VA Aid and Attendance in Kansas (2026)

VA Aid and Attendance can raise a Kansas wartime veteran's pension ceiling to $34,488 a year for a veteran with a spouse when they need regular help with everyday tasks like bathing or dressing.1 Yet many Kansas veterans and surviving spouses who qualify never apply, because they don't know the program exists. Aid and Attendance is a federal benefit, so the rates are the same in Kansas as anywhere else.

This guide walks through who qualifies, how much you can receive, how to apply, and where to get free help filing in Kansas, including from the Kansas Office of Veterans Services and its Veteran Service Representatives statewide.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Aid and Attendance?
• Do You Qualify?
• 2026 VA Aid and Attendance Rates in Kansas
• The Net Worth Limit and 3-Year Lookback
• How to Apply for VA Aid and Attendance in Kansas
• Free Help in Kansas: KOVS and Veteran Service Representatives
• How Aid and Attendance Works with Kansas 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. Qualifying for it raises the Maximum Annual Pension Rate the VA uses to calculate your pension, so the rates below are ceilings on the whole pension, not a separate check on top of a basic one.1

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

• Bathing or showering
• Dressing and undressing
• Eating (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 due to mental or physical incapacity, 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

The money is paid to you in cash and can go toward any purpose, including in-home care, assisted living, or nursing home costs. That flexibility is part of what makes it so useful for Kansas families piecing together long-term care.

Do You Qualify?

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

1. Wartime service, with no dishonorable discharge. How much service is required depends on when the veteran started active duty, not on which war they served in. The VA lists three paths. A veteran who started active duty before September 8, 1980 must have served at least 90 days of active duty with at least one day during a recognized wartime period. 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 some exceptions), again with at least one day during wartime. A veteran who started active duty as an officer after October 16, 1981 must not have previously served on active duty for at least 24 months. Qualifying periods include World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War (which includes all post-9/11 service).

2. Age, disability, nursing-home care, or SSDI/SSI. The VA lists four alternatives here, and meeting any one of them satisfies the test: the veteran is at least 65 years old; has a permanent and total disability; is a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability; or is receiving Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. A wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI qualifies on that branch alone, with no adjudicated disability rating.

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.

4. Net worth under $163,699. This is the 2026 limit. The VA's net worth calculation combines your and your dependents' assets with your annual income, so comparing assets alone against the limit gives you the wrong answer. Your primary residence (a single-family unit, including its residential lot) doesn't count. Neither do personal effects suitable to and consistent with a reasonable mode of life, which the regulation illustrates as appliances and family transportation vehicles.1

Surviving spouses qualify too. Filing a new benefit claim in the months after losing a spouse is hard, and it often falls to someone already worn down by grief and caregiving. 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 carries a 2026 yearly maximum of $18,697 for a surviving spouse with no dependents, and a Veteran Service Representative can carry most of the paperwork for them.1

2026 VA Aid and Attendance Rates in Kansas

The VA calculates your payment as the difference between your countable income and the Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR) for your category. The VA publishes the MAPR as a yearly figure but pays monthly: your MAPR minus your countable income, divided by 12 and rounded down to the whole dollar. With a spouse and no countable income, $34,488 works out to $2,874 a month, the same figure VA publishes as its 2026 penalty-period rate. These rates are federal, so they're the same in Kansas as anywhere else.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 pays in monthly installments.1 Unreimbursed medical expenses can reduce your countable income and so raise your benefit, but only the part above 5% of your MAPR counts: VA sets that threshold at $1,141 a year for a veteran with one dependent and $872 for a veteran with no dependents.1

The Net Worth Limit and 3-Year Lookback

The 2026 net worth limit is $163,699. The VA's calculation combines your and your dependents' assets (savings, investments, and property other than your home) with your annual income, and it excludes your primary home, your car, and basic home items.1

What counts: bank accounts, stocks, bonds, investment property, IRAs, and other financial assets, plus your annual income.

What doesn't count: your primary residence (a single-family unit, including its residential lot), plus personal effects suitable to and consistent with a reasonable mode of life, which the regulation illustrates as appliances and family transportation vehicles.1 The house you live in doesn't push you over the limit, which matters for the many Kansas veterans who own their homes outright but live on a modest fixed income.

The 3-Year Lookback Rule

The VA reviews any assets you transferred for less than fair market value in the 36 months (three years) before VA receives your claim.2 If you gave away or sold assets below market value to get under the net worth limit, the VA may impose a penalty period of up to five years during which you won't receive pension benefits.

This rule exists to stop people from simply giving away savings to qualify. 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 Kansas

The steps below are the pension route: the VA's condition is that you may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension. VA Form 21-2680 also covers Aid and Attendance that will be added to your monthly compensation, so a veteran who receives VA disability compensation rather than pension uses that form without filing the wartime, means-tested pension application in step 3.3 Gathering forms and medical records during a care crisis isn't easy, and it's exactly the kind of legwork a Veteran Service Representative is there to take off your plate.

Documents to Gather First

• DD-214 (discharge papers) showing wartime service dates
• Medical records documenting the need for daily help
• Income documentation (Social Security and pension statements)
• Asset information (bank and investment statements)
• Marriage certificate, if claiming as a veteran with a spouse
• Death certificate, if applying as a surviving spouse

Free Help in Kansas: KOVS and Veteran Service Representatives

You don't have to file this claim alone. Accredited help is available across Kansas at no charge, and the services an accredited VSO representative provides on a VA benefit claim are always free. Only accredited attorneys and claims agents may charge you at all, and only for representation provided after the VA has issued notice of its initial decision on the claim.4,5

The Kansas Office of Veterans Services (KOVS)

The Kansas Office of Veterans Services, known as KOVS, is the state agency that helps Kansas veterans and their families claim federal VA and state benefits. It doesn't decide your VA claim itself (the federal VA does that), but its Veteran Services Program can assist with filing VA claims, including non-service-connected pension benefits such as Aid and Attendance. You can contact your local Veteran Service Representative or call the KOVS main line, (785) 296-3976.4

KOVS also operates two state veterans homes. The Kansas Soldiers' Home in Fort Dodge provides restorative care, physical and occupational therapy, nursing, social services, and psychological services, with a modern nursing home, three domiciliary residence halls, a 26-bed special care unit for dementia, 54 cottages, and two further units KOVS lists without a bed count, as a "30 domiciliary unit" and a "30 long-term care unit". The Kansas Veterans' Home in Winfield, which opened in 2000 on 148 acres, has a 48-bed assisted living (domiciliary) neighborhood, a 77-bed long-term care neighborhood, and a 20-bed special care neighborhood for Alzheimer's and related dementia. Veterans applying for admission must have completed active federal service with a discharge under conditions other than dishonorable and must need 24-hour skilled nursing care documented by a physician; spouses, surviving spouses, and Gold Star parents may also qualify on a space-available basis. Kansas residency isn't required, though preference goes to Kansas residents.6 For a veteran weighing assisted living or nursing care, an A&A award can help cover costs whether they stay at home or move into one of these homes.

Veteran Service Representatives

This is where the state's help reaches you. KOVS makes Veteran Service Representatives (VSRs), whom it describes as trained and accredited, available to assist veterans at its field office locations across Kansas, and its remote claims assistance page states that all services are provided for no charge between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.4 KOVS asks you to schedule an appointment with your local VSR, and because its itinerant travel schedules can change, to check with the field office nearest you first.4 A VSR can help you prepare and file your VA pension and Aid and Attendance claim and develop the evidence the VA needs, and claims counseling, development, and processing can also be completed from home by video conference or telephone.4

Kansas's Veteran Population

Kansas is home to a substantial veteran population. The VA's National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics puts the state's veteran population at 174,199 for 2025 in its FY2025 Kansas state summary, down from 177,701 for 2024 and 181,270 for 2023. These are modelled VA estimates rather than a head count.7 With that many veterans, it's worth contacting a Veteran Service Representative early rather than waiting until a care crisis forces the issue.

A word of caution: be wary of companies that charge fees to help with VA claims. An accredited attorney or claims agent may charge fees, but only for work done after the VA has issued notice of its initial decision on the claim, so no one should charge you to prepare and file the initial pension application. The services an accredited VSO representative provides on a VA benefit claim are always free, so filing through KOVS, a Kansas Veteran Service Representative, or a Veterans Service Organization like the VFW, American Legion, or DAV costs you nothing.4,5

How Aid and Attendance Works with Kansas Medicaid

Aid and Attendance and Kansas Medicaid, branded KanCare and administered by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), are run separately, 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.4

• A&A income doesn't automatically disqualify you from KanCare. At the eligibility step, Kansas applies SSI income rules, under which the Aid and Attendance allowance is not counted as income at all, so only the basic pension counts toward KanCare's Medicaid income limit.
• In a nursing home, Kansas leaves the A&A money out of your patient liability. KEESM 6410 exempts VA aid and attendance and housebound allowance payments as income in the month received, and KEESM 8150 lists VA aid and attendance benefits among the items left out of the income counted toward what you pay the facility.4
• A nursing-home pension reduction can apply. Under federal law, a veteran or surviving spouse without a dependent spouse or child who is covered by a Medicaid plan for nursing-facility services may be paid no more than $90 a month in VA pension for any month after the month of admission.4 VA's regulation, 38 CFR 3.551(i), dates the cap instead from the month Medicaid payments begin, so a resident who paid privately for a while should check which date VA used on their own award.8 Under 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(3), "the amount of the payment paid a nursing facility pursuant to a Medicaid plan for services furnished a veteran may not be reduced by any amount of pension permitted to be paid such veteran under paragraph (2) of this subsection".4 The VA says the facility "can't count this monthly payment as income toward your cost of care" and that you "would keep the full $90 for personal expenses."4 The cap also has a setting boundary: 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(1)(B) excludes from the term nursing facility "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".8 Kansas's own eligibility manual goes further: KEESM 8150 says veterans with a spouse or other dependents, and veterans living in one of the state VA homes, are not subject to the reduced VA pension.4 Have a KOVS Veteran Service Representative check a specific stay before you plan around it. Kansas separately exempts that reduced pension from its patient-liability calculation under KEESM 6410. That exemption is not a veteran-specific personal needs allowance, so don't treat the $90 as Kansas's personal needs allowance or add it to the state's protected standard.4
• Timing matters. For a single veteran or surviving spouse whose pension will be cut to $90, KEESM 8150 counts the full pension, Aid and Attendance included, toward patient liability until VA is notified of the Medicaid nursing-facility approval and reduces it. Confirm the specifics with a KOVS Veteran Service Representative and with KanCare/KDHE before you file.4

For planning around assets and eligibility, see our guide to Medicaid planning strategies.

That house may be worth something on the tax side, too. Kansas runs a property tax refund for disabled veterans on a track entirely separate from the VA pension you are applying for here, and our guide to the Kansas disabled veteran property tax exemption covers who qualifies and which form to file.

Learn More

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.