VA Aid and Attendance: 2026 Amounts, Eligibility, How to Apply

VA Aid and Attendance is a monthly payment that helps a wartime veteran or surviving spouse afford the care they need. It works in any setting, whether that care happens at home, in assisted living, in memory care, or in a nursing home. It is an increase to the VA pension for people who need help with everyday activities: in 2026 it raises the maximum yearly pension to $29,093 for a veteran with no dependents, or $18,697 for a surviving spouse with no dependents, and what the VA actually pays is the difference between that ceiling and the income it counts for you. The part that surprises most families is how it qualifies you: the cost of care itself is what often makes the benefit possible.

This guide explains what Aid and Attendance is, how the medical-expense rule works, how much it pays in 2026, who qualifies, what it can pay for, and how to apply.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• What Is VA Aid and Attendance?
• How the Benefit Works
• 2026 Aid and Attendance Amounts
• Who Qualifies
• What Aid and Attendance Can Pay For
• How to Apply
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Aid and Attendance in Your State
• Learn More

What Is VA Aid and Attendance?

Aid and Attendance is not a separate program you apply to on its own. It is an increase in the maximum pension payable for a veteran or surviving spouse who needs another person's regular help with everyday activities, is bedridden, is a patient in a nursing home due to the loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or has severely limited eyesight.1 Because it is built on the Veterans Pension program, it carries that program's wartime-service and needs-based rules. The requirements the VA lists for that program are a discharge that was not dishonorable, wartime service, an age-or-status test (at least 65, a permanent and total disability, a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability, or getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income), and income and net worth within limits Congress sets; a service-connected disability is not among them.2

Housebound is a different, smaller increase, for someone who spends most of their time at home because of a permanent disability, and the VA is explicit that "You can't get Aid and Attendance benefits and Housebound benefits at the same time."2 If the aid-and-attendance need standard is out of reach, Housebound is still worth asking about.

The Veterans Pension program, including its Aid and Attendance increase, provides monthly payments to wartime veterans.2 A surviving spouse is paid through the Survivors Pension, which has its own Aid and Attendance rate.2 The money arrives with them, and they can put it toward the cost of care in whatever setting they live.

How the Benefit Works

This is the part families most often misunderstand, so it's worth slowing down on.

VA Pension, including its Aid and Attendance increase, is a needs-based benefit. To be eligible, your yearly family income and net worth have to meet limits set by Congress, and the deduction rules below are keyed to the applicable Maximum Annual Pension Rate, or MAPR.2 The whole benefit turns on your countable income, not your gross income.

Here is the key. You are allowed to lower your countable income by deducting continuing, unreimbursed medical expenses, often called UMEs. The cost of care, whether a home health aide, assisted living, memory care, or a nursing home, can count as a UME, though the conditions differ by setting under 38 CFR 3.278(d). Payments to hospitals, nursing homes, medical foster homes, and inpatient treatment centers, including the cost of meals and lodging those facilities charge, are medical expenses. In-home attendant care and fees at a care facility other than a nursing home (assisted living, for example) each carry their own conditions about who provides the care, and a facility bill has a separate test for its meals-and-lodging portion.2 That deduction is what makes a veteran whose income looks too high on paper actually qualify, because once a large recurring care cost is subtracted, countable income can drop sharply or fall to zero.

The 5% rule

There is an important limit. You cannot deduct every dollar of medical expense. Only the portion of your UMEs above 5% of the applicable MAPR is deductible.2 The VA states that 2026 threshold as $872 for a veteran with no spouse or child. The floor rises for a veteran with dependents, but never with the Aid and Attendance or housebound increase.2 In plain terms, the first several hundred dollars of medical expense each year don't count toward the deduction; everything above that floor does.

Deductible expenses go beyond facility bills. Payments for health, medical, hospitalization, and long-term care insurance premiums count as medical expenses, including premiums for Medicare Parts A, B, and D and for long-term care insurance.2 Because care costs are large and recurring, they usually clear the 5% floor easily, leaving most of the cost available as a deduction.

2026 Aid and Attendance Amounts

The VA publishes these maximums as annual amounts, called the Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR), for the rate period running December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026. Pension is paid monthly, and the regulation sets the arithmetic: the maximum minus your countable income, divided by 12, rounded down to the whole dollar.2 Because your countable income comes off the top, the medical-expense deduction above matters so much.

Read those numbers as the whole pension at the aid-and-attendance rate, not as the size of the increase and not as a check that arrives every month. The MAPR is the maximum amount of pension payable, and the VA bases the payment on the difference between your income for VA purposes and that limit. For a veteran with no dependents, the MAPR is $17,441 a year with neither increase and $21,313 with the Housebound allowance, so $29,093 is where the ceiling lands with Aid and Attendance rather than an amount added on top of the basic rate.2

Congress sets these limits, and the 2026 figures reflect a 2.8% cost-of-living increase effective December 1, 2025.2 If you're reading this later in the benefit year, the numbers above still apply through November 30, 2026.

Who Qualifies

To qualify for Aid and Attendance, the veteran must meet the Veterans Pension requirements and the additional aid-and-attendance need. The veteran must:1

• Have a discharge that was not dishonorable. This is the VA's baseline condition, ahead of everything below.1
• Have wartime service. The service test depends on when active duty began, and the VA lists three paths. Someone who started active duty before September 8, 1980 needs at least 90 days of active duty with at least 1 day during a wartime period. Someone who started active duty as an enlisted person after September 7, 1980 needs at least 24 months (with some exceptions), or the full period for which they were called or ordered to active duty, with at least 1 day during wartime. An officer who started active duty after October 16, 1981 must not have previously served on active duty for at least 24 months, and needs at least 1 day during wartime. Because of that "with some exceptions" hedge, a post-1980 veteran with under 24 months is not automatically ruled out. The wartime periods the VA recognizes include World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War era, and the Gulf War, which runs from August 2, 1990 through a future date to be set by law or presidential proclamation.1
• Meet at least one of four age-or-status conditions. Any single one of these satisfies the test: at least 65 years old; a permanent and total disability; a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability; or getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. A permanent-and-total rating is not the only disability route, so a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI meets this test with no adjudicated rating at all.1
• Meet the aid-and-attendance need standard. The VA applies the criteria at 38 CFR 3.352(a): an inability to dress or undress or to keep oneself ordinarily clean and presentable; a frequent need to adjust a special prosthetic or orthopedic appliance; an inability to feed oneself; an inability to attend to the wants of nature; or a physical or mental incapacity requiring care or assistance on a regular basis to protect against the hazards of daily life. Being bedridden qualifies, as does being a patient in a nursing home due to the loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or having eyesight of 5/200 or less in both eyes or a visual field contracted to 5 degrees or less.1
• Have net worth under $163,699 (2026). The VA's net worth calculation is the claimant's and their dependents' assets plus their annual income, and it includes the net worth of a spouse, so comparing your own assets alone against the limit gives the wrong answer. It cuts the other way too, and this is the part that costs families the benefit: assets do not include the primary residence, meaning the home you live in most or all of the time, and they do not include your car or basic home items like appliances you wouldn't take with you if you moved. What assets remain are counted at fair market value minus any mortgage, and net worth is reduced by any debt you owe. The house you live in doesn't push you over the limit. The VA may also subtract applicable deductible expenses, meaning educational costs and medical expenses you aren't reimbursed for, from the income side of the same calculation.1

A surviving spouse of a wartime veteran can qualify through the Survivors Pension, which for 2026 uses the same $163,699 net worth limit.2 The VA also applies a 3-year look-back period to assets transferred for less than fair market value before filing; a transfer that would otherwise have pushed net worth over the limit can bring a penalty period of up to five years.1 If you've recently given away assets or set up a trust, talk to an accredited representative before applying.

What Aid and Attendance Can Pay For

Because Aid and Attendance is paid as cash, it can go toward the cost of care in any setting. The mechanics are slightly different depending on where care happens, so we've written a dedicated guide for each:

• Assisted living: how care costs in a residential facility count as a deductible expense.
• Memory care: how the need standard applies there, since the VA bases that decision on the actual need for personal help from others.1
• Nursing home: including the federal rule that limits the pension to no more than $90 a month once Medicaid covers nursing facility care for a veteran with neither a spouse nor a child, and the setting 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(1)(B) writes out of the definition the cap runs on, "a facility that is a State home with respect to which the Secretary makes per diem payments for nursing home care pursuant to section 1741(a) of this title." Check the stay against that definition rather than assume the $90 applies.3
• In-home care: paying a home health aide, and the separate Veteran-Directed Care program.

An award can matter beyond the cash, too. Our guide to VA hearing aids and vision care explains who the VA furnishes hearing aids and eyeglasses to, including how an aid and attendance award factors into that decision.

For state-specific cost figures and local application help, Brevy also has an Aid and Attendance guide for each of the 50 states.

How to Apply

The steps below are the pension route, the one the VA describes when it says you may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension. There is a second route: the VA states that Form 21-2680 covers Aid and Attendance "that will be added to your monthly compensation or pension benefits," so a veteran whose VA money is disability compensation rather than pension is not shut out and should not assume the wartime pension application in step 3 applies to them.4 The pension claim comes together in five steps.

If you're filing for a parent who can't sign, our guide to filing a VA claim for an aging parent covers who can sign for them.

Aid and Attendance in Your State

Aid and Attendance is a federal benefit, so the rules and the maximum amounts above are the same in every state. What changes locally is everything around it: the cost of the care the benefit helps pay for, how it works alongside your state's Medicaid and veterans programs, and where to file through a nearby veterans service officer or state veterans home. Your state guide shows how to put Aid and Attendance to work where your loved one lives.

Learn More

Related Brevy guides:

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.