Tinnitus is the most common VA disability, reflecting how much intense noise military service involves: VA's 2025 benefits report counts 3,583,295 tinnitus disabilities among compensation recipients, and it is rated at a flat 10%. The article on noise-induced tinnitus covers hearing damage from loud sound broadly, including occupational exposure; military service is one of the most consistent, well-documented sources of that exposure, and the numbers reflect it directly.
The scale of this, in real numbers
The Veterans Benefits Administration's 2025 Annual Benefits Report lists tinnitus as the most prevalent service-connected disability among all veterans receiving compensation at the end of fiscal year 2025, at 3,583,295, well ahead of limitation of knee flexion at 2,312,985. Hearing loss is sixth, at 1,690,837. These are counts of disabilities, not of veterans, and the report asks readers to note the difference: one veteran may be compensated for several conditions, which is why its 46,496,235 service-connected disabilities far outnumber the 6,338,253 veterans receiving compensation.
VA's research pages give an older figure, counted in veterans: more than 2.3 million veterans receiving compensation for tinnitus in fiscal year 2020, against more than 1.3 million for hearing loss, citing the Veterans Benefits Administration compensation report. VA describes tinnitus outright as the number-one disability among veterans.
Why military service produces this pattern so consistently
The exposures behind this are the classic causes of noise-induced tinnitus: firearms discharge, explosions and blasts, aircraft and vehicle engine noise, and machinery — all delivered at intensities and durations civilian life rarely matches, often without adequate hearing protection available or practical to use in the moment (a combat or training environment doesn't always allow for pausing to insert earplugs). This concentrated, often unprotected noise exposure is precisely the risk pattern that makes noise-induced tinnitus so common in this specific population.
How the VA rating works
Tinnitus is rated under Diagnostic Code 6260, at a flat 10% disability rating regardless of whether it affects one ear or both — a specific, well-established rating category distinct from hearing loss itself, which is rated separately and can compound with tinnitus to affect overall disability percentage. As of 2026, that 10% rating corresponds to $180.42 per month for veterans with no other service-connected conditions (VA's published rate from 1 December 2025), though many veterans have tinnitus alongside other conditions that affect total compensation. How claims work in practice, and how the UK, Canada and Australia handle tinnitus, is covered in tinnitus disability claims by country.
What the regulation currently says, and what circulates online
An earlier version of this article stated that a change effective after April 2025 had eliminated tinnitus as a standalone rating for new claims. That was wrong, and it is corrected here. Checking the regulation itself, Diagnostic Code 6260 — "Tinnitus, recurrent", 10 percent — is still in 38 CFR 4.87 as published, with its three notes intact: a tinnitus evaluation may be combined with certain other codes, only a single evaluation is assigned regardless of which ear, and objective tinnitus is rated under its underlying cause instead.
The confusion is not invented out of nothing. VA has floated proposals to revise how the ear schedule treats tinnitus, and articles about those proposals circulate widely without making clear that a proposal is not a regulation. What matters for anyone filing is the text in force, and the text in force still contains the standalone rating.
The most concrete of those proposals was published in the Federal Register on 15 February 2022. It would delete Diagnostic Code 6260 and evaluate tinnitus only as part of its underlying condition, allowing a separate 10% for tinnitus tied to hearing loss only while the hearing loss itself is rated at 0%. It remains a proposed rule, and the proposal states that existing tinnitus ratings would be governed by 38 CFR 3.951(a), VA's rule on preserving ratings when the schedule changes.
Regulations do change, and this page can go stale between edits. Check VA.gov or an accredited Veterans Service Organization for current status before filing rather than relying on any article, this one included.
Before filing a claim
- If you're a veteran with new or worsening tinnitus and haven't filed a claim, get current guidance from an accredited Veterans Service Organization (free) rather than from articles — including this one. A great deal of what circulates about VA tinnitus rating changes describes proposals as though they were already in force
- Documentation of in-service noise exposure (military occupational specialty, combat exposure, documented hearing tests during service) is the kind of evidence that supports a service-connection claim — worth gathering before filing
- Tinnitus commonly occurs alongside other service-connected conditions (hearing loss, PTSD, TBI) — a claim considering the fuller picture, not tinnitus in isolation, is often more accurate to how these conditions cluster together
- Management is the same whatever the cause — the approaches in building a tinnitus coping plan don't differ based on whether tinnitus is service-connected
The conditions tinnitus arrives with
The condition it most often arrives with is not a hearing problem. Among treatment-seeking post-9/11 veterans, two thirds have tinnitus and more than a third have tinnitus, PTSD and traumatic brain injury together — and what the research says about that combination includes the possibility that some symptoms attributed to trauma are tinnitus distress.