How to file a VA disability claim online

Filing is free and you can do it yourself. The form is not the hard part. Naming your conditions correctly and protecting your effective date before you file are the parts that decide what the claim is worth.

Last reviewed October 2026 · Not legal advice, VA.gov always controls

You can apply for VA disability online through VA.gov's disability compensation application, which is VA Form 21-526EZ. You start the application, list the conditions you are claiming, add your supporting information and any evidence, and submit it. If you need time to prepare, starting the application while signed in with an identity-verified account sets a potential start date for your benefits, called an intent to file, and you then have one year to complete and submit the claim (VA.gov, your intent to file).

Filing is free, it is free to have an accredited representative help you, and nobody needs to take a percentage of your back pay to submit it. Anyone charging you a cut to file an initial claim is selling you something the VA gives away. The order below matters more than the form does.

Step 1: Set your intent to file first

Before you gather anything, put an intent to file on record. Starting the 21-526EZ online while signed in with a verified account does it automatically. On paper it is VA Form 21-0966, and you can also call or visit. Once it is on record you have one year to submit the complete claim, and if you do, VA treats the claim as filed on the intent-to-file date rather than the day you finally finished gathering evidence (38 CFR § 3.155(b)). The intent to file guide covers the details.

That date can be worth money. The effective date of an award is generally the date VA received the claim or the date entitlement arose, whichever is later (38 CFR § 3.400), so an earlier date of claim can mean more back pay if the claim is granted. It sets a potential start date, not a guaranteed one. Inside the first year after separation a claim can reach back to the day after discharge anyway, but an intent to file still covers you if gathering evidence runs past that year. It costs nothing, so set it the day you decide to claim.

Step 2: Decide what you are actually claiming

This is the step that decides the outcome, and it happens before any form. Work through three lists.

• Everything in your service treatment records. Every injury, every sick call, every complaint that got written down. If your back was documented once in 2009 and still hurts, that is a claim.
• Everything you live with now. Sleep, mood, hearing, joints, stomach, headaches, skin. Veterans routinely leave off the conditions they have normalized, because after fifteen years it stops feeling like an injury and starts feeling like just how you are.
• Everything caused or worsened by the above. This is the secondary list. Depression from chronic pain, sleep apnea from a weight-gaining condition, radiculopathy from a back injury, GERD from long-term medication. Read the secondary conditions guide before you finalize the list.

There is no penalty for claiming a condition and being denied. A 0% rating is still service connection, which can be increased later and can support a secondary claim. A condition left off the claim can still be claimed later, but usually from the later filing date, so back pay for the gap may be lost. A denied condition can be raised again at any time with new and relevant evidence (a supplemental claim), or, within one year of the decision notice, reviewed through a Higher-Level Review or a Board appeal.

Step 3: Name the conditions in plain language

You do not need diagnostic codes and you should not guess at them. Describe the body part and the problem: "lower back pain," "right knee instability," "ringing in both ears," "difficulty sleeping and nightmares." The form itself asks for current disabilities or symptoms, and once the claim is complete the VA must weigh all the lay and medical evidence in the file for the condition you describe, including its complications.

Two things do need to be explicit. If a condition is secondary to another, say so on the form: "depression secondary to service-connected chronic back pain." The form asks for this (its own example reads "left knee, secondary to right knee"), because a secondary claim is proved by the link to a service-connected condition, while a direct claim needs a link to an injury, disease or event in service. And if you are claiming unemployability, say that too, and file VA Form 21-8940 with it.

Step 4: Choose standard or fully developed

The 21-526EZ offers two lanes. In a standard claim, the VA gathers evidence for you under its duty to assist: it requests your service treatment records, your VA medical records, and any private records you authorize. In a Fully Developed Claim, you certify that you have submitted everything you have, which can move the claim faster.

The lane does not change what you are entitled to receive; VA says so on its fully developed claims page. The choice is about who gathers the records, and in the standard lane the VA's duty to assist is a protection, not a delay. A fully developed claim does not give that protection up entirely: the VA still requests your service records and any federal records you identify, and if it decides it needs non-federal records you did not send, it takes the claim out of the program and processes it as a standard claim. What you lose is the speed you chose it for. Choose fully developed only when you genuinely hold every relevant document already.

Step 5: Attach the right evidence

You do not need to prove your case beyond doubt. The standard is at least as likely as not, and a genuine tie goes to you under the benefit-of-the-doubt rule. What helps most:

• Your service treatment records and personnel file, if you already hold them. See how to request them.
• Private treatment records, or VA Form 21-4142 authorizing the VA to request them for you.
• A nexus opinion for anything where the service link is not obvious from the records.
• Your own statement, and statements from people who saw the change in you, on VA Form 21-4138 or 21-10210. See how to write one that carries weight.
• For PTSD or another mental health condition tied to a traumatic event in service, VA Form 21-0781 describing the event. It is optional, and if you file online and answer the application's optional mental health questions, you do not need a separate one (VA.gov, Form 21-0781).
• If you have a spouse or children, VA Form 21-686c to claim them at the same time; a parent who depends on you goes on VA Form 21P-509 instead. See adding dependents to your rating.

Step 6: Submit, and then keep going

File online at VA.gov, which is the fastest route and gives you a tracking view, or by mail, or in person at a regional office. An accredited VSO can submit it with you for free, and for a first claim that is usually worth doing.

After you submit, the VA reviews the file and orders a C&P exam when the file lacks enough medical evidence to decide a condition. The file must also show three things: a current disability or symptoms; an event, injury or disease in service, or a presumptive condition; and some sign the two may be linked (for a secondary claim, a link to a condition already service connected). That exam is not treatment; it is an evaluation, and the examiner's findings are evidence the VA uses to decide service connection and the rating. Go to it, do not minimize your symptoms, and describe the full range honestly: what a typical day looks like, what better and worse days look like, and how often each happens.

How long it takes

There is no reliable single number. Timelines vary by condition, by regional office, and by whether an exam is needed. What you can control is whether the file is complete, whether you responded to every request promptly, and whether you attended the exam. Check the status on VA.gov rather than waiting for post, and if the VA asks for something, answer it inside the window they give you.

When the decision arrives, read all of it, not the percentage on the front. The reasons and bases section tells you what was and was not accepted, and it is where effective date errors and missed SMC entitlements are found. The decision guide walks through it, and if you disagree you have one year and three lanes.

Sources

• 38 CFR § 3.155, How to file a claim. The intent to file at (b), including a saved online application, a paper form, or a phone call, and the one-year window to submit the complete claim; the scope of a complete claim at (d)(2).
• VA Form 21-526EZ (January 2026). The claim form asks at item 16 for current disabilities or symptoms, and its Example 3 reads "left knee, secondary to right knee." Its Evidence Tables set out what direct service connection and secondary service connection each require (see also 38 CFR § 3.310), and it describes a supplemental claim as one filed after a prior decision on the same or similar benefit, which needs new and relevant evidence (38 CFR § 3.2501), with a Higher-Level Review or a Board appeal as the other routes, which must be chosen within one year of the decision notice (38 CFR § 3.2500(a)(1)).
• 38 CFR § 3.400, General. The date of receipt or the date entitlement arose, whichever is later, and the day-after-separation rule at (b)(2)(i) for claims received within a year of leaving service.
• M21-1, Part X, Subpart i, Chapter 6, Section B, BDD and Initial Processing. At X.i.6.B.2.b, the date of claim for a claim filed before discharge is the day after the anticipated release from active duty, whatever day VA received it.
• 38 CFR § 3.159(c), Department of Veterans Affairs assistance in developing claims. What the VA must try to obtain for you: service records, VA and other federal records, and private records you authorize; at (c)(4), a medical exam when the medical evidence is not enough to decide the claim and the record shows a current disability or symptoms, an in-service event, injury or disease, and a possible link between them or to another service-connected disability.
• 38 CFR § 3.655, Failure to report for Department of Veterans Affairs examination. A missed exam means rating on the existing record for an original claim (the initial complete claim for one or more benefits, under 38 CFR § 3.160(b)) and denial for an increase or supplemental claim, with examples of good cause.
• 38 U.S.C. § 5904(c)(1), Recognition of agents and attorneys generally. Agents and attorneys may not charge a fee for work done before notice of the initial decision on a claim.
• VA.gov, How to file a VA disability claim. The five ways to file, that evidence is not required with the claim and can follow within a year, that an online application started and finished within 365 days keeps its start date as the date of claim, and the online intent to file.
• VA.gov, Your intent to file a VA claim. Starting the disability application online with an identity-verified account records an intent to file automatically; VA Form 21-0966 for paper; one year to file the complete claim.
• VA.gov, VA Form 21-0781 and VA Form 21-4142. The 21-0781 is optional and not needed separately when the online mental health questions are answered; the 21-4142 and 21-4142a authorize VA to request private records.
• VA.gov, Fully Developed Claims program. What you certify in a fully developed claim, that filing one does not affect the benefits you are entitled to, and how a claim that needs more non-federal records moves to the standard lane.