VA health care income limits
Read this page to get answers to common questions about income limits for VA health care.
What are VA health care income limits?
Each year, we publish our current annual income limits for VA health care. These limits may affect your VA health care eligibility and costs.
Some Veterans are eligible for free care for non-service-connected conditions based on their VA disability rating, pension payments, or other factors (like receiving the Medal of Honor). If you’re not eligible based on these factors, you may still be eligible if your income falls below our current income limits.
Income limits change each year and depend on these factors:
- Where you live
- If you have a spouse or other dependents
- If you have certain deductible expenses (expenses that you can subtract from your income)
What does VA count as income for health care income limits?
We count last year’s income from everyone in your household. Your household includes you, your spouse, and your dependents if you have them. We count these 3 types of income:
- Gross income from any jobs (before subtracting taxes and any deductions)
- Net annual income from a farm, property, or business (after subtracting taxes and any deductions)
- Some other sources of income that don’t come from a job
Gross income includes any of these income sources:
- Wages
- Bonuses
- Tips
- Severance pay
Other income includes money from sources like these:
- Retirement benefits
- Unemployment
- VA benefit compensation
- Money from the sale of a house
- Interest from investments
Types of income that count for health care income limits
Note: This list doesn’t include all sources of income.
- Alimony
- Allowances
- Benefits subject to garnishment
- Complaint settlement
- Cooperative (co-op) dividends
- Department of Labor employment programs
- Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC)
- Farm income/conservation resource program payments
- Foreign currency conversion
- Gambling/lottery winnings
- GI Bill
- Gifts and inheritance of property or cash
Note: The fair market value of gifts or inherited property is countable in the year they’re received. - Individual Retirement Account (IRA) distributions
- Interest and dividends
- Life insurance proceeds (death benefit paid to Veteran or spouse)
- Net profits and deprecation from business, farm and ranch, real estate, partnership, and S corporations
Note: Depreciation is added back in as income. - Other income (prizes/awards, inheritances)
- Payments from stocks and bonds, capital gains
- Pensions, annuities, railroad retirement
- Revocable trust
- Royalties (books, art, music, and others)
- Settlements
Note: For the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act, these are amounts exceeding $2,000 per individual per annum, including cash dividends on stock received from a native corporation. For American Indian Beneficiaries from trust or restricted lands, these are amounts exceeding $2,000 per individual per calendar year. - Social Security benefits and death benefit payment, including a lump sum payment from previous years
- Unemployment compensation
- VA disability compensation
- Value of room and board/housing allowances
- Wages (employment), salaries, bonuses, severance pay, tips, and other accrued benefits
- Workers compensation
Types of income that don’t count for health care income limits
Note: This list doesn’t include all sources of income.
- Caregiver payments
- Chore service payments
- Crime Victims Compensation Act payments
- Disaster relief payments or proceeds of casualty insurance
- Discharge of indebtedness
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster insurance payments
- Federal government-sponsored economic stimulus refunds
- Foster care payments
- Income from Domestic Volunteer Service Act Program
- Income tax refunds
- Loans (reverse mortgages)
- Maintenance
- Needs-based payments from a government agency
- Payments for participation in a program of rehabilitative services
- Provisional income
- Relocation expenses
- Scholarships and grants from school attendance
- Settlements, including for Agent Orange
Note: For the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act, these are amounts up to $2,000 per individual per annum, including cash dividends on stock received from a native corporation. For American Indian Beneficiaries from trust or restricted lands, these are amounts up to $2,000 per individual per calendar year. - VA pension payments
- Welfare, supplemental security income (SSI), compensated work therapy (CWT), and incentive therapy (IT) earnings
- Withheld Social Security payments
What expenses does VA deduct for health care income limits?
We deduct these expenses from last year to lower the amount of money we count as your income for VA health care eligibility:
- Non-reimbursable medical expenses
- Educational expenses for your own college or vocational training
- Funeral or burial expenses for a spouse or dependent child who has died
Non-reimbursable medical expenses include costs you or your spouse paid on medical expenses for yourselves, your dependents, or others you have the moral obligation to support. This includes costs from these types of health care:
- Doctor or dentist appointments
- Medications
- Medicare or health insurance
- Inpatient hospital care
- Nursing home care
College and vocational expenses include payments for these expenses related to your own education:
- Tuition
- Books
- Fees
- Course materials
Only include expenses for your own education (not your dependents’ education).
Deductible medical expenses
This list shows many common, paid out-of-pocket, non-reimbursed medical expenses that are directly related to medical care. These must be paid out-of-pocket, non-reimbursed medical expenses that exceed 5% of the limit that Congress sets (called the VA Maximum Annual Pension Rate) for the previous year.
- Abdominal supports
- Acupuncture service
- Ambulance hire
- Anesthetist
- Arch supports
- Artificial limbs and teeth
- Back supports
- Braces
- Cardiographs
- Chiropodist
- Chiropractor
- Convalescent home (for medical treatment only)
- Crutches
- Dental service, such as cleaning, x-ray, and filling teeth
- Dentures
- Dermatologist
- Drugs, prescription and non-prescription
- Gynecologist
- Hearing aids and batteries
- Home health services
- Hospital expenses
- Insulin treatment
- Invalid chair
- Lab tests
- Lip reading lessons designed to overcome a disability
- Lodging incurred in conjunction with out-of-town travel for treatment (to be determined on a facts-found basis)
- Medicare premiums, Parts B and D
- Medical insurance premiums
- Neurologist
- Nursing services for medical care, including nurse’s board paid by claimant
- Occupational therapist
- Ophthalmologist
- Optician
- Optometrist
- Oral surgery
- Osteopath, licensed
- Pediatrician
- Physical exams
- Physician
- Physical therapy
- Podiatrist
- Psychiatrist
- Psychoanalyst
- Psychologist
- Psychotherapy
- Radium therapy
- Sacroiliac belt
- Seeing-eye dog and maintenance
- Speech therapist
- Splints
- Surgeon
- Telephone/teletype special communications equipment for the deaf
- Transportation expenses for medical purposes (41.5 cents per mile effective January 1, 2009, plus parking and tolls or actual fares for taxi, buses)
- Vaccines
- Wheelchairs
- Whirlpool baths for medical purposes
- X-rays
Note: This list is not all-inclusive.
What to know about allowable deductible expenses
You may need to provide proof of paid expenses or deductions for an income year. To get this proof, contact the organization, agency, medical facility, or provider you were working with.
Note: A billing statement, handwritten list of medical expenses, personal ledger, or Schedule A from a tax return aren’t acceptable as proof.
Does VA verify the income information I provide for health care?
This depends on your situation. If the information you provide shows that your income falls below our limits and qualifies you for free VA health care, medications, or both, we’re required by law to verify the information. We do this by confirming your information with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). If there’s an issue with your or your dependent’s Social Security number (SSN), we’ll submit any updated SSN information you provide us to the SSA for you.
Check your current income limits and VA health care
Because of tax deadlines, we usually begin this process in July, the year after you report your income. So, for example, if you provide information for the year 2022, we’ll verify it in July 2023.
Note: We don’t have access to your individual tax return. We only use your gross income for the year to verify your information.
What happens if VA confirms my income is above health care limits?
If the information we receive from the IRS and the SSA shows that you have income above our limits, we’ll send you a letter. If you disagree with our information, you can respond and dispute the information.
Here’s what happens if you don’t respond to the letter:
- After 45 days, we’ll send you a reminder letter.
- After 75 days, we’ll assume the information from the IRS and the SSA is correct. We’ll send you a letter to explain your current eligibility or copay status and how you can appeal our decision.
Here’s what happens if you dispute the information:
We’ll assign an income verification case manager to work with you. You can also bring your own representative.
Your case manager will help you find any deductions that may reduce your income below our limits. We try to resolve all cases within 75 days.
If we still decide that your income is above our limits, we’ll send you a final letter to explain your eligibility or copay status and how to appeal our decision.