Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a very common mental health diagnosis affecting America’s military veterans. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded about 1 in 5 (18%) new applicants VA disability compensation for PTSD. And according to VA study data, female veterans (13%) are nearly 2x as likely to have PTSD than men who served (6%). If you have a diagnosis, you might wonder how they assign your PTSD VA rating and what your monthly compensation could look like.
Keep reading to learn how this mental health disorder affects veterans, what the VA looks for in assigning VA PTSD ratings, average pay amounts, and more helpful info below.
PTSD VA Rating: Key Takeaways
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) studies show this condition is far more likely to affect military veterans than civilians. This is due to significant stress and the number of traumatic events many service members face on active duty.
- PTSD is the #6 most prevalent service-connected disability amongst veterans receiving monthly VA benefits today.
- Your PTSD diagnosis isn’t enough to receive VA disability payments each month. Instead, you’ll also need a discharge status other than dishonorable from military service.
- Your pay amount in veterans’ disability benefits directly results from your assigned PTSD VA rating percentage.
- If the VA denies your PTSD claim, a VA-accredited attorney can still potentially help you qualify for monthly payments.
- All veterans’ disability attorneys work on contingency and offer free, no-obligation consultations to help you understand all your options.
What Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
Exposure to traumatic events can trigger a mental health condition called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in some people. You’ll need to see a licensed health professional to receive an official diagnosis if you play to file for PTSD benefits. To diagnose you with this mental health disorder, all of the following must be true:
- You experience PTSD symptoms for at least 30 days in a row.
- Your symptoms cause significant stress for your loved ones and/or interfere with your ability to function on a daily basis.
- The symptoms you experience began after exposure to a life-threatening, physically harmful, or emotionally disturbing event or series of events.
Understanding the Four Categories of PTSD Symptoms
Generally, PTSD symptoms fall into four distinct categories:
- Intrusive thoughts and flashbacks that make you feel like you’re reliving the traumatic event. This can include repeatedly remembering or dreaming about traumatic events that cause instant and severe feelings of fear or panic. These can happen on the spur of the moment or because something else reminded you of the event.
- Reminder-avoidant behaviors. Many people want to avoid remembering, thinking about, dreaming of, or discussing their past traumatic experiences. This can include intentionally avoiding places, people, activities, or objects that may trigger upsetting memories or feelings.
- Unpleasant mood changes, distorted thinking, and negative self-talk. You might feel depressed, sad, afraid, ashamed, angry, guilty, or detached on a regular basis. In addition, PTSD can cause memory loss (both short-term and long-term) and rumination (i.e., bad feelings and thoughts that you cannot shake without help).
- Reactive negativity and hypervigilance. This means you’re prone to self-destructive and reckless behavior, scare or startle easily because you constantly feel keyed up. Paranoia, insomnia, and difficulty concentrating or paying attention can all fall under this category.
Common Causes of PTSD in the Military
After World War I, many young soldiers came back home suffering what doctors then called “shell shock.” At the time, experts saw it as a reaction to anything that reminded veterans of artillery shell explosions on the battlefield. Then in World War II, the preferred term because “battle fatigue” or Combat Stress Reaction (CSR).
Common military risk factors for developing service-connected PTSD as a veteran are as follows:
- Deployment to an active combat zone. Some studies show deployment triples your PTSD risk compared to other veterans from the same service era.
- Exposure to dangers from nearby terrorist activity or hostile military action from enemy forces.
- Experiencing sexual harassment, assault, or stalking by individuals other than enemy forces.
- Acts of physical violence (assault, battery, robbery, or mugging) that occur off the battlefield, including domestic partner abuse.
- Witnessing natural disasters, deaths, injuries, or grave threats to human safety caused by anything other than hostile military or terrorist actions.
- Working in the burn ward or registering graves for fellow service members.
Is PTSD Eligible for VA Disability Benefits?
Yes, provided all of these apply to your case:
- You experienced an in-service stressor that traumatized you in some way. This means that your exposure to one or more traumatic events happened during active military duty.
- A licensed medical doctor diagnosed you with PTSD sometime after that traumatic event.
- Your medical condition began either while you were on active duty or within one year of discharge from military service.
The trickiest part for most vets filing a PTSD claim is submitting the right medical records to establish a service connection. In order to qualify for PTSD disability benefits, you must prove a direct link between your diagnosis and your military service.
Related Mental Health Conditions That May Help You Qualify for VA Benefits
If a doctor already diagnosed you with any of the following, it may help strengthen your PTSD claim:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Addiction or substance use disorders (i.e., alcohol, prescription medications, eating disorders or compulsive gambling, for example)
- Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
Who’s Eligible to File a VA Disability PTSD Claim?
Title 38, Code of Federal Regulation, 3.309(a) lists all medical conditions the VA recognizes as eligible disabilities, including PTSD. As long as your PTSD symptoms began no later than one year after your discharge, you should be good. However, you’ll also need a discharge status other than dishonorable to receive a PTSD VA rating. Any veteran whose medical condition receives at least a 10% disability rating from the VA can qualify for monthly compensation.
Once you do receive your VA disability rating, you can also qualify for military health care and other potential benefits.
What is the VA Disability Rating for PTSD?
Your VA rating depends on the frequency and severity of your symptoms and how they affect your daily life. Below is a table showing how the VA rates PTSD by disability percentage:
| PTSD VA Rating | Screening Criteria | Symptoms |
| 0% | You have an official PTSD diagnosis, but it doesn’t interfere with your job or daily life. | None or mild only. |
| 10% | You struggle with occupational tasks or have mild social impairment only during times of high stress. | Mild or transient symptoms you control with continuous medication or therapy. |
| 30% | You have occupational and social impairment that makes it hard for you to complete work tasks or enjoy time with friends. | Chronic sleep impairment, weekly panic attacks, mild memory loss, and feeling anxious, depressed, or suspicious. |
| 50% | Frequent issues both at work and home that limit your ability to function as expected or maintain good relationships. | Impaired judgment, mood swings, feelings of worthlessness and anxiety, panic attacks, lack of motivation and difficulty concentrating or focusing several times per week. |
| 70% | Near-constant feelings of disorientation, confusion, panic or depression that affect every aspect of your work and home life. | Suicidal ideation, impaired impulse control, poor personal hygiene, neglecting your appearance, forgetting where you are or what you were doing almost daily. |
| 100% | Frequent gross impairment to your occupational and social functioning means you cannot work at all or have healthy personal relationships. | Persistent delusions, hallucinations, grossly inappropriate behavior, unable to complete daily hygiene or self-care tasks without help, constant urges to harm yourself or others, and frequent panic attacks. |
Important: Your average VA disability rating for PTSD determines your monthly pay amount, not your highest rating percentage. Learn more about how VA disability ratings work here.
How Much VA Disability Compensation Can You Get for PTSD?
The PTSD VA rating ranges from 0% to 100%. That means that right now, your monthly payments can range anywhere from $175.51 to $3,831.30 per month.
VA Disability Rating Payments by Severity
VA PTSD ratings determine how much compensation you can get every month. The key things that influence your PTSD rating are:
- Medical evidence that supports your VA claim. This includes your official diagnosis date, therapy treatments, or medications that your doctor prescribes in order to manage your symptoms.
- Your C&P exam results, if applicable. If you don’t have complete medical records with the VA already, they may schedule a medical evaluation. This is called a “Compensation and Pension exam” that helps the VA verify your diagnosis and service connection. It also gives the VA an opportunity to assess how each veteran’s PTSD symptoms affect their daily life.
The chart below shows pay rates for veterans with zero dependents in 2025 for each service-connected disability:
- 0% disability rating: $0.00 per month
- 10% disability rating: $175.51 per month
- 20% disability rating: $346.95 per month
- 30% disability rating: $537.42 per month
- 40% disability rating: $774.16 per month
- 50% disability rating: $1,102.04 per month
- 60% disability rating: $1,395.93 per month
- 70% disability rating: $1,759.19 per month
- 80% disability rating: $2,044.89 per month
- 90% disability rating: $2,297.96 per month
- 100% disability rating: $3,831.30 per month
Get a VA-Accredited Lawyer to Help File Your VA Disability Claim
According to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, attorneys helped win 42.7% of appealed cases in FY 2024 representing 6,191 vets. No other advocacy group or organization has a higher win rate for helping veterans access to much-needed benefits.
Working with a VA-accredited attorney could cut down your average wait time for benefits by one full week.
Plus, the VA admits it made a mistake on 1 in 5 applications for benefits they reviewed in the past year. And since all attorneys in our network offer contingency-based representation, you’ll pay $0 if your claim isn’t successful.
For a free, no-obligation consultation from a nearby veterans’ disability attorney, click below now:
Lori Polemenakos is Director of Consumer Content and SEO strategist for LeadingResponse, a legal marketing company. An award-winning journalist, writer and editor based in Dallas, Texas, she's produced articles for major brands such as Match.com, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Xfinity, Mail.com, and edited several published books. Since 2016, she's published hundreds of articles about Social Security disability, workers' compensation, veterans' benefits, personal injury, mass tort, auto accident claims, bankruptcy, employment law and other related legal issues.