA does not total the percentages. Its rating page states that “calculating your combined disability rating involves more than adding up your individual ratings,” and gives the example that two 10% ratings combine to 19%, not 20%. A veteran with a 50% condition and a 30% condition therefore does not arrive at 80%; VA’s combined-ratings tables decide the result, and the rating page lists those tables in bands from 19% upward.
Because of that method, the 80% row is reached by very different medical histories. One veteran may hold a single severe condition rated at that level, and another may hold five smaller ones. The payment is the same. What differs is the paper trail behind it, which is the file VA consults when a rating is questioned or a claim for a higher rating is filed.
The practical consequence for a family budget is that the label on the award and the sum of the conditions can disagree. A veteran who counts three conditions at 40%, 30% and 20% and expects 90% has done arithmetic that VA does not use. The combined figure on the award letter, not the sum in the household’s own notes, is the one that selects a row of the schedule.
What a rating change does to a monthly deposit
The rating page points veterans whose conditions have worsened toward a claim for increased disability. If VA grants a higher percentage, the base rate moves to the new row of the schedule. At 80%, going to 90% raises the alone figure by $260.15. Going to 100% would lift it from $2,102.15 to $3,938.58, a difference of $1,836.43 a month.
Money can also move the other way for reasons unrelated to the rating. VA’s compensation overview lists military retirement or severance pay, and incarceration for a felony beyond 60 days, as circumstances in which payments may be reduced. The same page says the amount can be increased for a very severe disability or the loss of a limb, and for dependents once the combined rating reaches 30%.
A change in the other direction is rarer in the sources but worth stating precisely. Nothing on the rating page describes what happens after a rating is lowered, so the schedule cannot be used to predict it. What the schedule does show is the size of the stakes: every row in the table is a monthly amount, and a move of even one row changes the deposit for as long as the new rating stands.
The $175 and $129 dependent steps at 80%
The dependent amounts are smaller than the jump between ratings, but they recur every month. A spouse adds $175.00 ($2,277.15 minus $2,102.15). A first child, with a spouse already listed, adds $129.00 ($2,406.15 minus $2,277.15). A second child brings the household to $2,493.15, because the additional-child amount is $87.00.
Summed across a year, a spouse and one child at the 80% rate account for $3,648.00 of the annual total ($304.00 a month times twelve). Households that count on that figure need the dependents recorded on the award, since the table quotes the with-dependents amounts only for awards that carry them.
What the rate table does not say about an individual award
The schedule is a gross list of monthly amounts by rating and household composition. It is not an average of what 80%-rated veterans receive, and it says nothing about the effective date of any one veteran’s award, any offsets, or any special allowances layered on top. The Department of Veterans Affairs updated the page on December 2, 2025, and as of September 30, 2026 it shows no later rates.
The department’s own wording is plain about the basis of the figure: monthly payment is set by the disability rating and by details about the dependent family. On that page, the $2,102.15 and $2,406.15 in the schedule are the operative numbers for 2026.
When a household’s situation points toward VA pension instead
Payment by rating, as in the 80% row, is how VA disability compensation works. VA pension is a different program, decided on wartime service and limited income rather than a rating percentage, and it comes in three levels.
The Veterans Benefits Action Kit explains the three VA pension levels including Aid & Attendance and how to file with VA Form 21P-527EZ, and it holds no compensation rate tables.
Look up how the three VA pension levels differ →
An AI assistant helped draft this report, and every figure was matched to the VA pages linked above.
