VA Aid and Attendance can lift a Maryland wartime veteran's pension ceiling to $34,488 a year for a veteran with a spouse when they need regular help with bathing, dressing, or eating. The VA pays the difference between that ceiling and the veteran's countable income. Aid and Attendance is a federal benefit, so the rates are the same in Maryland 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 Maryland, including from the Maryland Department of Veterans and Military Families and its Service Program.

In This Guide

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 a higher pension rate that applies when you need regular care: for a veteran with no dependents, the maximum annual pension rate rises from $17,441 to $29,093. Aid and Attendance can also be added to a veteran's monthly compensation rather than pension (VA Form 21-2680 covers both routes), but the eligibility and application steps below follow the pension route, which is VA's condition for this benefit.

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

  • Bathing or showering
  • Dressing and undressing
  • Eating or preparing meals
  • 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).

A&A is paid monthly, as part of your VA pension. Help from family counts too: VA rules say that a relative or another member of the household providing the care will not prevent the award.

Do You Qualify?

To receive Aid and Attendance, the veteran must not have received a dishonorable discharge, and you have to meet all four of these requirements.

1. Wartime service. How much service you need turns on when you started active duty, and the VA lists three paths, any one of which satisfies the test. 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 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 they were called or ordered to active duty (with some exceptions), again with at least one day during wartime. And a veteran who started active duty as an officer after October 16, 1981 meets the test if they had not previously served on active duty for at least 24 months. Recognized wartime periods include World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War era, and the Gulf War, which began August 2, 1990 and runs through a future date to be set by law or presidential proclamation.

2. Age, disability, nursing home, or SSDI/SSI. The VA asks that at least one of four things be true, and any one of them is enough: 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 getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. The nursing-home and SSDI/SSI branches stand on their own, so a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI meets this test without any adjudicated permanent-and-total 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. It counts your assets plus your annual income combined. Your primary home, your car, and basic household items like appliances don't count.

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, worth up to $18,697 a year in 2026, and an accredited Maryland specialist can carry most of the paperwork for them.

2026 VA Aid and Attendance Rates in Maryland

The VA calculates your payment as the difference between your countable income and the Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR) for your category. The MAPR is the most the VA will pay, so any countable income you have comes off it. These rates are federal, so they're the same in Maryland as anywhere else.

Category Maximum Annual Rate
Veteran, no dependents $29,093
Veteran with spouse $34,488
Two veterans married to each other (both A&A) $46,143
Surviving spouse $18,697
Veteran, no dependents (Housebound) $21,313
Veteran, no dependents (basic pension) $17,441
Each additional dependent +$2,984 a year

The VA publishes these rates as annual maximums, but it pays pension monthly. Federal regulations set the conversion: the VA subtracts your countable income from the annual rate, divides what is left by 12, and rounds down to the nearest whole dollar. Each rate is a ceiling, not a payment: the VA pays the difference between your income for VA purposes and the limit.

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, paid monthly at one-twelfth of that. Unreimbursed medical and care costs can lower countable income and raise the benefit, but only the part above 5% of your maximum rate: $872 for a veteran alone and $1,141 with one dependent in 2026.

The Net Worth Limit and 3-Year Lookback

The 2026 net worth limit is $163,699. This combines your assets (savings, investments, and property other than your home) with your annual income.

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

What doesn't count: your primary residence, your car, and basic household goods like appliances. The house you live in doesn't push you over the limit, which matters for the many Maryland veterans who own their homes outright but live on a modest fixed income. That house can carry a benefit of its own, because Maryland fully exempts from property tax the dwelling house owned by a veteran the VA has rated permanently 100 percent service-connected disabled. (See our guide to the Maryland disabled veteran property tax exemption for how to apply.)

The 3-Year Lookback Rule

The VA reviews any assets you transferred for less than fair market value in the three years before you file your claim. 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. Before you shift any assets, talk to a VA-accredited attorney or an elder law attorney who can weigh your options with you and help you avoid a penalty you didn't see coming.

How to Apply for VA Aid and Attendance in Maryland

The core claim takes two forms and a medical exam, and a veteran living in a nursing home needs a third form. Gathering forms and medical records during a care crisis isn't easy, and it's exactly the kind of legwork an accredited MDVMF benefits specialist is there to take off your plate.

1
Step 1

File an intent to file, if you're still gathering paperwork

A claimant who isn't ready to submit the full application can send VA Form 21-0966 (Intent to File) first. The VA says submitting an intent to file can secure the earliest possible effective date for any retroactive payments you may be eligible to receive, so it protects your place in line while you collect records.

2
Step 2

Get a medical examination

A medical examiner fills out the examination information section of VA Form 21-2680 (Examination for Housebound Status or Permanent Need for Regular Aid and Attendance), documenting which daily activities you need help with and why. Be thorough. The more detail about specific limitations, the stronger the claim.

3
Step 3

Complete the pension application (the pension route)

The VA's condition for this benefit is that you get a VA pension, so a wartime veteran going the pension route who isn't already receiving one submits VA Form 21P-527EZ (Application for Veterans Pension), the wartime, means-tested pension application, covering service history, income, net worth, and medical conditions. A veteran who receives VA disability compensation rather than pension does not use 21P-527EZ: Form 21-2680 also covers Aid and Attendance that will be added to your monthly compensation. If you live in a nursing home, a nursing home official also completes VA Form 21-0779 to verify that you are a patient in a qualifying facility.

4
Step 4

Submit everything

You can file online at VA.gov, mail the forms to the VA Pension Intake Center, or apply in person at a VA regional office; an accredited representative such as a Maryland MDVMF benefits specialist can also help you file. Once it's filed, VA's online claim-status tool lets you follow it.

5
Step 5

Wait for a decision

Asked how long a decision takes, the VA answers "It depends." It processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing.

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)
  • Records of unreimbursed medical and care costs, which you report on VA Form 21P-8416 (Medical Expense Report)
  • Marriage certificate, if claiming as a veteran with a spouse
  • Death certificate, if applying as a surviving spouse

Free Help in Maryland: the MDVMF Service Program

You don't have to file this claim alone. Help from VA-accredited specialists is available across Maryland, and MDVMF says all of its services are free.

The Maryland Department of Veterans & Military Families

The Maryland Department of Veterans and Military Families (MDVMF) runs a Service Program whose VA-accredited Benefits Specialists help veterans, dependents, and survivors living in Maryland apply for benefits and work through claims with federal, state, and other agencies. An appointment can include submitting a disability compensation or pension claim if your discharge paperwork supports it, so bring your DD-214.

MDVMF lists 16 Veteran Benefits Office locations. It gives hours as Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm, by appointment only, but some offices keep shorter hours (Rosedale is staffed only Wednesdays, 9am to 1pm), so call ahead. Its Baltimore regional office is listed at 31 Hopkins Plaza, Room 3020, with the phone numbers 410-230-4444 ext. 16450 and 800-446-4926 ext. 6450. Those numbers reach that one office, not a statewide line, so elsewhere in Maryland, call the office closest to you.

Charlotte Hall Veterans Home

The Charlotte Hall Veterans Home, the assisted living and skilled nursing facility for veterans presented by MDVMF, sits on a 126-acre campus in Charlotte Hall, in St. Mary's County, and has been in operation since 1985. The home offers a continuum of care on one campus: a 126-bed assisted living program and a 318-bed skilled nursing program, plus memory care in secure units and a 16-bed Women's Unit within skilled nursing. To be eligible, an applicant must be a Maryland veteran who served on full-time active duty (other than active duty for training) and was discharged or released under honorable conditions, and must be a Maryland resident who is at least 62 years old or deemed disabled by the Social Security Administration or the VA. The binding Maryland regulation is narrower: under 62, you must be disabled, unable to work, and receiving Social Security or VA disability benefits (a VA award of 70 percent or more, with one award of at least 40 percent), and the state's assisted living subsidy requires 2 years of Maryland residence before admission. Every veteran gets a VA per diem subsidy that reduces the cost of care, and what you pay from there depends on your resources: assisted living residents pay 90% of their monthly net income, never more than the full monthly cost, while nursing home cost is based on personal resources, long-term care insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid if you meet its eligibility requirements. 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 the home.

Maryland's Veteran Population

The VA's National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics puts Maryland's veteran population at 344,417 for 2025 in its FY2025 Maryland state summary, and 43.1 percent of those veterans are 65 or older. It's worth contacting an accredited service office early rather than waiting until a care crisis forces the issue.

A word of caution: MDVMF warns veterans to be cautious of unaccredited organizations that charge fees for claims assistance. The services an accredited VSO representative provides on VA benefit claims are always free. Only an accredited claims agent or attorney may charge you a fee at all, and only for representation provided 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.

How Aid and Attendance Works with Maryland Medicaid

Aid and Attendance and Maryland Medicaid long-term services and supports are run separately, by different agencies and under different rules. A veteran can receive both, but the two count money differently, so a few points are worth understanding.

  • A&A is a different program with its own tests. Aid and Attendance is a higher VA pension rate for veterans and survivors who qualify, for example because they need another person's help with daily activities (Housebound is a separate, lower allowance, and you can't get both at once), while Maryland Medicaid long-term care, administered by the Maryland Department of Health's Medical Assistance program, has its own income and asset rules for financial eligibility.
  • Income counting differs between the programs. At the eligibility step, Maryland 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 the income limit. That exclusion governs eligibility only. Once you are eligible and in a nursing facility, federal rules bring disregarded income back into the post-eligibility calculation (42 CFR 435.725), so A&A the VA still pays at the full rate can count there; ask Medical Assistance how Maryland treats it. That regulation first deducts five amounts, in this order: a personal needs allowance you keep, a maintenance allowance for a spouse still at home, one for other family at home, incurred medical or remedial expenses no third party pays, and any SSI or state supplementary payments you still receive. All five come out before the facility is paid, and a state may allow a short-term home-upkeep deduction too. These are nursing-facility rules; on a home and community-based waiver, ask Medical Assistance how the income is treated.
  • A nursing-home pension reduction can apply. Under 38 U.S.C. 5503(d), when a veteran with neither a spouse nor a child (or a surviving spouse with no child) is covered by Medicaid for nursing-facility care, no VA pension above $90 per month may be paid for any period after the month of admission, and the facility's Medicaid payment can't be reduced by the amount the veteran keeps. VA's regulation counts from the month Medicaid payments begin, so confirm the start month with the VA. The cap doesn't apply in a State veterans home where the VA pays a nursing-home per diem, so for Charlotte Hall, check with an accredited Veteran Service Officer. In such a State home, for a Medicaid-eligible veteran with no spouse or child (or a surviving spouse with no child), federal law counts pension above $90 a month, A&A included, only toward the home's nursing-care cost.
  • Confirm before you rely on it. Because the programs use different income and asset tests, confirm the exact effect on your benefits with Maryland Medicaid (Maryland Health Connection or your local Department of Social Services) or an accredited benefits counselor before you file.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does VA Aid and Attendance pay in Maryland in 2026?

The maximum depends on your situation. A veteran alone can receive up to $29,093 a year, a veteran with a spouse up to $34,488 a year, and a surviving spouse up to $18,697 a year. The VA pays monthly: the annual rate minus countable income, divided by 12 and rounded down. These are federal rates, identical in Maryland. Your actual payment is reduced by your countable income, and out-of-pocket medical expenses can lower that income and raise your benefit.

Where can I get free help applying in Maryland?

Contact the MDVMF Service Program, which has VA-accredited Benefits Specialists at 16 Veteran Benefits Office locations. Its Baltimore regional office, at 31 Hopkins Plaza, Room 3020, is listed at 410-230-4444 ext. 16450 or 800-446-4926 ext. 6450; those numbers reach that office only. Its services are free, and hours vary by office, so call ahead.

Can I receive Aid and Attendance and Maryland Medicaid at the same time?

Yes, you can. At the eligibility step Maryland 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 the income limit. In a nursing facility, A&A the VA still pays at the full rate can count in the post-eligibility calculation, after the deductions listed above; ask Medical Assistance how Maryland treats it, including on a waiver. One exception: when a single, childless veteran is already covered by Medicaid for nursing-facility care, federal law says no VA pension above $90 a month may be paid for any period after the month of admission (confirm the start month with the VA), and the facility's Medicaid payment can't be reduced by that $90. A State veterans home for which the VA pays a nursing-home per diem is outside this cap. Confirm your own numbers with Maryland Medicaid or a benefits counselor before applying.

How long does it take to get approved?

The VA's own answer is "It depends." It processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing. To avoid the VA coming back to you for more, have the medical examiner be detailed on VA Form 21-2680 and submit all supporting documents at once.

What if the VA denies my claim?

A denial isn't the end of the road. If the VA turns down your Aid and Attendance claim or grants less than you expected, you have three decision review options: a Supplemental Claim (submit new and relevant evidence the VA didn't have when it reviewed the case before), a Higher-Level Review (a higher-level reviewer re-examines the case to determine whether an error or a difference of opinion changes the decision, with no new evidence), or an appeal to the Board of Veterans' Appeals (a Veterans Law Judge reviews your case). For most VA benefits you have 1 year from the date on the decision letter to request a Higher-Level Review or a Board appeal; some benefits have shorter limits, and the decision letter states the deadline. A Supplemental Claim can be filed at any time, though the VA recommends filing within 1 year of the decision letter to keep your effective date. An accredited MDVMF specialist or a VSO representative can prepare and file the review for you at no charge, and the VA benefits hotline is 800-827-1000 (TTY 711).

Learn More

MedicaidMedicaid Planning StrategiesSee which assets you keep, how the 5-year look-back works, and the legal moves that qualify you for Medicaid long-term care without losing the house. Care TypesAssisted Living in MarylandAssisted living in Maryland runs about $7,172/month. What an Assisted Living Program is, who licenses it, what it costs, and how Medicaid and SOAR can help. Care TypesNursing Homes in MarylandNursing homes in Maryland in 2026: what a skilled nursing facility costs, how to check a facility's quality, and how Maryland Medicaid pays for long-term care. Care TypesMemory Care in MarylandMemory care in Maryland is an Assisted Living Program's Alzheimer's Special Care Unit. See the disclosure form, what it costs, and how to vet a place. Care TypesThe Cost of Senior Care in MarylandWhat senior care costs in Maryland in 2026: assisted living runs about $7,172 a month, a nursing home about $155,125 a year. See every setting and how to pay. Care TypesAssisted Living vs. Nursing Homes in MarylandAssisted living vs. a nursing home in Maryland comes down to care level and who pays: about $7,172/mo private-pay vs. roughly $155,125/yr for a nursing home.
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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.

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