Military Noise Exposure Evidence for a VA Hearing Loss or Tinnitus Claim

For a hearing loss or tinnitus claim, you may not need to prove the noise itself. VA's claims manual tells raters to concede hazardous noise exposure as an in-service event when the Duty Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) Noise Exposure Listing rates your duty position, or when you engaged in combat. The claim then turns on two other questions: whether a current hearing test meets VA's definition of hearing loss (or you report current tinnitus), and whether a medical opinion links it to service. A timeline of noise, protection, symptoms and tests answers both.

How VA concedes noise exposure

The Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing is a spreadsheet, reviewed and endorsed by each branch of service, that rates the probability of hazardous noise for each job code, Air Force Specialty Code, rating or duty assignment. The current manual text, reproduced on Claim Raven's M21-1 hearing loss and tinnitus page, says: "When the duty position is shown to have a high, moderate, or low probability of hazardous noise exposure, concede exposure to hazardous noise for the purposes of establishing an event in service." The same section adds two limits. The listing "is not an exclusive means" of proving exposure, so a job that is not on it can still be shown through duties, unit records and statements. And a conceded exposure establishes the in-service event only, not the hearing loss or the link. The manual's link to the listing points to a VA internal site, so give VA your job codes and duty assignments from your DD 214 and personnel records.

Combat works the same way. If records show you engaged in combat with the enemy, the manual concedes noise exposure, and under 38 U.S.C. 1154(b) VA accepts satisfactory lay evidence of an injury incurred in combat when it fits the circumstances of that service, even without an official record. You still need a current disability and a medical link.

What counts as hearing loss, and why a normal exit test is not a bar

VA counts hearing loss as a disability only when test results meet 38 C.F.R. 3.385: a threshold of 40 decibels or more at any of 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 or 4000 Hertz; thresholds of 26 decibels or more at three of those frequencies; or a Maryland CNC speech recognition score below 94 percent. Tinnitus has no test threshold. The Board treats ringing in the ears as something you can observe and report yourself.

A normal hearing test at separation does not end a claim. Under Hensley v. Brown, 5 Vet. App. 155, 159 (1993), as the Board summarized it in the second appeal below, a current hearing loss that meets 3.385 and "a medically sound basis for attributing such disability to service may serve as a basis for a grant." The manual also cites Hensley for a related point: in-service threshold shifts too small to meet 3.385 can still be evidence of an in-service event.

The one-year presumption for hearing loss and tinnitus

VA's manual says sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus "are considered organic diseases of the nervous system and are subject to presumptive SC under 38 CFR 3.309(a)," citing Fountain v. McDonald, 27 Vet. App. 258 (2015), for tinnitus. Under 38 C.F.R. 3.307(a)(3), if either reached a degree of 10 percent or more within one year after you left service, VA presumes it began in service. It did not need a diagnosis within that year, but records or lay evidence must show it at that level during the year. Because both are on the chronic disease list, continuity of symptoms since service under 38 C.F.R. 3.303(b) is also available. That is why the earliest documented report of ringing or hearing trouble after discharge deserves its own row in your timeline.

Build a service and symptom timeline

List every military setting that applies. Maintenance near engines differs from a single blast. If protection was issued but fit poorly, say so exactly. If you noticed ringing only later, record the later onset. Include recreational shooting, loud civilian work, head or neck injury, ear disease or medication when they apply. A clinician weighs them, and naming them keeps the opinion credible.

Fictional example: A technician worked near aircraft engines several days a week from 2008 to 2012 and usually wore issued earplugs. The technician remembers intermittent ringing after shifts, but the first dated report to a clinician is in 2015. A factory job began in 2014, and an audiology test was done in 2020. The worksheet keeps the remembered onset, the first documented complaint and the factory exposure as three separate facts for the examiner to weigh.

Find the records that anchor each period

Personnel, assignment and training records place you in a noisy setting and show the job codes VA checks against the listing. Look for entrance, periodic and separation audiograms, hearing-conservation records, notes about ear protection and later audiology reports. Compare the dates and findings with a clinician rather than drawing your own threshold-shift conclusion. For missing service records, use VA's military-record request guide. VA's evidence page describes service, medical and lay evidence.

A coworker may remember shouting to be heard around machinery, and a spouse may remember you turning up the television after you came home. Ask each person for what they directly observed and when. Your own account can describe the sound, whether it comes and goes or is constant, when you first remember it and how it has changed. If you do not know when it started, say so.

What Claim Raven's Board data shows for these two conditions

In Claim Raven's analysis of 2024 to 2025 Board decisions, tinnitus and hearing loss appeals end very differently. Of 1,123 decided tinnitus condition records, 47.6% were favorable, 28.3% denied and 24.1% remanded. Of 1,111 hearing loss records, 21.5% were favorable, 47.2% denied and 31.3% remanded. Among hearing loss denials with a classified reason (135 records), 55.6% turned on no medical link and 38.5% on service connection not being shown. These are appeals of already-disputed claims, and the condition labels come from automated extraction that can mix service connection and rating issues, so read them as patterns, not your odds. The tinnitus condition guide and hearing loss condition guide cover ratings, and the case breakdown of a hearing loss denial with thirteen remands shows how the Board separates the issues.

Two real appeals: a missing record and a normal exit test

Records destroyed in the fire. In Board Decision A25094270, decided October 30, 2025, the veteran's service treatment records had been destroyed in the 1973 records fire, and VA had already conceded his noise exposure. He described measuring the accuracy of anti-aircraft guns, some of them 120 mm, and being present when they fired. A VA examiner diagnosed hearing loss and tinnitus and gave a negative opinion, but wrote that it was "based on mere speculation" because the records were unavailable. The Board found that opinion inadequate, noted its heightened duty to explain its reasoning when service records are unavailable, and remanded both claims for a new opinion that addresses his account of the noise and his symptoms. The next examiner was told not to rely on the absence of service records.

A normal exit audiogram. In Board Decision A22022442, decided November 7, 2022, the veteran served as an indirect fire infantryman, an MOS the examiners described as having a high probability of noise exposure, and VA had conceded the noise. His December 1968 separation audiogram showed thresholds of 5 decibels or better. Two VA examiners gave negative hearing loss opinions, pointing to the normal separation test, the lack of a threshold shift during service and the decades before his first complaint, and another could not give a tinnitus opinion because the recorded onset dates conflicted. A private examiner wrote that service noise could have contributed to the hearing loss and that the tinnitus was more likely than not caused by service. The Board applied Hensley, found the evidence in approximate balance and granted both hearing loss and tinnitus. The one-year presumption did not apply because no record showed hearing loss within a year of discharge, so the grant rested on the medical and lay evidence.

Bring the whole timeline to the exam

Before an exam, use the timeline to separate the noise setting, protection, the earliest remembered hearing trouble, the earliest ringing and later tests. If a service audiogram is missing, mark it missing and bring the duty records that remain; leave the threshold blank rather than guessing it. Put later workplace noise on the same page. A hearing loss diagnosis and a tinnitus history can coexist, but they are separate claims with separate evidence.

If VA already denied either condition, the steps differ: see tinnitus claim denied or hearing loss claim denied. File a first claim through VA's disability application. Claim Raven, which sells claim-preparation tools, offers the free one-document review on this page to explain a single audiology report.

Sources and scope

Checked September 23, 2026: 38 C.F.R. 3.303, 3.307 and 3.385 (eCFR, current through August 27, 2026); 38 U.S.C. 1154(b); M21-1, Part V, Subpart iii, Chapter 2, Section B (change date April 9, 2019), as reproduced on Claim Raven's M21-1 page; VA's evidence and records pages; and Board decisions A25094270 and A22022442. The technician example is fictional.