Claim Raven explanation
What this means
This rule addresses individual unemployability, often called TDIU. It considers whether service-connected disabilities prevent securing or following substantially gainful employment.
TDIU stands for a total disability rating based on individual unemployability. It concerns the ability to secure or follow substantially gainful work because of service-connected disabilities. Percentage requirements are part of one route under the rule, while another provision addresses referral when those percentages are not met. The actual effects on employment remain central.
How this helps your claim
This rule helps you understand a TDIU review, which concerns whether service-connected disabilities prevent substantially gainful work. It includes percentage requirements, grouping rules, and a referral process when those percentages are not met. Being unemployed or meeting a percentage threshold alone does not establish entitlement.
What to check in your records
Review the documented effects of service-connected disabilities on work, along with employment history, education and training. Meeting a percentage threshold alone does not establish entitlement.
- Review VA’s list of service-connected disabilities and the ratings assigned to them.
- Gather relevant records describing how those disabilities affect work tasks, attendance, reliability, and the ability to continue working.
- Check the employment history, reasons work ended, education and training, and any protected or marginal employment facts already documented. Use the complete rule below when reviewing those circumstances.
Describe the ability to sustain work
A useful employment history covers duties, attendance, reliability, accommodations and why work ended or changed. It should connect the limitations to service-connected disabilities rather than simply list diagnoses or state that the person is unemployed.
Marginal employment and substantially gainful employment are not interchangeable under this section. Read the actual provisions when earnings or a protected work setting is relevant. A job title or occasional work activity alone may leave the circumstances unexplained, just as unemployment alone does not establish the required limitation.
Do the percentage thresholds decide every TDIU question?
No. They are part of the schedular route, while another provision addresses referral when those thresholds are not met. The effect of service-connected disabilities on qualifying employment remains central. Meeting a percentage threshold is not itself a finding that the person cannot secure or follow such work.
Official regulatory text
38 CFR § 4.16
eCFR snapshot: September 3, 2026. Layout and spacing are adapted for reading. The full section and its tables are included below.
§ 4.16 Total disability ratings for compensation based on unemployability of the individual.
(a) Total disability ratings for compensation may be assigned, where the schedular rating is less than total, when the disabled person is, in the judgment of the rating agency, unable to secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation as a result of service-connected disabilities: Provided That, if there is only one such disability, this disability shall be ratable at 60 percent or more, and that, if there are two or more disabilities, there shall be at least one disability ratable at 40 percent or more, and sufficient additional disability to bring the combined rating to 70 percent or more. For the above purpose of one 60 percent disability, or one 40 percent disability in combination, the following will be considered as one disability:
(1) Disabilities of one or both upper extremities, or of one or both lower extremities, including the bilateral factor, if applicable,
(2) disabilities resulting from common etiology or a single accident,
(3) disabilities affecting a single body system, e.g. orthopedic, digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular-renal, neuropsychiatric,
(4) multiple injuries incurred in action, or
(5) multiple disabilities incurred as a prisoner of war. It is provided further that the existence or degree of nonservice-connected disabilities or previous unemployability status will be disregarded where the percentages referred to in this paragraph for the service-connected disability or disabilities are met and in the judgment of the rating agency such service-connected disabilities render the veteran unemployable. Marginal employment shall not be considered substantially gainful employment. For purposes of this section, marginal employment generally shall be deemed to exist when a veteran's earned annual income does not exceed the amount established by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, as the poverty threshold for one person. Marginal employment may also be held to exist, on a facts found basis (includes but is not limited to employment in a protected environment such as a family business or sheltered workshop), when earned annual income exceeds the poverty threshold. Consideration shall be given in all claims to the nature of the employment and the reason for termination.
(Authority: 38 U.S.C. 501)
(b) It is the established policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs that all veterans who are unable to secure and follow a substantially gainful occupation by reason of service-connected disabilities shall be rated totally disabled. Therefore, rating boards should submit to the Director, Compensation Service, for extra-schedular consideration all cases of veterans who are unemployable by reason of service-connected disabilities, but who fail to meet the percentage standards set forth in paragraph (a) of this section. The rating board will include a full statement as to the veteran's service-connected disabilities, employment history, educational and vocational attainment and all other factors having a bearing on the issue.
[40 FR 42535, Sept. 15, 1975, as amended at 54 FR 4281, Jan. 30, 1989; 55 FR 31580, Aug. 3, 1990; 58 FR 39664, July 26, 1993; 61 FR 52700, Oct. 8, 1996; 79 FR 2100, Jan. 13, 2014]
Related references
- 38 CFR § 4.10: Daily-life limitations in VA disability ratings
- 38 USC § 1155: The law behind VA disability rating percentages
- 38 CFR § 4.1: What a VA disability rating measures
- 38 CFR § 3.159: VA duty to assist: records and examinations
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