Your VA rating decision letter is the document that tells you which conditions the VA connected to your service, what percentage it rated each one, your combined rating, and your effective date. Reading it correctly matters because veterans regularly miss a lower rating buried on page 3, or a denied secondary condition tucked inside an otherwise favorable decision.
What's in a VA rating decision letter
Every rating decision has the same basic structure, even though the length varies by how many conditions you claimed.
- Decision section — a plain-language summary of what was granted, denied, or deferred, condition by condition.
- Evidence section — a list of the records the rater reviewed, including your C&P exam report, service treatment records, and any private medical evidence you submitted.
- Reasons for decision — the rater's explanation of why each condition got the rating it did, tied to a specific 38 CFR Part 4 diagnostic code.
- Rating code sheet — a table listing every service-connected condition, its diagnostic code, percentage, and effective date.
Diagnostic codes: what the numbers mean
Each service-connected condition on your rating code sheet carries a diagnostic code (DC) pulled from 38 CFR Part 4, the VA's Schedule for Rating Disabilities. The diagnostic code tells you which rating criteria the VA used — for example, DC 5237 covers lumbosacral strain and rates based on range of motion, while DC 9411 covers PTSD and rates based on occupational and social impairment.
Look up your diagnostic code on ecfr.gov, the official, continuously updated version of 38 CFR Part 4. If the criteria for the next-higher percentage look close to your actual symptoms, that's a signal worth flagging to your VSO or attorney before you decide whether to appeal.
How the combined rating table works
The VA does not add your individual ratings together. A veteran with a 70% rating and a 50% rating is not 120% disabled — the VA uses the Combined Ratings Table in 38 CFR 4.25, which applies each additional rating to the portion of the veteran that isn't already accounted for, then rounds to the nearest 10.
Using the example above: the math starts from the 70% rating, treats the remaining 30% of the veteran as the base for the second condition, applies 50% of that 30% (15 points), for a combined value of 85% — which rounds up to 90%, not 120%. This is the single most misunderstood part of a rating decision letter. See our VA disability rating explainer for the full combined-rating formula and a worked example with more conditions.
Effective dates: what they mean for back pay
Your effective date is the date your compensation starts, and it is separate from your rating percentage. Under 38 CFR 3.400, the general rule is that the effective date is the later of the date the VA received your claim or the date your disability began. Each granted condition on your rating code sheet gets its own effective date, and a wrong or too-late effective date is one of the most common reasons an otherwise-correct rating decision still costs a veteran money.
If a condition's effective date looks later than it should — for example, later than an earlier claim you filed for the same condition — that is grounds to challenge it through a Supplemental Claim or Higher-Level Review. Our VA appeals process explainer walks through all three AMA review lanes.
Common things veterans miss in a decision letter
- A lower rating hiding on a secondary condition. When you claim several conditions at once, the VA often grants the primary condition at a solid percentage while rating a related, secondary condition at 0% or 10% with little explanation. Read every line of the rating code sheet, not just the total.
- A denial buried inside a mostly favorable decision. A 15-page decision letter covering six conditions may deny one of them in a single paragraph on page 9. The overall combined rating can look good even when one claim was denied outright.
- A 0% rating, which is still service connection. A 0% rating means the VA agrees the condition is connected to your service but currently causes minimal impairment. It carries no monthly payment on its own, but it establishes the condition for future claims and for secondary conditions that stem from it.
- The examiner's own words in the reasons-for-decision section. This is where you'll often find the specific symptom or limitation the rater weighed most heavily — useful to know before you decide whether to appeal.
In our own review of the VA rating code sheets across the conditions we track for veterans researching their ratings, the pattern that shows up most often isn't a wrong diagnostic code — it's a secondary condition rated separately at 0% that a veteran assumed was folded into the primary rating. Reading the rating code sheet line by line, not just the combined percentage at the top, is what catches it.
Where to get your decision letter and exam records
You can download your decision letter directly from VA.gov: sign in, go to VA Benefits and Health Care, select Disability, then Check your claim or appeal status, and click Get your claim letters. If you also want the underlying C&P exam report the rater relied on, see our guide to requesting your C&P exam records.
What to do after you read your decision letter
If everything looks accurate, no action is needed — your award will process on the effective date shown. If you spot a diagnostic code that doesn't match your condition, a combined rating that seems miscalculated, or a denied condition you disagree with, you generally have one year from the decision date to file a Supplemental Claim or Higher-Level Review without losing your original effective date. For a straightforward under-rating, our VA rating increase guide covers how to build the case. For a denial that involves a legal question, see whether you need a VA appeals attorney.