VA Aid and Attendance in Indiana (2026)

For an Indiana wartime veteran who needs regular help with bathing, dressing, or eating, Aid and Attendance raises the VA pension limit to as much as $34,488 a year with a spouse.1 VA pays the pension monthly, working each payment out from that yearly limit. Aid and Attendance is a federal benefit, so the rates are the same in Indiana as anywhere else.

This guide walks through who qualifies, how much you can receive, how to apply, and where to get help filing in Indiana, including from the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs and your County Veterans Service Officer.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Aid and Attendance?
• Do You Qualify?
• 2026 VA Aid and Attendance Rates in Indiana
• The Net Worth Limit and 3-Year Lookback
• How to Apply for VA Aid and Attendance in Indiana
• Getting Help in Indiana: IDVA and County Veterans Service Officers
• How Aid and Attendance Works with Indiana Medicaid
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Aid and Attendance?

Aid and Attendance (A&A) is an enhanced VA pension benefit for wartime veterans and their surviving spouses who need help with everyday activities. It isn't a separate program. It's the same VA pension paid at a higher maximum rate when you need regular care, so the Aid and Attendance figure is the ceiling on the whole pension, not the basic rate plus a separate Aid and Attendance payment.1,3 This guide covers that pension route. VA Form 21-2680 is also used to claim Aid and Attendance that will be added to monthly compensation, so a veteran who receives VA disability compensation rather than a pension is on a different track and should ask a County Veterans Service Officer which route applies before filing anything.3

You may qualify if you need help with daily activities such as:

• Bathing or showering
• Dressing and undressing
• Feeding yourself
• Using the toilet
• Adjusting prosthetic devices
• Protecting yourself from everyday hazards

You can also qualify if you're bedridden, spend a large part of the day in bed because of illness, live in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or have severely limited eyesight (even with glasses or contacts, 5/200 or less in both eyes, or a visual field narrowed to 5 degrees or less).2

A&A is tax-free.6 What you pay out of pocket for assisted living or nursing home care can also lower the income VA counts.7

Do You Qualify?

To receive Aid and Attendance, you have to meet all four of these requirements.2

1. Wartime service. How much service the veteran needs depends on when they entered. A veteran who started active duty before September 8, 1980 needs at least 90 days of active duty with at least one day during a wartime period VA recognizes, such as World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War era, or the Gulf War. A veteran who started active duty as an enlisted person after September 7, 1980 generally needs at least 24 months, or the full period for which they were called or ordered to active duty, with at least one day during wartime. A third branch covers officers: an officer who started active duty after October 16, 1981 and hadn't previously served on active duty for at least 24 months also satisfies the service test, again with at least one day during wartime.2

2. Discharge, age, or disability. The veteran must not have received a dishonorable discharge, and must meet at least one of four alternatives: be at least 65 years old, have a permanent and total disability, be a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability, or be getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. Those last two branches stand on their own, so a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI meets this requirement without any adjudicated permanent-and-total rating.2

3. Need for assistance. The veteran or surviving spouse must need regular help with daily activities, be bedridden, be in a nursing home, or have severely limited eyesight as described above.2

4. Net worth under $163,699. This is the 2026 limit. It counts your assets plus your annual income combined. Your primary home, your car, and basic household items don't count.1

Surviving spouses qualify too. If the veteran has passed away and the surviving spouse needs help with daily activities, they can apply for the Survivors Pension with Aid and Attendance, which has a 2026 limit of $18,697 a year for a surviving spouse with no dependents.1

2026 VA Aid and Attendance Rates in Indiana

The VA calculates your payment as the difference between your countable income and the Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR) for your category. If your countable income is zero, you receive the full MAPR. These rates are federal, so they're the same in Indiana as anywhere else. The VA publishes them as annual amounts. To set the monthly payment, VA subtracts your countable income from the MAPR, divides what's left by 12, and rounds down to the whole dollar.1 For reference, the basic pension MAPR without Aid and Attendance is $17,441 a year for a veteran with no dependents.1

Here's how the math works. If a veteran with a spouse has $12,000 in annual countable income and qualifies for A&A, the VA pays the difference: $34,488 minus $12,000 leaves $22,488 a year, which VA divides by 12 and rounds down to the whole dollar to set the monthly payment.1 Out-of-pocket medical expenses, including what you pay for care, can reduce your countable income and raise your benefit, though only the part above 5% of your MAPR is deductible.1

The Net Worth Limit and 3-Year Lookback

The 2026 net worth limit is $163,699. This combines your and your dependents' assets (savings, investments, and property other than your home) with your income as the VA counts it.1

What counts: the fair market value of the real and personal property you own, such as savings and investments, minus any mortgages on it, plus your annual income.2

What doesn't count: your primary residence, your car, and basic household goods.2 The home exclusion covers a residential lot of up to 2 acres (marketable land beyond that counts as an asset), and it holds even if the veteran moves into a nursing home.1

That house may be worth something on the tax side, too. Indiana gives disabled veterans property tax relief on the home they live in, on a track entirely separate from the VA pension you are applying for here, and our guide to the Indiana disabled veteran property tax exemption covers who can claim it and how to file.8

The 3-Year Lookback Rule

The VA reviews any assets you transferred for less than fair market value in the three years before it receives your claim.2 If you gave away or sold assets below market value and keeping them would have put you over the net worth limit, the VA will assess a penalty period of up to five years during which you won't receive pension benefits.2

The rule reaches beyond outright gifts. Putting money into an annuity, a trust, or another investment that lowers your net worth also counts as a transfer for less than fair market value, unless you can cash out the whole balance for your own use, in which case the VA counts it as net worth.2 If you're thinking about transferring assets, talk to a VA-accredited attorney or an elder law attorney first.

How to Apply for VA Aid and Attendance in Indiana

These steps are the pension route, the one a wartime veteran seeking a VA pension with Aid and Attendance follows. For most families it comes down to a medical examination form and the pension application (plus a nursing-home form if the veteran lives in one), and you can protect your filing date before you have any of them.3

What to Gather First

• The veteran's active-duty dates: when service started, how long it lasted, and whether at least one day fell in a wartime period VA recognizes2
• Figures for your assets and yearly income, and your spouse's, since VA counts a married veteran's household net worth1
• A list of the medical and care costs you paid and don't expect to be reimbursed for, which you report on VA Form 21P-8416 (Medical Expense Report)3

Getting Help in Indiana: IDVA and County Veterans Service Officers

You don't have to file this claim alone. An accredited Veterans Service Organization representative's help with VA claims is always free.4 An accredited attorney or claims agent generally can't charge you to prepare and file that first application.5

The Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA)

The Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs, known as IDVA, lists Indiana's County Veterans Service Offices county by county. The pension claim itself is filed with and decided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,3 and the county offices work closely with IDVA, the VA, and Veterans Service Organizations.4

The state also operates the Indiana Veterans' Home (IVH) in West Lafayette, a full-service care facility that welcomed its first resident in 1896. Set on a campus of more than 250 acres, IVH offers independent living, long-term nursing care, short-term rehabilitation, and memory care. The state's IVH eligibility page extends eligibility to apply to honorably discharged veterans, a veteran's spouse or surviving spouse, and Gold Star parents; applicants must have been an Indiana resident for at least one year immediately preceding application (residency waivers may apply for service members who enlisted from, or discharged to, Indiana), all applicants must pass a criminal background check conducted by the Home, and there is no wartime-service requirement, since all periods of service are accepted. The National Association of State Veterans Homes' directory adds a five-year marriage requirement for spouses, so confirm with IVH admissions (765-497-8072).10 For a veteran weighing nursing or memory care, once Medicaid pays for nursing-facility care, federal law can hold the pension of a veteran with no spouse or child to $90 a month, as the Medicaid section below explains.7

County Veterans Service Officers

IDVA describes the County Veterans Service Offices (CVSOs) as local points of contact assisting with all veteran issues, and its locator lists each county's contact information.4 IDVA's page doesn't say what a county office charges, so ask when you call.

The VA's National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics puts Indiana's veteran population at 356,626 for 2025 in its FY2025 Indiana state summary, a modelled estimate rather than a head count.11

Be cautious of companies that charge fees to help with VA claims. Only accredited attorneys and claims agents may charge for representation, and generally only for work after VA has issued notice of its initial decision, so they generally can't charge you to file that first claim.5 You can find an accredited representative through VA's locator.5 If someone asks for a fee to file your first claim, walk away and find an accredited VSO representative instead.

How Aid and Attendance Works with Indiana Medicaid

Aid and Attendance and Indiana Medicaid are run separately, by different agencies and under different rules. A veteran can receive both at the same time, but the two count money differently, so a few points are worth understanding.7

• A&A is an increase to your VA pension, not a standalone benefit. It's the same pension paid at a higher maximum rate to a qualified veteran or survivor, which is why it interacts with other income-tested programs.7
• Indiana Medicaid covers long-term care for low-income aged, blind, and disabled Hoosiers. That includes institutional nursing-facility coverage and home- and community-based pathways, and, as of July 1, 2024, the Indiana PathWays for Aging program for members age 60 and older, administered by the Family and Social Services Administration's Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning (OMPP).7
• Unreimbursed medical expenses can lower your countable income. Under general federal pension rules, VA pension (including the A&A increase) is counted as income, but the cost of care you actually pay out of pocket can reduce the income that counts for VA pension purposes; for VA, only the portion of medical expenses above 5% of the MAPR is deductible.7
• How a VA pension is treated for Medicaid depends on your pathway. At the eligibility step, Indiana uses SSI income rules for aged, blind, and disabled applicants, and under those rules the VA aid and attendance allowance is not income, so only the basic pension counts toward the income limit.7 Eligibility is only the first step, though: once you are eligible and living in a medical institution or intermediate care facility, income that was disregarded in determining eligibility must be considered in the post-eligibility share-of-cost calculation (42 CFR 435.725), so a full-rate A&A amount disregarded at eligibility must be considered here; the reduced $90 pension and certain state veterans homes are treated differently (see the next point). Indiana's own rule, 405 IAC 2-1.1-7, doesn't mention veterans' benefits, so ask the Indiana Medicaid eligibility office how it treats a full-rate A&A amount at this step. Incurred medical expenses are only one of five amounts the agency is required to deduct from that income first, in this order: (1) a personal needs allowance that is reasonable in amount for your clothing and other personal needs in the institution, and that must be at least a federal monthly minimum; (2) for someone with only a spouse at home, an additional amount for that spouse's maintenance needs, based on a reasonable assessment of need; (3) for someone with a family at home, an additional amount for the family's maintenance needs, adjusted for the number of family members living in the home; (4) amounts for incurred expenses for medical or remedial care not subject to payment by a third party; and (5) the full amount of any SSI and state supplement you continue to receive. Each of the five is a deduction the agency is required to make, not an allowance a family applies for or has to prove, and it is only what remains after all five that goes toward the cost of your care. The dollar figure Indiana actually protects as a personal needs allowance is set by the state, so ask the Indiana Medicaid eligibility office what yours would be rather than assuming a number. That calculation is the one for a person in a medical institution or intermediate care facility; it does not settle what someone receiving home and community-based waiver services owes toward their care, so confirm that pathway separately. Because the treatment varies by the specific Indiana Medicaid pathway and a household's circumstances, confirm your situation with a County Veterans Service Officer and the Indiana Medicaid eligibility office before relying on any single rule.7
• A single veteran's pension is capped once Medicaid pays for nursing-facility care. If Medicaid covers nursing-facility care for a veteran with no spouse or child (or a surviving spouse with no child), federal law limits the pension to $90 a month for any period after the month of admission, and the Medicaid payment to the facility can't be reduced by that $90.7 Don't budget a full Aid and Attendance award for that stay. A veteran with a spouse or child is outside the cap, and so is a state home VA pays a nursing-home per diem for, where federal law instead counts pension above $90 a month, including A&A, only toward the home's cost of the veteran's nursing care. Check a state-home stay with an accredited Veterans Service Officer.7

For the bigger picture of how to protect assets while qualifying for care, start with our guide to Medicaid planning strategies.

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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.