What is the Eye Conditions VA claim approval rate at the Board?

Across 32,489 eye conditions issues decided by the Board of Veterans' Appeals in 2009–2025, 15.7% were granted, 41.8% denied and 33.6% remanded. Of the issues the Board decided on the merits, 27.3% were granted. Source: VetAid analysis of 1,340,998 published BVA decisions.

Why are eye conditions claims denied?

In a hand-tagged sample of 375 Board decisions involving eye conditions, the leading reason was VA failed its duty to assist, appearing in 34.9% of them - not veteran credibility, which appears far less often.

Can tinnitus be rated higher than 10% in 2026?

The maximum schedular rating remains 10%. However, you can pursue extraschedular ratings under 38 CFR § 3.321(b)(1) for exceptional cases, or focus on secondary conditions which have no rating caps.

What's the most valuable secondary condition for tinnitus?

Depression and anxiety disorders offer the highest potential ratings (up to 100%) and are commonly caused by chronic tinnitus. Sleep disorders are also valuable, with ratings up to 50%.

Do I need an audiogram to prove tinnitus?

No. Tinnitus is considered a lay-competent condition under Charles v. Principi. Your testimony about the ringing is sufficient evidence. However, audiograms can help establish noise-induced hearing damage that supports your tinnitus claim.

Why do so many tinnitus claims get denied?

Based on our analysis of 148 cases, 42.8% are denied because service connection was not established, and 14.5% on credibility findings. Most denials stem from inadequate documentation of military noise exposure.

Can bilateral tinnitus get a higher rating than unilateral?

No. The VA rates tinnitus at 10% regardless of whether it affects one or both ears. This is why secondary conditions become critical for fair compensation reflecting the true impact of your tinnitus.

Eye Conditions VA Claim Approval Rate: What the Board Actually Decided (2009–2025)

Across 32,489 eye conditions issues the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decided in 2009–2025, 15.7% were granted, 41.8% denied and 33.6% remanded. From 1,340,998 published BVA decisions, updated nightly.

32,489

Eye Conditions issues the Board decided, 2009–2025

Most guidance on eye conditions claims explains what the regulation says. This page reports what the Board did — every eye conditions issue in the 1,340,998 Board of Veterans’ Appeals decisions VetAid has parsed from the published record, counted at the issue level the way the Board itself reports.

What would this rating pay you? (2026 rates)

Official 2026 VA monthly compensation, including the 2.8% COLA increase.

Rating Married Children

per month · per year, tax-free

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

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Outcomes, 2009–2025

Disposition	Issues	Share
Granted	5,101	15.7%
Denied	13,589	41.8%
Remanded — sent back rather than decided	10,904	33.6%
Dismissed	2,596	8.0%
Withdrawn, vacated, moot, referred	299	0.9%

Of the issues the Board decided on the merits — granted or denied, leaving remands aside — 27.3% were granted. See the live Eye Conditions 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
2009	1,234	19.2%	73.7%	2.1%
2010	1,056	26.4%	65.7%	2.1%
2011	996	30.7%	60.2%	2.0%
2012	815	29.1%	60.1%	2.8%
2013	851	28.3%	60.9%	2.2%
2014	1,057	25.6%	61.9%	3.1%
2015	928	27.2%	60.3%	2.6%
2016	880	25.0%	61.6%	2.5%
2017	1,111	23.7%	64.2%	2.6%
2018	1,173	17.9%	50.0%	24.6%
2019	3,426	10.2%	36.1%	46.4%
2020	3,240	9.5%	36.1%	47.0%
2021	3,044	10.5%	31.9%	48.9%
2022	3,162	12.1%	28.1%	50.5%
2023	3,188	10.4%	29.0%	51.3%
2024	3,232	11.7%	32.5%	44.3%
2025	3,096	16.7%	34.9%	36.5%

Why these claims actually fail

The full corpus records what the Board decided, not why. For the why, VetAid hand-tagged a smaller sample: 375 Board decisions involving eye conditions. A decision may carry more than one reason, so shares can exceed 100%.

Reason stated in the decision	Decisions	Share of 375
VA failed its duty to assist	131	34.9%
no medical nexus	94	25.1%
evidence not new and material	50	13.3%
lay evidence held not competent	25	6.7%
inadequate C&P examination	18	4.8%

Note what leads: VA failed its duty to assist, in 34.9% 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 125 decisions
Shedden v. Principi — cited in 108 decisions
Rodriguez v. Peake — cited in 107 decisions
Jandreau v. Nicholson — cited in 102 decisions
Hart v. Mansfield — cited in 84 decisions

Regulations most often applied (tagged sample)

38 CFR 20.1303 — 375 decisions
38 CFR 3.102 — 249 decisions
38 USC 1110 — 181 decisions
38 USC 1155 — 178 decisions
38 CFR 4.1 — 139 decisions
38 CFR 3.303 — 124 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.

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Method and provenance

Outcomes: 32,489 issues involving eye conditions in 30,069 decisions, drawn from 1,340,998 public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decisions (2007-06-01 to 2026-04-30) at va.gov/vetapp, parsed at the issue level. The headline rates use complete years only (2009–2025); the corpus also holds 33,725 such issues across all years downloaded so far. Decisions the parser could not read cleanly (82,386) 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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