8 Veterans Benefits Virginia Retirees Are Losing Money By Not Claiming

Virginia has one of the largest veteran populations in America, and a startling number of them are paying taxes they don’t owe.

Not out of pride. Out of paperwork.

The benefits sit on a state website nobody reads, behind forms nobody mails you. A veteran who never applies for these benefits never gets them.

These eight are the unused benefits costing Virginia veterans the most.

Note: This is general information, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Program rules and dollar amounts are subject to change, so confirm the current details with your local Commissioner of the Revenue or an accredited representative.

1. The $40,000 Military Benefits Subtraction

A veteran 55 or older can subtract up to $40,000 of military retirement income from Virginia taxable income.

Forty thousand dollars, off the top.

It covers military retirement pay and Survivor Benefit Plan payments to a veteran’s surviving spouse, and the cap climbed from $30,000 on 2024 returns to $40,000 on 2025 returns and later.

It goes on the Virginia return as a subtraction. Skip the line, lose the money.

2. The Property Tax Exemption That Zeroes the Bill

A veteran with a 100% service-connected, permanent, and total disability rating pays no real estate tax on their principal residence in Virginia.

None. The house and up to an acre.

Here’s the part Virginia veterans miss: A rating below 100% still qualifies if the VA pays at the 100% rate for individual unemployability and rates the condition permanent and total.

The application goes to the local Commissioner of the Revenue with the VA documentation, and it starts with you.

3. The Surviving Spouse Keeps It

The exemption doesn’t die with the veteran, and this is the single most expensive thing widows in this state don’t know.

The surviving spouse keeps it, as long as they don’t remarry.

Since July 1, 2019, that spouse can even move to a different Virginia locality and take the exemption to the new house, and a separate exemption covers the surviving spouse of a service member who died in the line of duty.

4. The Car in the Driveway

Virginia taxes vehicles, which shocks every retiree who moves here, and a 100% disabled veteran is exempt on one of them.

One car or pickup, registered for personal use.

Voters put it in the state constitution in 2020 and it took effect January 1, 2021, and if either spouse in a married couple holds the 100% rating, the vehicle can qualify.

Separately, many localities offer a reduced vehicle tax rate to veterans who are blind or who lost the use of a limb. Ask your county whether it does.

5. The Wartime Pension Nobody Mentions

This one isn’t military retirement, and it isn’t disability compensation. It’s a third thing, and most Virginia veterans have never heard of it.

The Veterans Pension pays a monthly benefit to wartime veterans who are 65 or older, or permanently and totally disabled, with income and net worth under the limits Congress sets.

One day of service during a recognized wartime period is the bar, and the periods run from World War II through Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War, which stays open to this day.

Your house and your car don’t count toward the net worth test.

6. Aid and Attendance on Top of It

If you already get that pension and you need help with daily living, the VA adds money to the check.

Aid and Attendance is for veterans who need another person to help with bathing, dressing, or eating, who spend most of the day in bed from illness, or who are in a nursing home because of a disability. A Housebound allowance covers veterans confined to their home by permanent disability.

The catch is the order of operations: The add-on only exists on top of the pension, so a veteran who never applied for the pension can’t get it.

Surviving spouses can qualify too.

7. The Lifetime License

A resident disabled veteran in Virginia can get a lifetime hunting and fishing license from the Department of Wildlife Resources.

Lifetime. Not annual.

It’s a small number next to a property tax exemption, and it’s also thirty years of renewal fees a Virginia veteran never has to think about again.

8. Free College for the Family

The Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program waives tuition and mandatory fees at Virginia’s public colleges for the spouse and children of a veteran the VA rates totally and permanently disabled, or at least 90% permanently disabled from service.

Eight semesters. Four years.

Children qualify between 16 and 29, spouses have their own track, and a second tier covers the families of those killed, taken prisoner, or lost in combat.

Applications have target dates, July 1 for a fall start, and a family that misses them pays the bill while the paperwork catches up.

Nobody Should Charge You for This

Here’s the last thing, and it matters more than any single benefit on this list.

Help with these claims is free.

The Virginia Department of Veterans Services runs benefits offices across the state, and accredited representatives file claims at no charge, which means any outfit asking a Virginia veteran for a cut of a retroactive award is taking money that was never theirs.

Call the state at 844-838-7838 and bring your discharge paperwork, the DD-214.

And while you’re at it, the rest of what Virginia does and doesn’t tax is worth an hour of your time. The same rule runs through all of it: What you don’t claim, you don’t get.