How to request a VA rating increase, and how reductions work

Conditions get worse. The rating does not follow on its own, and the fear that asking will cost you what you already have keeps a lot of veterans underpaid for years. Here is what actually governs both directions.

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

If a service-connected condition has worsened, you ask for a higher rating by filing a claim for increase on VA Form 21-526EZ or through VA's online claim, with current medical evidence of the worsening. VA may reexamine the condition, and a reduction has its own notice rules. The five-year, ten-year and twenty-year rules protect different things and none of them is blanket immunity (VA.gov, when to file; 38 CFR § 3.105(e)).

A VA rating is a snapshot of how bad a condition was when it was evaluated. If the condition has deteriorated since, the rating is out of date, and correcting it is a new claim, not an appeal and not a challenge to the old decision.

The reason people hesitate is the other direction: an increase claim often brings a new exam, and a new exam could show improvement. That risk is real, but the regulations limit it: a reduction that would lower your pay needs notice and a chance to respond, and older ratings get added protection. Understanding both sides lets you decide on facts instead of dread.

Filing for an increase

When it is worth doing

Pull up the rating criteria for your condition and read the level above yours. If your current symptoms, as documented in your medical records, meet that description, you have a case. If they do not, you have a project, get the documentation first, then file.

Concrete signals that an increase is worth pursuing:

• New treatment, a new medication, or an escalation in either.
• Surgery, injections, or a device you did not need before.
• Measurable change, worse range of motion, worse test results, more frequent episodes.
• Work consequences: accommodations, reduced hours, absences, a job you had to leave.
• New complications that grew out of the condition, which may be their own secondary claims rather than an increase.

How to file

Use VA Form 21-526EZ, on paper or through VA's online application, and identify it as a claim for increased evaluation, naming the condition (VA Form 21-526EZ). Attach the evidence of worsening: recent treatment records, imaging, test results, a statement from your provider, your symptom logs, and lay statements about the practical impact.

VA will often schedule a C&P exam, though not in every case. If it does, go: missing an exam for a claim for increase without good cause, such as illness or a death in the family, gets the claim denied (38 CFR § 3.655(b)). Prepare for it the same way you would any other. See the exam guide, and be accurate about the full range of your condition, including flare-ups and bad days.

The effective date can reach backward

Where the evidence shows the increase was factually ascertainable within the year before you filed, the effective date can reach back to that date of worsening (38 CFR § 3.400(o)(2)). Dated records of the worsening are what make that possible. How the date and the back pay are worked out is covered in the effective dates guide.

The reduction side

The VA can reduce a rating when a condition has genuinely improved, but it cannot do it quietly or casually. Several layers of protection apply.

Procedural protection

Before reducing a rating that would lower your compensation, the VA must issue a proposed reduction with notice explaining the basis. You then have a window, generally 60 days, to submit evidence against it, and a shorter window, generally 30 days, to request a predetermination hearing. A timely hearing request keeps payments at the current level until a final decision. If you do nothing, the reduction proceeds, taking effect on the last day of the month in which 60 days from the notice of the final decision run out. If you respond with evidence, it must be considered.

Any reduction, however recent the rating, has to rest on a review of your condition's whole history (38 CFR 4.2). Ratings are based on how a condition affects ordinary daily life and work (4.10). So a reduction should reflect an actual change in the condition, not a difference in how thorough the exam was or how the report is worded (4.13). The VA can still correct a rating that was wrong from the start, and any correction that lowers your pay still requires the proposed-reduction notice above. The stabilization rule in the next section applies only once a rating has stood at the same level for five years; before that, a reexamination showing actual improvement can support a reduction.

Ratings in effect five years or more

A rating that has continued at the same level for five years or longer is treated as stabilized, and the standard for reducing it is higher. The VA must review the entire record and cannot base a reduction on an exam less full and complete than the one the rating rests on. It must also consider whether any improvement is reasonably certain to hold up under the ordinary conditions of life. Some conditions improve only temporarily or come and go; the regulation's examples include epilepsy, bronchial asthma, some psychiatric conditions and many skin diseases. A rating for one of those is not reduced on any one examination unless all the evidence clearly shows sustained improvement.

Ratings in effect twenty years

A rating continuously in effect for 20 years or more is protected and cannot be reduced below that level except on a showing that it was based on fraud. This is one of the strongest protections in the system, and it is worth knowing the anniversary of your own ratings. The 20 years run from the effective date of the evaluation to the date a reduction would take effect.

Service connection in effect ten years

Service connection that has been in effect for 10 years or more cannot be severed except on a showing that the original grant was based on fraud, or that military records clearly show the required service or character of discharge was missing, though the percentage can still be adjusted. Outside those two narrow exceptions, the link itself is safe.

Total ratings

A 100% rating carries its own standard: unless the rating was clearly wrong, it is not reduced without an exam showing material improvement in the condition (38 CFR 3.343(a)). That rule covers total ratings based on the severity of the condition, not ones granted only for hospital, surgical or home treatment or for individual unemployability. A total rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) follows its own rule in 3.343(c), which requires clear and convincing evidence of actual employability. And a rating found permanent and total is generally not scheduled for routine future examinations at all.

So should you file?

A structured way to think about it:

The other move worth remembering: an increase is not the only route to more compensation. Unclaimed secondary conditions, SMC categories, and TDIU each have their own criteria, beyond the percentage assigned to any one condition, so they are worth checking before trying to push a condition that is already accurately rated up one more step.

Routine future examinations

Some ratings are assigned with a future exam scheduled, typically where improvement is expected. Attend it. Failure to report without good cause can result in the rating being reduced or discontinued for that reason alone. The VA first sends a pretermination notice and allows 60 days to say you will report or to submit evidence, but it is far simpler not to get there (38 CFR § 3.655(c)). If the date does not work, reschedule in advance and document that you did.

Sources

• 38 CFR § 3.400(o), Effective dates: increases. The one-year lookback for increased compensation, measured from receipt of a complete claim or an Intent to File.
• 38 CFR § 3.105(e) and (i), Proposed reductions and predetermination hearings. The 60-day evidence window, the 30-day hearing request, and when a final reduction takes effect.
• VA Form 21-526EZ and VA.gov, when to file. The application used for a claim for increase, and VA's call for up-to-date medical evidence that the condition has worsened.
• 38 CFR § 3.327, Reexaminations. When VA schedules reexaminations to verify the current severity of a disability.
• 38 CFR § 3.344, Stabilization of disability evaluations. The higher standard for reducing a rating that has stood at the same level for five years or more.
• 38 CFR § 3.343, Continuance of total disability ratings. A total rating is not reduced, absent clear error, without an exam showing material improvement; TDIU reductions follow paragraph (c).
• 38 CFR § 4.2, Interpretation of examination reports; § 4.10, Functional impairment; and § 4.13, Effect of change of diagnosis. Whole-history review, function in daily life and work as the basis of ratings, and the rule that a change must reflect actual change, not exam wording.
• 38 CFR § 3.951(b), Preservation of disability ratings, and § 3.957, Service connection. The 20-year floor on a rating and the 10-year bar on severing service connection, with their narrow exceptions.
• 38 CFR § 3.655(b) and (c), Failure to report for VA examination. A claim for increase is denied when its exam is missed without good cause, and what happens to a running award when a scheduled reexamination is missed.
• 38 U.S.C. § 110, Preservation of disability ratings. The statute behind the 20-year floor.
• 38 CFR § 4.71a, Diagnostic Code 5260. Knee flexion criteria used in the worked example: limited to 30 degrees is 20%, limited to 45 degrees is 10%.