Depression VA Claim Approval Rate: What the Board Actually Decided (1992–2025)
Across 101,204 depression issues the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decided in 1992–2025, 27.6% were granted, 25.8% denied and 40.7% remanded. From 1,929,585 published BVA decisions, updated nightly.
Most guidance on depression claims explains what the regulation says. This page reports what the Board did — every depression issue in the 1,929,585 Board of Veterans’ Appeals decisions VetAid has parsed from the published record, counted at the issue level the way the Board itself reports. Matched on the wording of each decided issue, because the corpus lexicon files this condition under a wider psychiatric bucket.
Official 2026 VA monthly compensation, including the 2.8% COLA increase.
Dependent add-ons start at a 30% rating. Child-only and dependent-parent rates: see the full 2026 pay chart.
2026 base rates, all ratings (veteran alone)
| Rating | Monthly (2026, incl. 2.8% COLA) |
|---|---|
| 10% | $180.42 |
| 20% | $356.66 |
| 30% | $552.47 |
| 40% | $795.84 |
| 50% | $1,132.90 |
| 60% | $1,435.02 |
| 70% | $1,808.45 |
| 80% | $2,102.15 |
| 90% | $2,362.30 |
| 100% | $3,938.58 |
Outcomes, 1992–2025
| Disposition | Issues | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Granted | 27,932 | 27.6% |
| Denied | 26,102 | 25.8% |
| Remanded — sent back rather than decided | 41,176 | 40.7% |
| Dismissed | 5,362 | 5.3% |
| Withdrawn, vacated, moot, referred | 632 | 0.6% |
Of the issues the Board decided on the merits — granted or denied, leaving remands aside — 51.7% were granted. See the live Depression decision list.
By year
Only years the crawl has fully exhausted are shown; the current year and any year still downloading are left out so a partial year cannot pose as a trend.
| Year | Issues | Granted | Denied | Remanded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 345 | 19.1% | 19.1% | 61.7% |
| 1993 | 239 | 23.0% | 20.9% | 56.1% |
| 1994 | 287 | 23.0% | 18.8% | 55.7% |
| 1995 | 302 | 23.5% | 17.5% | 53.6% |
| 1996 | 442 | 24.9% | 26.2% | 47.1% |
| 1997 | 518 | 14.1% | 33.4% | 51.9% |
| 1998 | 540 | 16.3% | 42.8% | 39.3% |
| 1999 | 635 | 20.2% | 47.4% | 32.0% |
| 2000 | 662 | 23.7% | 42.1% | 33.1% |
| 2001 | 577 | 16.8% | 25.6% | 55.6% |
| 2002 | 394 | 29.4% | 55.1% | 14.7% |
| 2003 | 858 | 18.1% | 19.5% | 61.5% |
| 2004 | 795 | 15.1% | 27.5% | 56.5% |
| 2005 | 905 | 17.6% | 41.2% | 40.0% |
| 2006 | 1,063 | 17.2% | 44.5% | 37.4% |
| 2007 | 1,297 | 16.7% | 43.3% | 38.2% |
| 2008 | 1,596 | 19.4% | 42.5% | 36.1% |
| 2009 | 1,740 | 21.8% | 36.8% | 38.4% |
| 2010 | 2,040 | 24.0% | 28.8% | 44.7% |
| 2011 | 2,112 | 24.3% | 23.3% | 50.0% |
| 2012 | 2,117 | 25.2% | 22.8% | 49.3% |
| 2013 | 2,159 | 23.5% | 21.3% | 51.3% |
| 2014 | 2,903 | 23.9% | 20.8% | 52.5% |
| 2015 | 3,160 | 24.5% | 19.7% | 52.4% |
| 2016 | 3,050 | 27.0% | 19.3% | 49.9% |
| 2017 | 3,795 | 26.2% | 25.0% | 45.0% |
| 2018 | 6,613 | 32.0% | 19.6% | 42.4% |
| 2019 | 9,024 | 27.1% | 24.0% | 44.1% |
| 2020 | 8,149 | 27.1% | 26.6% | 40.5% |
| 2021 | 6,878 | 28.7% | 24.9% | 39.3% |
| 2022 | 6,858 | 29.3% | 21.7% | 41.3% |
| 2023 | 8,356 | 29.4% | 21.5% | 40.1% |
| 2024 | 9,946 | 32.2% | 26.2% | 31.9% |
| 2025 | 10,849 | 33.6% | 30.2% | 26.4% |
Why these claims actually fail
The full corpus records what the Board decided, not why. For the why, VetAid hand-tagged a smaller sample: 208 Board decisions involving depression. A decision may carry more than one reason, so shares can exceed 100%.
| Reason stated in the decision | Decisions | Share of 208 |
|---|---|---|
| VA failed its duty to assist | 84 | 40.4% |
| no medical nexus | 41 | 19.7% |
| evidence not new and material | 26 | 12.5% |
| lay evidence held not competent | 10 | 4.8% |
| inadequate C&P examination | 8 | 3.8% |
Note what leads: VA failed its duty to assist, in 40.4% of the tagged decisions. Most published advice tells veterans to shore up their own credibility. In this record credibility findings sit near the bottom — the far more common failure is procedural, and it is VA’ burden, not the veteran’.
Authorities the Board relied on (tagged sample)
- Lynch v. Mc — cited in 65 decisions
- Shedden v. Principi — cited in 60 decisions
- Rodriguez v. Peake — cited in 58 decisions
- Claudio v. Shinseki — cited in 50 decisions
- Jandreau v. Nicholson — cited in 43 decisions
Regulations most often applied (tagged sample)
- 38 CFR 20.1303 — 208 decisions
- 38 CFR 3.102 — 134 decisions
- 38 USC 1155 — 101 decisions
- 38 USC 1110 — 89 decisions
- 38 CFR 4.7 — 75 decisions
- 38 CFR 4.1 — 74 decisions
Want to know which of these patterns your own claim matches? VetAid checks your claim against this decision record. Free, and we never take a cut of your back pay.
See what my depression claim is missingMethod and provenance
Outcomes: 101,204 issues involving depression in 97,275 decisions, drawn from 1,929,585 public Board of Veterans’ Appeals
decisions (1992-03-30 to 2026-07-31) at va.gov/vetapp, parsed at the issue level. The headline rates use complete years only
(1992–2025); the corpus also holds 106,851 such issues across all years downloaded so far. Decisions the parser could not
read cleanly (23,206) are excluded from the rates. This page is regenerated automatically each night
by data_moat/gen_outcome_pages.py as the crawl grows. Board-wide rates by condition and judge:
/bva/outcomes.
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