The VA rates anxiety and depression on a scale from 0% to 100%, in increments of 0, 10, 30, 50, 70, and 100 percent. Both conditions are evaluated under the same rating formula, and if you have both diagnoses, the VA combines them into a single rating rather than giving you separate percentages for each. Your rating depends on how severely your symptoms affect your ability to work and function in daily life.
Why Anxiety and Depression Get One Rating
The VA’s anti-pyramiding rule prohibits rating the same symptoms under multiple diagnoses. Since anxiety and depression share overlapping symptoms like sleep problems, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and mood disturbances, the VA evaluates them together under one mental health rating. This applies regardless of whether you have generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, or both. The examiner considers the combined effect of all your mental health symptoms when recommending a rating level.
The Six Rating Levels Explained
Every mental health rating is based on how much your symptoms impair your occupational and social functioning. The VA uses a standardized formula that applies to all mental health conditions, not just anxiety and depression. Here’s what each level looks like in practice.
0% Rating
You have a formal diagnosis, but your symptoms don’t interfere with your ability to work or maintain relationships, and you don’t need ongoing medication. You’re service-connected, which matters for future claims if your condition worsens, but you won’t receive monthly compensation.
10% Rating
Your symptoms are mild or come and go. They only reduce your work performance during periods of significant stress, or they’re kept in check by continuous medication. At this level, you can generally function well day to day, but stress tips the balance.
30% Rating
This is where many veterans with moderate anxiety or depression land. You’re generally functioning satisfactorily, with normal self-care and routine behavior, but you experience occasional dips in work efficiency. Typical symptoms at this level include depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness, panic attacks once a week or less, chronic sleep problems, and mild memory issues like forgetting names, directions, or recent events.
50% Rating
Your symptoms noticeably reduce your reliability and productivity. You might experience panic attacks more than once a week, have trouble understanding complex instructions, or struggle with short-term and long-term memory (forgetting to complete tasks, only retaining deeply familiar information). Motivation and mood disturbances are common at this level, along with difficulty maintaining work and social relationships. Your affect may appear flat, and your judgment or abstract thinking may be impaired.
70% Rating
At 70%, your symptoms create deficiencies in most areas of your life: work, family, judgment, thinking, and mood. This level includes symptoms like suicidal thoughts, near-continuous panic or depression that prevents you from functioning independently, obsessional rituals that interfere with daily routines, impaired impulse control with episodes of unprovoked irritability or violence, and neglect of personal appearance and hygiene. You have serious difficulty adapting to stressful situations, including work settings, and you’re unable to establish and maintain effective relationships. The 70% rating is a critical threshold because it can open the door to additional benefits like individual unemployability.
100% Rating
A 100% schedular rating requires total occupational and social impairment. This means symptoms like persistent delusions or hallucinations, grossly inappropriate behavior, persistent danger of hurting yourself or others, inability to perform basic activities of daily living (including minimal personal hygiene), disorientation to time or place, or memory loss so severe you can’t remember your own name, your occupation, or the names of close relatives.
What Happens at the C&P Exam
After you file your claim, the VA schedules a Compensation and Pension exam. This is not a treatment appointment. The examiner won’t prescribe medication or refer you to other providers. Their sole purpose is to gather information for your claim.
The examiner fills out a standardized form called the Disability Benefits Questionnaire, which includes a checklist of over 30 specific symptoms. These range from depressed mood and anxiety to spatial disorientation and persistent hallucinations. The examiner checks every symptom that applies to you, then provides an overall assessment of how those symptoms affect your occupational and social functioning. That assessment is what the VA rater uses to assign your percentage.
The exam can last anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour. You can request a male or female provider for mental health exams. Be specific about your worst days, not just your average days. The examiner is documenting a snapshot of your condition, and vague answers tend to result in lower ratings. Concrete examples matter: how often you miss work, whether you’ve lost relationships, how your sleep and concentration affect daily tasks.
Claiming Depression or Anxiety as a Secondary Condition
If you’re already service-connected for a physical disability, you can file a secondary claim arguing that your anxiety or depression developed because of that condition. Chronic pain is one of the most common pathways. Veterans dealing with ongoing pain from back injuries, neck injuries, or other musculoskeletal problems frequently develop depression as a result of diminished physical function and persistent discomfort.
To succeed on a secondary claim, you need three things: a current mental health diagnosis, an existing service-connected disability, and a medical opinion linking the two. This “nexus” opinion can come from a VA provider, a private psychiatrist or psychologist, or even a clinical social worker who has treated you. The key language the VA looks for is that your depression or anxiety is “at least as likely as not” caused by or aggravated by your service-connected condition. Even if your mental health condition wasn’t directly caused by your physical disability, the VA can grant service connection if your physical condition is making your depression or anxiety measurably worse.
Individual Unemployability at 70%
If your anxiety and depression prevent you from holding a steady job but you don’t meet the criteria for a 100% schedular rating, Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability (TDIU) can pay you at the 100% rate. To qualify, you need at least one service-connected disability rated at 60% or more, or a combined rating of 70% with at least one condition rated at 40% or more.
A 70% mental health rating meets the single-disability threshold on its own. You’ll need to show that your symptoms genuinely prevent substantially gainful employment. Odd jobs and marginal part-time work don’t count against you. The VA reviews your work history, education, and medical evidence to make the determination. If you’ve been fired repeatedly due to interpersonal conflicts, can’t maintain a schedule because of panic attacks, or your concentration is too impaired for consistent performance, that evidence supports a TDIU claim.
How Ratings Are Assigned in Practice
The symptom lists at each rating level are examples, not checklists you have to match exactly. A VA rater looks at the overall picture of how your condition affects your functioning, not whether you tick every box at a given level. You could have symptoms from multiple rating categories and still receive a rating based on your overall level of impairment. Two veterans with very different symptom profiles can receive the same rating if their functional limitations are comparable.
The VA also proposed changes in 2022 that would shift mental health evaluations toward measuring impacts on cognition, relationships, task completion, daily activities, and self-care. The proposal would also create a 10% minimum rating for any service-connected mental health condition and remove the requirement for “total occupational and social impairment” at the 100% level. As of 2025, these changes have not been implemented, so the current rating formula still applies.