VA Aid and Attendance for Assisted Living in Vermont (2026)

VA Aid and Attendance can help pay for assisted living in Vermont. It is a higher maximum pension rate, not a separate check: for a veteran with no dependents who qualifies, the maximum annual pension rises to $29,093, and to $34,488 with one dependent. The money goes to the family, and it can go toward assisted living costs in one of the more expensive states in the country for long-term care. If your parent or spouse served in wartime and now needs help with daily activities, this guide explains how the benefit works, what Vermont assisted living costs, and how to get free help applying through the state.1

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• How Much Assisted Living Costs in Vermont
• How Aid and Attendance Helps Pay for Assisted Living in Vermont
• How Assisted-Living Costs Lower Your Countable Income for Aid and Attendance in Vermont
• Who Qualifies
• How Aid and Attendance Works with Vermont Medicaid
• How to Apply and Get Free Help
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

How Much Assisted Living Costs in Vermont

Assisted living in Vermont runs well above national averages. Per the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey (released March 2026, the most recent state-level data), the median cost of assisted living in Vermont is about $103,137 per year (roughly $8,595 per month), about 39 percent above the national median of about $74,400 per year. Vermont ranks fifth in the country for assisted living cost.2

These are survey medians. Costs vary by facility, location, and level of care. Memory care and higher-acuity support add to the total, and costs typically rise as a resident's needs increase over time.

For most families, the gap between what a veteran can afford and what Vermont assisted living costs is significant. Aid and Attendance helps close that gap, lifting the pension ceiling to $29,093 a year for a veteran with no dependents, paid in cash the family can put toward care.1

How Aid and Attendance Helps Pay for Assisted Living in Vermont

Aid and Attendance is a higher VA pension rate for those who need another person's regular help with daily activities, are bedridden, are a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or have severely limited eyesight.3

2026 maximum annual pension rates:1

The VA publishes these figures as maximum annual pension rates. The monthly column is the annual amount divided by 12, which is how the VA itself works out a monthly payment. Note what the ceiling covers: it is the whole pension, the basic amount plus the Aid and Attendance increase, so a veteran with no dependents goes from a $17,441 basic rate to $29,093 at the Aid and Attendance level, not $29,093 on top of the basic pension. A ceiling is not an award: the Maximum Annual Pension Rate is the maximum amount of pension payable, and VA pays the difference between a claimant's income for VA purposes and that limit, so a veteran with other income receives less than the figures above.1

The pension is paid to the veteran or surviving spouse and can be spent on any care-related expense, including assisted living room and board, personal care services, and memory care. Aid and Attendance is not a payment to a facility: on the pension route it is paid as part of the monthly VA pension, and for a veteran drawing VA disability compensation instead it is added to that monthly payment. Either way, the family pays the assisted living community.5

The other thing a ceiling is not is a payment. The VA calculates what it owes as the difference between the household's income for VA purposes and the ceiling that applies, so a veteran with countable income left after deductions receives that much less, and $29,093 is what a household with countable income of zero would draw.1 The worked example further down this page shows a Vermont assisted living bill doing exactly that to a veteran's countable income.1

At its $29,093 ceiling, the pension covers roughly 28 percent of Vermont's median assisted living cost. Combined with Social Security, retirement income, and, where applicable, Vermont Medicaid, it can make the difference between affording care and running short.2

How Assisted-Living Costs Lower Your Countable Income for Aid and Attendance in Vermont

Aid and Attendance is a needs-based benefit: to be eligible, a veteran's yearly family income and net worth have to meet limits Congress sets, expressed as a maximum annual pension rate (MAPR). That makes the income the VA counts the number to focus on.

Here is the key: unreimbursed medical expenses (UMEs) reduce countable income. Only the portion of UMEs that exceeds 5 percent of the applicable MAPR is deductible, for 2026, that floor is $872 per year for a veteran with no spouse or child, and it rises for a veteran with dependents.1

Assisted living has its own branch of the rule, at 38 CFR 3.278(d)(3), covering a care facility other than a nursing home, and the expenses have to be unreimbursed to be deductible at all. Under that branch:1

• The care portion. Payments for health care provided by a health care provider are medical expenses. Payments for help with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living count even when the person providing that help is not a health care provider, but only if the resident is receiving health care or custodial care in the facility and either the resident needs aid and attendance or is housebound, or a physician, physician assistant, certified nurse practitioner, or clinical nurse specialist states in writing that, because of a physical, mental, developmental, or cognitive disorder, the resident needs to be in a protected environment.1
• Meals and lodging have a separate test at 3.278(d)(3)(iv). The room-and-board portion of the bill counts if the facility provides or contracts for the resident's health care or custodial care, or if one of those clinicians states in writing that the person must live in the facility (or a similar one) to receive health or custodial care from a third party, from family, or from friends.1
• The facility itself has to qualify under 3.278(b)(7): licensed, if Vermont requires facilities of that type to be licensed, and, if it is residential, staffed 24 hours a day with care providers, who do not have to be licensed health care providers.1

So a Vermont assisted living bill is deductible through those gates, not automatically in full because the resident lives in an assisted living community. A separate provision, at 3.278(d)(2), governs an in-home attendant and asks a different question, whether the individual requires the care the attendant provides, so do not read it onto a facility bill.1

In practice: Take a veteran with $24,000 a year in Social Security income living in a Vermont assisted living community at the state median of about $103,137 a year.2 If the charges on that bill clear the tests above, the deductible portion, less the $872 floor, can easily exceed $24,000, which would drive countable income to zero and unlock the maximum rate. Which charges qualify is the whole question, so have an accredited Veterans Service Officer go through the facility's itemized bill with you before you file.1

This UME offset means many veterans who appear over-income actually qualify once care costs are factored in. It is one of the most powerful and least understood features of the benefit.

Who Qualifies

To receive Aid and Attendance, a veteran must meet all four requirements:3

• Wartime service: The test turns on when active duty started, not on which war. 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 (World War II, Korea, Vietnam, 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, again with at least one day during wartime. A third branch covers officers: an officer who started active duty after October 16, 1981 and had not previously served on active duty for at least 24 months also meets this test.
• Discharge, age, or disability status: No dishonorable discharge, and at least one of these must be true: 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. Any one of the four satisfies this requirement on its own, so a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI qualifies here without any adjudicated permanent-and-total rating.
• Need for care: Meets the aid-and-attendance criteria at 38 CFR 3.352(a). Those include being unable to dress or undress or to keep oneself ordinarily clean and presentable, frequently needing to adjust a special prosthetic or orthopedic appliance, being unable to feed oneself, being unable to attend to the wants of nature, or having a physical or mental incapacity that requires care or assistance on a regular basis to protect against hazards of the daily environment. A veteran also qualifies by being bedridden, by being a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or by having eyesight of 5/200 or less in both eyes or a visual field contracted to 5 degrees or less. Moving into an assisted living community is not listed among these criteria, so the claim rests on the level of care your family member actually needs, not on where they live.
• Net worth under $163,699: The calculation includes the claimant's and dependents' assets and income for VA purposes.3 Assets exclude the primary residence, the car, and basic home items like appliances.1

The VA enforces a 3-year look-back period on asset transfers. Assets transferred for less than fair market value within three years of filing may trigger a penalty period.3

A surviving spouse of a wartime veteran can also qualify for Aid and Attendance through the Survivors Pension, where the maximum annual rate at the Aid and Attendance level is $18,697 with no dependents, against the same $163,699 net worth limit.1

How Aid and Attendance Works with Vermont Medicaid

Vermont Medicaid long-term care, administered by the Department of Vermont Health Access (DVHA), primarily through the Choices for Care program, is a separate program from Aid and Attendance, and a veteran may qualify for both.6

The two programs interact at two distinct steps. When Medicaid eligibility is determined, a state applies SSI income methodology to aged, blind, and disabled applicants, and under SSI rules a VA aid-and-attendance or housebound allowance is not income, so generally only the basic VA pension amount, not the Aid and Attendance increase, counts toward the income limit; states that use eligibility criteria more restrictive than SSI may count it, so the state's own rule governs there.6

At the second step, once a person is eligible and receiving long-term care services, the federal baseline at 42 CFR 435.725 is that income disregarded at the eligibility step must be considered in the patient-share calculation, with incurred medical expenses then deducted. Vermont's own rule is more generous than that baseline for nursing-facility residents: Vermont's Health Benefits Eligibility and Enrollment rule section 24.04, on allowable deductions from patient share, lists "VA payments for aid and attendance paid to a veteran residing in a nursing facility or to the veteran's surviving spouse residing in a nursing facility" among the items deducted from the individual's gross income when the actual patient share is worked out. That deduction as written names nursing-facility residents, so it does not tell you how Aid and Attendance is treated in an assisted living residence or under Choices for Care; ask DVHA directly about a home and community-based setting.6

Separately, under 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(2), a veteran having neither spouse nor 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 period after the month of admission, and 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(5)(A) applies the same rule to a surviving spouse having no child. Which facilities that cap reaches turns on a definition: for purposes of that subsection, 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(1)(B) defines a nursing facility as one described in section 1919 of the Social Security Act, "other than 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", so if the facility is a State veterans home, ask a Vermont Veterans Service Officer to check the stay against that statutory definition rather than assume the cap applies.6 Under 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(3), the payment a nursing facility receives under a Medicaid plan may not be reduced by any amount of the pension the beneficiary is permitted to keep, and the VA describes the effect of that anti-offset rule this way: "your facility can't count this monthly payment as income toward your cost of care. You would keep the full $90 for personal expenses." That statement is about the facility's cost of care. It does not settle how the $90 relates to Vermont's Medicaid personal needs allowance, which is a separate deduction taken under the state's own post-eligibility rules, and whether a state treats the $90 as additional to its personal needs allowance or in place of it varies from state to state. Confirm with DVHA how the $90 would be applied in your family member's case.6

Because the precise treatment of VA pension income depends on the individual's living situation and Vermont Medicaid rules, families should confirm how DVHA will treat the benefit with an accredited Vermont Veterans Service Officer or the DVHA before relying on a specific outcome.

How to Apply and Get Free Help

VA Form 21-2680 serves two routes. The VA describes it as the form used to apply for Aid and Attendance benefits "that will be added to your monthly compensation or pension benefits," so a veteran who already draws VA disability compensation uses the same examination form on the compensation side. The steps below are the pension route, which is the one this guide covers, and the VA's condition for it is that "You may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension."5

• VA Form 21-0966 (Intent to File), for a claimant still gathering information. 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 filing it first protects the date while you assemble the rest.
• VA Form 21-2680 (Examination for Housebound Status or Permanent Need for Regular Aid and Attendance): a medical examiner must fill out the examination information section, documenting the need for care.
• VA Form 21P-527EZ (Application for Veterans Pension): the financial and service-history application, filed by a wartime veteran pursuing the pension route who is not already receiving VA pension.

Forms can be submitted online at VA.gov, mailed to the VA Pension Intake Center, or filed in person at a VA regional office; an accredited attorney, accredited claims agent, or accredited Veterans Service Organization representative can also file the claim for you. Asked how long a decision takes, the VA's answer is "It depends." It processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing.5

Get free help in Vermont. The Vermont Office of Veterans Affairs administers a free, accredited Veterans Service Officer program. Its certified service officers help veterans applying for federal VA benefits, including VA pension and Aid and Attendance, completing the application and making sure the VA has everything it needs to process it. The VA says the services an accredited VSO representative provides on a VA benefit claim are always free.4 An accredited attorney or claims agent, by contrast, can charge you fees for their services.

Reach the Vermont Office of Veterans Affairs VSO program toll-free at (888) 666-9844 or by office phone at (802) 828-3379. The office is located at 118 State Street, Montpelier, VT 05620-4401.4

Compare Care Settings in Vermont

Aid and Attendance can help pay for any care setting. See how it works for the others:

• How Aid and Attendance Pays for a Nursing Home in Vermont
• How Aid and Attendance Pays for In-Home Care in Vermont
• How Aid and Attendance Pays for Memory Care in Vermont

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.