The VA rates all mental health conditions on a single scale that measures how much your symptoms interfere with your ability to work and maintain relationships. Possible ratings are 0, 10, 30, 50, 70, or 100 percent, and the rating you receive determines your monthly compensation. The system focuses less on your specific diagnosis and more on the overall impact your mental health has on daily functioning.
One Rating for All Mental Health Conditions
Nearly every mental health condition, including PTSD, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and bipolar disorder, is evaluated under the same formula. The VA calls it the General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders, and it uses identical criteria regardless of diagnosis. This means a veteran with PTSD is rated on the same scale as a veteran with depression or anxiety.
This also means you will only receive one mental health rating, even if you have multiple diagnoses. A veteran with both PTSD and major depressive disorder gets a single combined mental health rating, not separate ratings for each. The VA’s reasoning is that mental health conditions share many of the same emotional, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms, and comorbidity among psychiatric diagnoses is the rule rather than the exception. So PTSD plus depression equals one rating. PTSD plus anxiety equals one rating. The VA considers all your mental health symptoms together when deciding where you fall on the scale.
What Each Rating Level Looks Like
The VA assigns ratings at six possible levels. Each one is defined by a degree of “occupational and social impairment,” which is the VA’s way of asking: how much do your symptoms affect your ability to hold a job and maintain relationships?
0 and 10 Percent
A 0 percent rating means you have a diagnosed mental health condition, but your symptoms aren’t severe enough to interfere with work or social functioning, or they’re controlled by medication. You won’t receive monthly compensation at 0 percent, but the diagnosis is still on record, which matters if your condition worsens later. A 10 percent rating covers mild or transient symptoms that only reduce your work efficiency during periods of significant stress.
30 Percent
At 30 percent, you’re generally functioning satisfactorily. Your routine behavior, self-care, and conversation are normal. But you experience occasional dips in work efficiency and intermittent periods where you can’t perform occupational tasks. Typical symptoms at this level include depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness, panic attacks occurring weekly or less, chronic sleep problems, and mild memory loss like forgetting names, directions, or recent events.
50 Percent
A 50 percent rating reflects reduced reliability and productivity. The symptoms are more persistent and harder to manage. This level includes things like a flattened emotional affect, panic attacks more than once a week, difficulty understanding complex commands, impaired judgment, memory problems beyond the mild range (forgetting to complete tasks, retaining only well-learned material), disturbances in motivation and mood, and difficulty establishing effective work and social relationships. The key distinction from 30 percent is that your functioning isn’t just occasionally disrupted; it’s consistently less reliable.
70 Percent
At 70 percent, you have deficiencies in most areas of life: work, school, family relationships, judgment, thinking, or mood. Symptoms at this level can include suicidal thoughts, obsessional rituals that interfere with routine activities, speech that is sometimes illogical or irrelevant, near-continuous panic or depression that affects your ability to function independently, impaired impulse control (such as unprovoked irritability with periods of violence), difficulty adapting to stressful circumstances, and an inability to establish and maintain effective relationships. This is a significant step up from 50 percent because the impairment touches nearly every part of your life rather than being concentrated in work reliability.
100 Percent
A 100 percent rating means total occupational and social impairment. The VA describes this level with symptoms like gross impairment in thought processes or communication, persistent delusions or hallucinations, grossly inappropriate behavior, persistent danger of hurting yourself or others, intermittent inability to perform basic daily activities including personal hygiene, disorientation to time or place, and memory loss so severe you forget the names of close relatives, your own occupation, or your own name. At this level, you are essentially unable to work or function socially.
How the VA Evaluates Your Symptoms
The specific symptoms listed at each rating level are examples, not a checklist. You don’t need to have every symptom listed at a given level to qualify for that rating. The VA is supposed to look at the overall picture of how your mental health affects your occupational and social functioning, then match that picture to the closest rating level. Two veterans with a 50 percent rating might have very different symptom profiles but a similar degree of functional impairment.
The primary tool the VA uses to evaluate your mental health is the Disability Benefits Questionnaire, or DBQ. During a Compensation and Pension exam (often called a C&P exam), the examiner fills out this standardized form. It asks the examiner to check which specific symptoms apply to you from a detailed list that maps directly to the rating criteria: things like depressed mood, anxiety, panic frequency, memory impairment, speech patterns, impaired judgment, suicidal ideation, neglect of personal hygiene, and many others. The examiner then selects which level of occupational and social impairment best summarizes your condition overall. That summary checkbox carries enormous weight in determining your final rating.
The VA rater who makes the final decision reviews the examiner’s DBQ, your service treatment records, any private medical records you’ve submitted, and your own lay statements about how symptoms affect your daily life. Your personal descriptions of how you function day to day, how your relationships have changed, and how your work performance has been affected are legitimate evidence in this process.
Establishing Service Connection First
Before the VA assigns any rating, you need to establish that your mental health condition is connected to your military service. This requires three things: an event during service that could have caused or worsened a mental health condition, a current diagnosis of that condition, and a medical opinion linking the two. That linking medical opinion is often called a “nexus,” and it’s where many claims succeed or fail.
For PTSD specifically, the VA also requires a verified stressor event. For conditions like depression or anxiety, the connection to service can sometimes be established through documented treatment during active duty, a pattern of symptoms that began during service, or a medical professional’s opinion that service caused or aggravated the condition. If your mental health condition developed secondary to a service-connected physical injury (chronic pain leading to depression, for example), that’s another valid path to service connection.
What Matters Most for Your Rating
The single biggest factor in your rating is the level of occupational and social impairment the C&P examiner documents. If you’re applying or preparing for an exam, the most useful thing you can do is be honest and specific about your worst days, not just your average ones. Veterans often underreport symptoms during exams, either out of habit, pride, or because they’re having a relatively good day. The VA is supposed to rate you based on the overall severity of your condition, including your worst periods.
Keep in mind that the symptom lists at each rating level are illustrative. If you have symptoms that aren’t specifically named but cause equivalent functional impairment, they still count. What the VA ultimately cares about is the answer to a simple question: how much does your mental health condition prevent you from working and maintaining relationships? The more specifically you and your medical providers can document that impact, the more accurately your rating will reflect your actual level of disability.