VA Pension With Aid and Attendance: Does Your Parent Qualify?

Your veteran parent qualifies for VA pension with Aid and Attendance on four tests: wartime service, age 65 or older, net worth of $163,699 or less (home and car left out), and yearly income under $29,093 after VA subtracts care costs, or $34,488 if married. Aid and Attendance (A&A) adds a care test: a doctor documents that your parent needs regular help with daily tasks or supervision to stay safe, or lives in a nursing home. Today, file an intent to file at VA.gov or 800-827-1000 to hold the back-pay start date. Care bills your parent pays come off income, so a widowed father with $30,000 a year in Social Security and pensions who pays $4,500 a month for assisted living gets the full rate: $2,424 a month, tax-free.

These figures apply through November 30, 2026; on December 1, 2026, they rise by Social Security's 2027 increase, 3.6%. If the veteran has died, the surviving spouse uses our Survivors Pension guide instead.

The four tests and this year's numbers

Service

A parent who started active duty before September 8, 1980, needs 90 days of it, with at least 1 day in a wartime period. Enlisted members who started later, and officers who started after October 16, 1981, need 24 months or their full call-up period, plus that wartime day. Stateside service counts. The wartime periods: World War II (December 7, 1941, to December 31, 1946), Korea (June 27, 1950, to January 31, 1955), Vietnam era (August 5, 1964, to May 7, 1975, or from November 1, 1955, for service in Vietnam itself) and the Gulf War (August 2, 1990, to now). A dishonorable discharge rules pension out; other than honorable and bad conduct discharges get a VA Character of Discharge review.

Age or disability

Age 65 settles this test and needs no medical records; the A&A part does. A younger parent qualifies through a permanent and total disability, long-term nursing home care, or SSDI or SSI.

Net worth and income

Net worth is assets, including a spouse's, plus yearly countable income. The home (up to 2 acres), car and household goods stay out, even after your parent moves to a nursing home, assisted living or your house. Savings, stocks, bonds and other real estate count, as does cash from selling the house, and rent from the empty house counts as income.

Income means gross Social Security, pensions, interest, dividends, IRA withdrawals and a spouse's income. VA subtracts unreimbursed medical costs above a deductible: $872 a year for a veteran alone, $1,141 with a spouse. The pension is the Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR) minus the income left, paid monthly.

Each additional dependent adds $2,984.

The care test

VA grants A&A when your parent needs regular help to dress, bathe, eat, use the toilet or keep clean; needs supervision to stay safe from everyday hazards, as with dementia; must stay in bed because of illness; is a nursing home patient because of mental or physical incapacity; or has corrected vision of 5/200 or worse in both eyes. The need must be regular, not constant, and help you give counts the same as paid help. Housebound pays less, so claim A&A.

How care costs bring income down

VA counts only care paid from your parent's or the spouse's money, so pay the bills from your parent's account, never your own.

• Nursing home: the whole bill, meals and lodging included.
• Assisted living: the whole monthly fee, rent and meals included, when a facility licensed as your state requires, with care staff around the clock, provides or arranges your parent's personal care.
• Home care: hourly pay to an aide or agency for help with daily tasks. Once VA finds the A&A need, an unlicensed aide counts too.
• The rest: adult day care, Medicare and other health insurance premiums, long-term care insurance, prescriptions, equipment and mileage to appointments.

VA accepts a 12-month estimate of predictable costs such as facility fees.

Example with made-up numbers: if that father with $30,000 of income stayed home with an aide 10 hours a week at $30 an hour ($15,600 a year), $14,728 of it would count after the $872 deductible. His countable income would be $15,272 and his pension $13,821, about $1,151 a month.

What to do today

1. Lock the start date. File an intent to file online, at 800-827-1000 (weekdays, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET) or on VA Form 21-0966. Your parent then has 1 year to file, and an approval pays back to that date.
2. Book the doctor. Take VA Form 21-2680 to your parent's doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner. You fill in and sign Sections I to V; the examiner completes Sections VI to VIII. If your parent lives in a nursing home or assisted living, a facility official also completes VA Form 21-0779.
3. Get the care paperwork. The application, VA Form 21P-527EZ, ends with care worksheets for the facility or the home care aide or agency to fill in. Add canceled checks or bank statements from your parent's account as proof of payment.
4. Collect income and bank statements, the spouse's too. Assets over $75,000 (home excluded), five or more income sources, or any asset transfer in the last three calendar years also need VA Form 21P-0969. A missing DD214 can wait; VA requests it.
5. Settle the signatures. If dementia or illness keeps your parent from signing or answering accurately, you sign Section XIV as the relative responsible for their care. Have your parent sign VA Form 21-0845 so VA can discuss the claim with you.
6. File online at VA.gov, through QuickSubmit, by mail to Department of Veterans Affairs, Pension Intake Center, PO Box 5365, Janesville, WI 53547-5365, or at a VA regional office. At 85 or older, or if terminally ill, add VA Form 20-10207 for priority processing.

Where your case splits

• If your parent is on Medicaid in a nursing home with no spouse or dependent child, pension stops at $90 a month. File anyway: your parent keeps the $90, which the facility must leave out of its bill.
• If your parent already gets VA disability compensation, VA pays the greater benefit, never both. For A&A tied to a service-connected condition, see our Special Monthly Compensation guide.
• If the veteran is healthy and the spouse needs care, the claim runs at the one-dependent rate, $22,839. The spouse's unlicensed aide or assisted living care counts once the spouse's doctor, PA or NP states in writing, on a 21-2680 or a letter, that the spouse needs it. If both parents are wartime veterans, the rate is $34,488 when one needs A&A and $46,143 when both do.
• If net worth is over $163,699, paying for care and living costs brings it down. Gifts and below-value sales in the 36 months before the claim, including money locked in a trust or annuity, set a penalty: the amount over the limit, divided by $2,874, is the number of months without pension, up to 5 years, counted from the month after the last gift.

What you can get and your leverage

• Back pay for the months between the intent to file and the approval. When care costs rise, report them on VA Form 21P-8416.
• A denial review: our decision review guide matches the denial reason to a lane; a Higher-Level Review is due within 1 year of the letter. After a net worth denial, send VA a certified statement within 1 year once savings drop under the limit, and pension starts the day they dropped.
• Penalty fixes: VA recalculates or erases a penalty if the money comes back within 60 days of its notice, with proof to VA within 90 days. A transfer made through an adviser's fraud or unfair sales practice carries none once reported to authorities such as your state attorney general; send VA the complaint.
• Free help: accredited Veterans Service Organization (VSO) representatives handle pension claims free; find one with VA's accredited representative search.

VA warns about pension poachers who charge to qualify a parent by moving savings into trusts or annuities; VA says no one can legally charge to prepare or file a VA application. The pension goes to the veteran, not a caregiver who wants it in their own account; if VA finds your parent unable to manage the money, it appoints a fiduciary, and your parent can suggest you. Report poachers at 800-827-1000, ReportFraud.ftc.gov or your state attorney general.

Bring in a VA-accredited attorney when VA sets a penalty period or denies over net worth; they can charge only after VA's decision.

Note to the doctor

Dr. [name]: My [father/mother], [full name, date of birth], is applying for VA pension with Aid and Attendance. Please complete and sign Sections VI to VIII of the enclosed VA Form 21-2680, including your NPI number. List each task [he/she] needs help with (bathing, dressing, eating, toileting), how often, the diagnosis behind it, and any memory problems that require someone to watch over [him/her]. Please return it to [name, phone] by [date]. Thank you, [your name].

Today

File the intent to file, book the 21-2680 visit, and ask the care provider for its worksheet. VA can then request more forms or an exam; go to any exam it sets and track the claim with VA's claim status tool. An approval letter starts monthly payments, with back pay to the intent-to-file date.