VA disability appeal statistics, with the methods behind them.
Explore outcomes and evidence patterns in Claim Raven's analyzed Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions. Each chart identifies the sample it uses.
- 101,518 condition records
- 501,000+ Board decisions in the library
- Updated August 6, 2026
The VA claims system at a glance
For scale, the official numbers: the Veterans Benefits Administration reports completing more than 2.5 million disability compensation and pension claims in 2024 and paying over 173 billion dollars in compensation and pension benefits that year (VBA detailed claims data). Population, expenditure, and utilization statistics live at the National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, and condition-level claim volumes are published in the VBA Annual Benefits Report.
What those official sources do not publish is what happens when a claim is appealed and why. That is the gap this page covers, from the decisions themselves.
How Board appeals end
Across 101,518 condition records with a classified outcome, denial is the most common result, but the striking number is the remand rate. 26.6% of these records are not decided at all. They go back down for more development, which is added wait time that no published VA statistic surfaces this way.
Board outcome distribution
This chart is a census of every analyzed condition record, so its bars are shares of all 101,518 rows and they add to 100%. Every grant rate elsewhere on this page is computed differently, over decided appeals only: the 2.8% dismissed here and the small withdrawn and moot residue are left out of both halves of a rate, because the Board never decided those issues. Partial grants and mixed outcomes get their own bar rather than hiding in "other" so the two views reconcile by hand.
The evidence gradient: grant rate by nexus quality
A nexus is the medical link between a condition and service. The analysis pipeline classifies the nexus evidence discussed in each decision, and the gradient across those tiers is the strongest pattern in the dataset: appeals with strong medical-link evidence were granted 89.7% of the time, appeals with weak evidence 3.7% of the time.
Grant rate by nexus evidence quality
Two honest notes. First, this is an association: cases with strong nexus evidence may be stronger cases in other ways too. Second, the "no nexus question" tier (rating-increase appeals and similar, where service connection was not in dispute) granted 14.0% of the time, which shows other factors matter alongside the medical link.
Board outcomes by condition
Outcome rates for every condition label with at least 300 decided appeals (129 labels). Click a column header to sort. Labels come from Claim Raven's extraction taxonomy, not official VA issue codes, so counts reflect extraction volume rather than VA workload.
| Condition | Decided | Not decided | Granted | Denied | Remanded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COPD | 3,218 | 0 | 30.4% | 30.7% | 38.9% |
| GERD | 2,248 | 0 | 36.7% | 37.4% | 25.9% |
| Sinusitis | 2,199 | 0 | 30.9% | 46.5% | 22.6% |
| TBI | 2,196 | 0 | 28.3% | 51.0% | 20.6% |
| Eczema | 2,002 | 0 | 39.9% | 27.8% | 32.3% |
| Adjustment Disorder | 1,621 | 0 | 42.6% | 46.8% | 10.6% |
| PTSD | 1,609 | 31 | 45.4% | 28.2% | 26.4% |
| Anxiety secondary to Chronic Pain | 1,265 | 2 | 33.6% | 57.6% | 8.8% |
| Anxiety | 1,194 | 3 | 49.8% | 37.2% | 13.0% |
| Tinnitus | 1,123 | 89 | 47.6% | 28.3% | 24.1% |
| Sleep Apnea | 1,115 | 0 | 38.2% | 24.7% | 37.1% |
| Heart Arrhythmia | 1,111 | 0 | 35.5% | 25.9% | 38.6% |
| Hearing Loss | 1,111 | 19 | 21.5% | 47.2% | 31.3% |
| Knee | 1,059 | 57 | 30.6% | 27.0% | 42.4% |
| Lumbar Spine | 1,037 | 0 | 35.9% | 24.9% | 39.2% |
| Sleep Apnea secondary to PTSD | 1,019 | 15 | 28.2% | 32.9% | 39.0% |
| Anxiety secondary to Heart Disease | 1,011 | 0 | 18.5% | 72.3% | 9.2% |
| Asthma secondary to Burn Pit | 976 | 0 | 30.5% | 51.2% | 18.2% |
| IBS | 968 | 0 | 45.0% | 47.2% | 7.7% |
| Prostate | 960 | 0 | 48.1% | 38.5% | 13.3% |
| Kidney Disease | 958 | 0 | 30.6% | 33.4% | 36.0% |
| Fibromyalgia | 953 | 0 | 23.2% | 53.5% | 23.3% |
| Vertigo | 913 | 0 | 33.4% | 39.3% | 27.3% |
| Chronic Fatigue | 911 | 0 | 16.1% | 58.3% | 25.6% |
| Spinal Stenosis | 909 | 0 | 30.3% | 38.7% | 31.0% |
| Flat Feet | 903 | 0 | 37.2% | 44.9% | 17.9% |
| Parkinson's | 892 | 0 | 38.2% | 30.8% | 30.9% |
| Wrist | 872 | 0 | 25.6% | 49.0% | 25.5% |
| Migraines | 869 | 0 | 40.7% | 25.5% | 33.7% |
| Scoliosis | 863 | 0 | 16.6% | 54.3% | 29.1% |
| Gulf War Illness | 848 | 0 | 24.9% | 49.3% | 25.8% |
| Secondary Service Connection | 834 | 0 | 42.3% | 20.5% | 37.2% |
| Vision Loss | 764 | 0 | 25.0% | 50.8% | 24.2% |
| Arthritis | 753 | 0 | 27.5% | 38.2% | 34.3% |
| Tmj secondary to Dental | 751 | 14 | 23.0% | 41.5% | 35.4% |
| Schizophrenia | 748 | 1 | 40.5% | 36.0% | 23.5% |
| Migraines secondary to Cervical | 720 | 0 | 22.2% | 50.8% | 26.9% |
| Gout | 714 | 0 | 20.3% | 37.1% | 42.6% |
| Depression | 709 | 1 | 33.3% | 38.6% | 28.1% |
| Peripheral Vascular | 682 | 0 | 14.2% | 59.5% | 26.2% |
| Acne | 674 | 0 | 16.2% | 48.8% | 35.0% |
| Hypertension | 667 | 0 | 34.2% | 30.6% | 35.2% |
| Hypertension secondary to Obesity | 666 | 0 | 17.7% | 44.9% | 37.4% |
| Radiculopathy secondary to Lumbar | 665 | 0 | 48.1% | 23.2% | 28.7% |
| Lung Cancer | 649 | 0 | 40.1% | 32.8% | 27.1% |
| Radiculopathy secondary to Cervical | 641 | 0 | 22.2% | 49.1% | 28.7% |
| Shoulder | 621 | 0 | 20.9% | 40.3% | 38.8% |
| Depression secondary to Diabetes | 620 | 0 | 21.9% | 50.5% | 27.6% |
| Depression secondary to Tinnitus | 620 | 0 | 42.3% | 27.4% | 30.3% |
| Hemorrhoids | 618 | 0 | 22.3% | 71.0% | 6.6% |
| Special Monthly Compensation | 615 | 53 | 43.3% | 28.0% | 28.8% |
| Bipolar | 612 | 0 | 44.1% | 45.6% | 10.3% |
| Elbow | 609 | 0 | 24.5% | 57.3% | 18.2% |
| Prostate Cancer | 597 | 0 | 49.9% | 36.5% | 13.6% |
| Gout secondary to Kidney | 590 | 183 | 23.1% | 20.5% | 56.4% |
| Ankle | 586 | 0 | 35.7% | 24.1% | 40.3% |
| Sciatica | 583 | 0 | 23.8% | 51.8% | 24.4% |
| Asthma | 577 | 0 | 43.7% | 41.6% | 14.7% |
| Skin Cancer | 569 | 0 | 35.1% | 31.3% | 33.6% |
| Diverticulitis | 553 | 21 | 15.0% | 32.2% | 52.8% |
| Hypothyroidism | 549 | 0 | 40.4% | 49.2% | 10.4% |
| Radiculopathy secondary to Ddd | 546 | 86 | 42.1% | 24.9% | 33.0% |
| Bladder | 540 | 0 | 48.0% | 45.7% | 6.3% |
| Bunions | 513 | 0 | 18.7% | 60.4% | 20.9% |
| Bladder Cancer | 502 | 0 | 47.4% | 43.2% | 9.4% |
| Chronic Fatigue Gulf War | 500 | 0 | 21.8% | 66.0% | 12.2% |
| COPD secondary to Burn Pit | 500 | 0 | 29.0% | 48.4% | 22.6% |
| Hypertension secondary to Diabetes | 500 | 0 | 24.4% | 49.0% | 26.6% |
| ED secondary to Hypertension | 500 | 0 | 12.6% | 70.2% | 17.2% |
| IBS Gulf War | 500 | 0 | 43.0% | 43.0% | 14.0% |
| GERD secondary to PTSD | 500 | 0 | 29.8% | 48.4% | 21.8% |
| ED secondary to Diabetes | 500 | 0 | 16.8% | 66.4% | 16.8% |
| Kidney secondary to Agent Orange Diabetes | 500 | 0 | 37.2% | 51.8% | 11.0% |
| Kidney secondary to Diabetes | 500 | 0 | 38.0% | 48.4% | 13.6% |
| Kidney secondary to Hypertension | 500 | 0 | 36.4% | 50.4% | 13.2% |
| Dry Eye | 500 | 0 | 46.4% | 41.6% | 12.0% |
| Glaucoma | 500 | 0 | 19.0% | 52.2% | 28.8% |
| Hypertension secondary to PTSD | 500 | 0 | 17.6% | 52.8% | 29.6% |
| Fibromyalgia Gulf War | 500 | 0 | 30.2% | 58.4% | 11.4% |
| Foot | 500 | 0 | 25.6% | 36.6% | 37.8% |
| Stroke secondary to Hypertension | 500 | 0 | 29.2% | 49.6% | 21.2% |
| Stroke secondary to Diabetes | 500 | 0 | 28.8% | 49.2% | 22.0% |
| Migraines secondary to PTSD | 500 | 0 | 30.0% | 52.4% | 17.6% |
| Migraines secondary to TBI | 500 | 0 | 34.6% | 49.0% | 16.4% |
| Stroke secondary to Afib | 500 | 0 | 29.6% | 50.0% | 20.4% |
| Cancer | 500 | 73 | 33.2% | 22.4% | 44.4% |
| Epilepsy | 500 | 0 | 22.4% | 37.2% | 40.4% |
| Sleep Apnea secondary to Sinusitis | 500 | 0 | 33.4% | 37.8% | 28.8% |
| Parkinson's secondary to Agent Orange | 500 | 0 | 51.8% | 38.8% | 9.4% |
| Cataracts | 500 | 0 | 19.8% | 49.4% | 30.8% |
| Depression secondary to Lumbar | 500 | 0 | 20.0% | 53.4% | 26.6% |
| GERD secondary to Medications | 500 | 0 | 41.8% | 36.8% | 21.4% |
| Sinusitis secondary to Burn Pit | 500 | 0 | 40.8% | 49.0% | 10.2% |
| ED secondary to Medications | 499 | 0 | 19.8% | 63.1% | 17.0% |
| Hepatitis | 499 | 0 | 22.4% | 58.1% | 19.4% |
| Depression secondary to Chronic Pain | 499 | 0 | 24.0% | 51.9% | 24.0% |
| Temporomandibular | 499 | 0 | 21.4% | 51.3% | 27.3% |
| IBS secondary to PTSD | 498 | 0 | 18.9% | 67.5% | 13.7% |
| Effective Date | 496 | 9 | 46.6% | 32.7% | 20.8% |
| Thoracic Spine | 495 | 11 | 27.1% | 46.3% | 26.7% |
| Leukemia | 488 | 70 | 43.9% | 20.3% | 35.9% |
| Scars | 484 | 21 | 36.6% | 28.9% | 34.5% |
| Degenerative Disc | 483 | 25 | 35.0% | 34.0% | 31.1% |
| Menieres | 478 | 27 | 32.2% | 24.3% | 43.5% |
| Neuropathy secondary to Diabetes | 478 | 27 | 24.3% | 30.8% | 45.0% |
| Rheumatoid Arthritis | 476 | 29 | 13.4% | 27.9% | 58.6% |
| Psoriasis | 474 | 31 | 24.5% | 28.1% | 47.5% |
| Substance Abuse | 474 | 31 | 33.3% | 34.4% | 32.3% |
| Diabetes | 469 | 62 | 24.5% | 31.6% | 43.9% |
| Colon Cancer | 468 | 58 | 29.5% | 23.3% | 47.2% |
| Diabetic Retinopathy | 463 | 94 | 27.2% | 29.6% | 43.2% |
| Herniated Disc | 460 | 91 | 25.7% | 31.7% | 42.6% |
| Cervical Spine | 460 | 83 | 25.2% | 30.2% | 44.6% |
| Lymphoma | 459 | 73 | 34.4% | 26.6% | 39.0% |
| Neuropathy | 459 | 46 | 27.9% | 28.1% | 44.0% |
| Tdiu | 453 | 65 | 51.2% | 23.2% | 25.6% |
| Varicose Veins | 447 | 78 | 16.8% | 32.2% | 51.0% |
| Diabetic Retinopathy secondary to Diabetes | 435 | 118 | 26.4% | 29.4% | 44.1% |
| Sleep Apnea secondary to Obesity | 407 | 93 | 42.5% | 21.9% | 35.6% |
| Ulcerative Colitis | 389 | 0 | 22.6% | 38.3% | 39.1% |
| Neuropathy secondary to Agent Orange Diabetes | 341 | 160 | 27.0% | 25.2% | 47.8% |
| Heart Disease | 323 | 0 | 31.0% | 35.6% | 33.4% |
| Sleep Apnea secondary to Weight Gain | 316 | 184 37% of rows | 36.4% | 17.7% | 45.9% |
| Hypertension secondary to Sleep Apnea | 312 | 353 53% of rows | 17.6% | 15.1% | 67.3% |
| Heart Disease secondary to Agent Orange Diabetes | 310 | 0 | 25.8% | 45.2% | 29.0% |
| Heart Disease secondary to Hypertension | 310 | 0 | 26.1% | 43.9% | 30.0% |
| Heart Disease secondary to Diabetes | 310 | 0 | 20.6% | 49.7% | 29.7% |
| Hip | 305 | 0 | 12.8% | 42.0% | 45.2% |
| Pulmonary Fibrosis | 301 | 0 | 33.9% | 37.2% | 28.9% |
The three percentages are shares of the "Decided" count on the same row, so they add to 100%. "Granted" counts partial grants and mixed outcomes alongside full grants, because a partial grant awards a benefit the veteran did not have. "Not decided" is the dismissed, withdrawn, and moot appeals excluded from the rate; it is small for most labels but exceeds a third for a few secondary conditions, and a large value there means the published rate rests on fewer decisions than the label's extraction volume suggests. Those rows carry the share in the "Not decided" column, so you can see which rates rest on a narrow base. These are the same figures the per-condition pages under /conditions publish. Source: Claim Raven analysis of 101,518 condition records from the analyzed subset of its 501,000+ Board-decision library (predominantly 2024-2025). Board outcomes on appealed claims, not initial-claim outcomes. Associations, not causes.
4 labels are excluded pending manual review of extraction quality, because at least 80% of their extracted rows lack a classifiable nexus question: Anxiety secondary to Tinnitus (865 decisions), Erectile Dysfunction (782 decisions), Heart Disease secondary to Sleep Apnea (500 decisions), ED secondary to PTSD (499 decisions).
Low grant rates in this table usually trace back to evidence, not the condition itself. Chronic fatigue, for example, granted 16.1% overall, but 83.7% when the decision discussed strong nexus evidence. Most of its appeals simply arrived with weak or missing medical-link evidence.
Secondary claims are not doomed. Unsupported ones are.
In the raw numbers, claims for secondary conditions (a condition caused by an already service-connected one) fare worse than primary claims. That gap disappears once you hold evidence quality constant. Within the same nexus tier, secondary claims granted at essentially the same rate as primary claims:
| Nexus evidence | Primary claims granted | Secondary claims granted |
|---|---|---|
| Strong | 88.3% (n=9,529) | 94.1% (n=2,973) |
| Adequate | 69.4% (n=13,241) | 68.5% (n=5,351) |
| Weak | 4.3% (n=13,757) | 1.7% (n=4,496) |
| Missing | 1.9% (n=8,314) | 0.5% (n=2,386) |
Source: Claim Raven analysis of 101,518 condition records from the analyzed subset of its 501,000+ Board-decision library (predominantly 2024-2025). Board outcomes on appealed claims, not initial-claim outcomes. Associations, not causes.
The practical reading: the secondary-claim penalty in the raw data is a composition effect. Secondary claims more often arrive without classified medical-link evidence, and that, not the word "secondary," tracks with the outcome.
Lay evidence: how buddy statements correlate with outcomes
Decisions that quoted lay evidence (personal statements, buddy letters) granted 41.5% of the time (n=38,143), against 22.0% when lay evidence went unquoted (n=39,008). The gradient by how the Board treated that evidence:
Grant rate by how the Board treated lay evidence
The honest nuance: lay evidence does not rescue a weak medical case. Where nexus evidence was weak and lay evidence was quoted anyway, the grant rate was 4.0% (n=7,898). The Board may also simply discuss lay evidence more in cases that are stronger overall. Quoted is not the same as submitted, and correlation is not cause.
Definitions
- Granted
- The Board decided the issue in the veteran's favor. This includes partial grants and mixed outcomes, where the Board awarded some of what was sought, because those award a benefit the veteran did not have before.
- Denied
- The Board decided the issue against the veteran.
- Remanded
- The Board sent the issue back to the agency of original jurisdiction for more development. Not a final decision; the claim continues, with added wait time.
- Decided
- Granted, denied, or remanded. Every grant rate on this page divides favorable outcomes by decided appeals.
- Not decided
- Dismissed, withdrawn, or moot appeals, where the Board never reached the issue. Excluded from both halves of a grant rate, and reported as a separate count so the gap stays visible.
- Nexus
- The medical link between a current condition and military service (or an already service-connected condition, for secondary claims). Usually established through medical opinions and records.
- Lay evidence
- Non-expert statements from the veteran or people who know them, such as personal statements and buddy letters.
- Secondary claim
- A claim that one condition was caused or aggravated by another condition that is already service connected.
Methodology and limitations
- Source: an analyzed subset of Claim Raven's 501,000+ public Board of Veterans' Appeals decision library. Decision dates are predominantly 2024-2025.
- Unit of analysis: the condition record, not the decision. The Board often rules on several claimed conditions in one decision, and the extraction stores one row per condition per decision, producing 101,518 analyzed records. Every rate and count on this page is computed over condition records unless it says otherwise. A rate here is therefore the share of claimed conditions that ended a given way, not the share of veterans or the share of decisions.
- These are Board outcomes, not initial claim outcomes. Every case in the dataset was appealed, which is a selected population. Nothing here is a "VA claim approval rate."
- Condition labels are Claim Raven's extraction taxonomy, not official VA issue codes. Counts per label reflect extraction, not VA workload statistics.
- All relationships are associations, not causes. Extraction is imperfect; sample sizes and coverage are stated with each figure, and labels that fail internal quality review are excluded and listed rather than published.
- Percentages are computed over analyzed condition records only. The corpus count is context about the pipeline, never the base of a percentage.
- Grant rate = favorable outcomes (granted, partial grant, mixed) divided by decided appeals (favorable + denied + remanded). Dismissed, withdrawn, and moot appeals are excluded from both halves because the Board never decided the issue. Of 101,518 condition records, 98,625 were decided and 2,890 were not. This is the same definition used by the per-condition pages under /conditions and the diagnostic code pages under /va-codes, so a given condition reads the same rate everywhere on this site.
- The outcome census in "How Board appeals end" is the one exception: it is a breakdown of every analyzed row by its recorded outcome, so dismissed appeals appear there as their own bar rather than being excluded.
- Outcome census covers the 101,518 condition records with a classified outcome. The nexus gradient covers the 60,047 decided condition records where nexus quality was classified into one of the four evidence tiers.
Cite this research
Keep its source, sample size, and date with it. See the citation and reuse details below before publishing an excerpt.
This page is free to cite and link. The statistics and charts are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license: reuse them anywhere with attribution to Claim Raven. Charts can be downloaded with their source line included. Suggested citation:
Claim Raven (2026). VA Disability Claims Statistics: Board of Veterans' Appeals Outcomes. Analysis of 101,518 condition records from the analyzed subset of Claim Raven's 501,000+ Board-decision library. https://claimraven.com/va-disability-statistics
Questions about the data or requests for other cuts: contact Claim Raven. For journalists, the methodology above travels with every number, and specific breakdowns can be re-run on request.
Update history
- August 7, 2026: corrected the unit of analysis. This page previously called 101,518 the number of Board decisions analyzed, including in its headline and suggested citation. That figure is a count of condition records. The extraction stores one row per claimed condition per decision, and the Board often rules on several conditions at once. The decision count was overstated by about two times wherever it appeared. No rate, percentage, or chart changed, because all were already computed over condition records and their denominators were correct; only the labels were wrong. If you cited this page before this date, the sample description needs updating but the numbers you quoted do not.
- August 6, 2026: corrected the grant-rate definition. Rates on this page previously counted only the outcome value "granted" and divided by every analyzed decision, including dismissed appeals the Board never decided. They now count partial grants and mixed outcomes as grants and divide by decided appeals, which is the definition the per-condition pages under /conditions already used. The two surfaces had published different rates for the same condition; PTSD read 38.9% here and 45.4% there, and 23 conditions disagreed. Most condition rates rise slightly as a result; a few secondary-condition labels rise by 5 to 13 points, because dismissals were concentrated in them. The nexus gradient moved by under one point. One label, neuropathy secondary to lumbar, dropped out of the table because it has fewer than 300 decided appeals.
- August 3, 2026: first publication. 101,518 analyzed condition records.
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