Does TDIU Qualify for a Property Tax Exemption? Rules by State (2026)

Some states grant a disabled veteran property tax exemption for total disability based on individual unemployability (TDIU) paid at 100%, and others require a permanent and total (P&T) rating.1,2,3 Texas, Ohio and Wisconsin name TDIU in their rules. Maryland and North Carolina tie their rating routes to a permanent rating and don't mention TDIU. Where a state's rule is silent, the right answer is to ask your assessor before you file, not to assume you're out.4,5,6

In This Guide

• Three Ways a VA Rating Can Count as Total
• TDIU Property Tax Exemption by State
• States Whose Property Tax Exemption Names TDIU
• States That Require a Permanent and Total Rating
• When Your State's Rule Doesn't Say: What to Ask Your Assessor
• Which VA Letter to Bring
• If the County Turned You Down
• Worked Example #1: One TDIU Veteran, Two States
• Frequently Asked Questions

Three Ways a VA Rating Can Count as Total

A county clerk who says "you need to be 100%" can mean three different things. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs uses all three, and state property tax laws pick among them.1,7

A schedular 100% rating. VA rates your service-connected disabilities at 100% on its rating schedule. It's the most literal reading of "rated 100%."1

TDIU paid at the 100% rate. VA's total disability based on individual unemployability (TDIU) benefit lets a veteran whose schedular rating is less than total get VA disability compensation at the same level as a veteran rated 100%. Under 38 CFR 4.16(a), the usual thresholds are one service-connected disability rated 60% or more, or two or more with at least one rated 40% or more and a combined rating of 70% or more, plus VA's judgment that service-connected disabilities keep the veteran from holding a substantially gainful job. VA states that if you're eligible, your monthly payment changes but your disability rating stays the same. That's why a state rule written around a "100% rating" may not settle a TDIU veteran's case on its own.1 See our TDIU guide.

Permanent and total (P&T). Under 38 CFR 3.340, total disability "may or may not be permanent." Permanence exists when the impairment is "reasonably certain to continue throughout the life of the disabled person," and VA's rating schedule at 38 CFR 4.15 uses the same test. A schedular 100% rating and a TDIU rating can each be permanent or not. Iowa's law, for one, speaks of "a permanent and total disability rating based on individual unemployability." A state that requires P&T is asking about that separate finding, not about the percentage.7,8 Our VA disability compensation guide explains how VA combines ratings and when it pays at the total rate.

To see which of these VA has assigned you, get your VA Benefit Summary Letter (see Which VA Letter to Bring). We haven't found a VA page that describes what the letter shows line by line, so the safest description comes from the offices that ask for it: Colorado says the letter must show 100% P&T status, and Stafford County, Virginia lists the 100% rating (or an unemployable rating), the total and permanent finding, and its effective date as items the letter must show.11

TDIU Property Tax Exemption by State

Each row below comes from that state's own statute, constitution or tax or veterans agency, as recorded in our verified fact library. "Not stated" means the state's rule, as its own source words it, doesn't address the question. It is not a "no." For any state not listed, we don't yet have a primary source on TDIU, so ask your assessor. Florida is flagged while we re-check it.

States Whose Property Tax Exemption Names TDIU

These states put individual unemployability in the rule itself, so a TDIU veteran has written text to point to.

Texas. Under Texas Tax Code Section 11.131, a veteran awarded 100% disability compensation due to a service-connected disability, with a rating of 100% disabled or of individual unemployability, is exempt on the total appraised value of the residence homestead. The Texas Comptroller states that a veteran doesn't have to be both. The 100% compensation award stays required either way; the either/or applies only to the rating.2

Ohio. Ohio's enhanced homestead exemption covers a veteran with "a total disability rating or a total disability rating for compensation based on individual unemployability," and either route qualifies. Ohio's application form adds a timing test: the applicant must be 100% disabled by, or receiving 100% compensation for, service-connected injuries on January 1 of the year the exemption is sought.4

Wisconsin. Wisconsin's veterans and surviving spouses property tax credit covers "a 100% disability rating based on individual unemployability." Wisconsin's statute defines that rating as a 60% rating, or two or more conditions with one at least 40% and a combined rating of at least 70%, with an administrative adjustment so VA rates the veteran 100% disabled. The veteran also has to meet Wisconsin residency conditions, which can rule out a veteran who entered service from another state.5

Michigan. Michigan's exemption for disabled veterans under MCL 211.7b has three routes, and "rated by the VA as individually unemployable" is one of them. The P&T requirement sits on a different route (permanently and totally disabled and entitled to benefits at the 100% rate), so a TDIU veteran qualifies without a 100% schedular rating.18

Nebraska. Nebraska's Category 4V covers a veteran drawing VA compensation for a 100% service-connected permanent disability or for "assignment of total disability rating for compensation pursuant to 38 C.F.R. 4.16," the TDIU regulation. A Nebraska veteran with a 100% temporary disability has a separate route, Category 7, which requires an application every year.20

Louisiana. The top tier of Louisiana's constitutional exemption reaches a rating "of one hundred percent unemployability or totally disabled," and the text doesn't separate a schedular 100% from one awarded for unemployability. Louisiana's Section 21 sets no application procedure for the veteran tiers, so ask your parish assessor how and when to file.17

Utah and California. Utah's exemption scales with the rating percentage, but a county "shall consider a veteran with a disability to have a 100% disability" if VA certifies the veteran as individually unemployable. For the 2026 lien date, California's Board of Equalization counts compensation rated at 100% for unemployability as totally disabled, and it allows no partial exemption below 100%.23,12 From the 2027 lien date through 2031, SB 296 moves most homes to a new exemption, Revenue and Taxation Code section 205.5.1, whose definition of totally disabled still includes unemployability. The amount changes, as our California guide explains.12

Georgia. The Georgia Department of Veterans Service lists "VA-rated less than 100 percent disabled but entitled as 100 percent rate due to unemployability" as a qualifying route. Its list states the 100% route as "VA-rated 100 percent totally disabled" with no permanence requirement. GDVS adds that county tax commissioners interpret the exemption, so confirm with yours.15

Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs lists "total disability individual unemployability" next to a 100% permanent rating. Pennsylvania also requires wartime service and financial need. As of 2026, Pennsylvania presumes financial need at an annual income of $114,637 or less.22

Colorado. Colorado's eligibility list includes "individual unemployability status as determined by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs," and the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs FAQ says TDIU veterans qualify "if they are rated at least 70% but are compensated at the 100% rate." The same page says the required VA Benefit Summary Letter "must show your 100% P&T status." Those two statements pull in different directions for a TDIU veteran who isn't P&T, so ask your county assessor which letter they'll accept before you file.13

Arizona, by tax year. Don't merge the two years. For 2026, A.R.S. § 42-11111 as amended in February 2026 fully exempts the primary residence of a veteran whose service-connected disability VA rates at 100%, and it doesn't say whether TDIU counts, so ask the county assessor. For tax years from 2027, the amended law extends the full exemption to a veteran "whose disability status is total disability based on individual unemployability."10

States That Require a Permanent and Total Rating

In these states, permanence is in the rule or in how the state agency describes it. A veteran rated 100% on a temporary basis, or paid at 100% through TDIU without the P&T finding, should expect questions.7,6,21

Iowa (P&T, and TDIU counts). Iowa's Disabled Veteran Homestead Tax Credit, on its rating routes, requires either a permanent 100% rating or "a permanent and total disability rating based on individual unemployability that is compensated at the one hundred percent disability rate." The TDIU route means a permanent 60% rating, or two or more permanent conditions with one at least 40% and a combined rating of at least 70%, with an individual unemployability adjustment "such that the United States department of veterans affairs rates the veteran permanently and totally disabled."8

Virginia (P&T, and TDIU counts). Virginia's exemption is for a 100% service-connected, permanent and total disability. The Attorney General concluded in Opinion 11-061 that it extends to veterans rated totally disabled on the basis of individual unemployability, and the Virginia Department of Veterans Services says those veterans qualify if they "are rated 'permanent and total.'" You apply to your local Commissioner of the Revenue.9

Connecticut. The mandatory full exemption under CGS § 12-81(83) is for a 100% service-connected P&T rating. A TDIU veteran falls outside it, but towns may adopt an option that gives TDIU veterans an exemption similar to the P&T one, on the same property and terms. Where a town hasn't adopted it, a TDIU veteran keeps the regular § 12-81(20) disability exemption, which is a reduction in assessed value. Ask your town assessor about the TDIU option by name.14

Maryland. Maryland Tax-Property § 7-208 covers a veteran VA has declared to have a permanent 100% service-connected disability that is reasonably certain to continue for life. The definition speaks only of that permanent 100% rating and says nothing about individual unemployability.6

North Carolina. North Carolina's disabled veteran homestead exclusion takes the first $45,000 of appraised value off a qualifying owner's residence. North Carolina's rating route requires a VA certification that the veteran "has a service-connected, permanent, and total disability" as of January 1 before the tax year. North Carolina's statute lists three routes, and none of them is individual unemployability.3

New Jersey (the state agency reads it as P&T). New Jersey's statute covers a list of named conditions or "other service-connected disability declared by the VA to be a total or 100% permanent disability," and a 100% rating given only for hospitalization or surgery and recovery doesn't qualify. A New Jersey veteran who meets one of the named-condition routes doesn't need a 100% P&T rating. The New Jersey Division of Taxation states the test more narrowly, as a veteran "who was 100% permanently and totally disabled." Where the two differ, the statute's list controls, and that list doesn't name individual unemployability.21

When Your State's Rule Doesn't Say: What to Ask Your Assessor

For Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina and New Jersey, and for Arizona in 2026, the state's source doesn't address a veteran paid at 100% through TDIU. The same is true for every state this guide doesn't list yet.16,6,3,21,10 Silence isn't a denial. It means the person who decides is your assessor (or appraiser, or assessment office), so ask before you give up on the exemption.

Illinois is the clearest example. For taxable years 2023 and later, Illinois's Standard Homestead Exemption for Veterans with Disabilities scales with the VA service-connected rating: at least 30% but under 50% takes $2,500 off equalized assessed value, at least 50% but under 70% takes $5,000 off, and 70% or more exempts the first $250,000. A veteran who holds a 100% rating deemed P&T doesn't have to reapply each year. How a TDIU rating counts isn't spelled out, so ask the chief county assessment office.16

Ask in writing if you can, and use the statute's name. Here's the question:

Which VA Letter to Bring

VA says that "to receive some benefits, Veterans need a letter proving their status," and you can download your VA Benefit Summary Letter (sometimes called a VA award letter) from VA.gov. You'll need to sign in with an identity-verified account. If you have trouble getting the letter, VA directs you to its MyVA411 main information line.11

States that name the documents:

• Iowa: a VA Benefit Summary Letter stating the qualifying rating, which for a TDIU applicant must show individual unemployability compensated at the 100% rate, plus a DD-214 or an equivalent document. Supporting documents must be from the last 12 months. File with your city or county assessor by July 1.8
• Colorado: a VA Benefit Summary Letter attached to the application (see the Colorado entry above for the P&T wording to ask about). Most Colorado assessors want one dated within the last 365 days. File with the county assessor between January 1 and July 1.13
• Montana: a VA letter verifying the 100% rating or 100% pay rate, sent with the application to the Montana Department of Revenue by April 15. If your rating is temporary, the Department will periodically ask for an updated letter.19
• Connecticut: proof of qualifying military service by September 30 and of the 100% P&T rating by January 1 (late rating proof is allowed), filed with the town assessor. From the October 1, 2025 assessment year, the P&T exemption must be claimed yearly.14

Florida's documents are part of the row we're re-checking, so ask your county property appraiser which letter they need.

If the County Turned You Down

Start by asking which rule the office applied. A TDIU veteran turned away in Texas, Ohio or Wisconsin can point to text that names individual unemployability (see the table). If a county page or clerk describes the rule differently from the state's statute or tax agency, ask which statute section they're applying and compare it with the state's own wording.

In Colorado, raise the letter question described above with the county assessor before the July 1 filing deadline.13

Some states give you a formal appeal with a short clock:

• Nebraska: a county assessor's written rejection is appealed to the county board of equalization within 30 days of receiving it.20
• New Jersey: a denial is appealed to the County Board of Taxation on Form A-1 by April 1 following the denial, or by January 15 in Burlington, Gloucester and Monmouth counties.21

Questions about the VA rating itself are a VA matter, not a county one. Our guides to appealing a VA decision and filing an intent to file cover that process.

Worked Example #1: One TDIU Veteran, Two States

Learn More

Not sure which VA letter your county needs? Chat with Brevy's care navigator to check your state's rule at brevy.com.

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.