State veteran benefits · HI
Hawaii Veteran Benefits
A totally disabled Hawaii veteran's owner-occupied home is exempt from real property tax in every county, subject only to each county's small minimum tax.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What Hawaii adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what Hawaii itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Property tax relief
Hawaii property tax runs through the four counties, and each one exempts the home a totally disabled veteran owns and occupies. On Oahu, the City and County of Honolulu grants a full exemption, except for the minimum tax, when the total disability was incurred while on active duty, and the exemption continues for an unremarried widow or widower.
Honolulu uses claim Form E-8-10.5, filed on or before June 30 for the first payment or December 31 for the second. The state Office of Veterans' Services confirms comparable exemptions for totally disabled veterans or their widow(er)s in Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai counties, each with its own county filing process.
SOURCE: City and County of Honolulu Real Property Assessment Division · retrieved 2026-07-10
Income tax on military retired pay
Hawaii does not tax employer-funded pension income. Under HRS sections 235-7(a)(2) and (3), pensions paid by public or private employers are not subject to Hawaii income tax when the employee did not contribute to the plan, which is exactly how military retired pay works. VA disability compensation is not taxed by any state or by the IRS.
The carve-outs cut the other way for elective savings: 401(k), Thrift Savings Plan, and similar employee-funded distributions are taxable in Hawaii, so a retiree drawing both a military pension and TSP should not assume both are exempt.
SOURCE: Hawaii Department of Taxation · retrieved 2026-07-10
Education benefits
Hawaii's state-funded education money runs through the National Guard, not through veteran status. The State Tuition Assistance Program reimburses Hawaii Army National Guard soldiers 100% of tuition for courses toward a first undergraduate degree and 50% toward a first master's degree in the University of Hawaii system, paid after completing each class with a C- or better.
Hawaii has no general state tuition waiver for separated veterans, so most Hawaii veterans lean on the Post-9/11 GI Bill; joining the Guard is the route to state tuition help on top of it.
SOURCE: Hawaii Army National Guard · retrieved 2026-07-10
State hiring preference
In open competitive recruitments for Hawaii state civil service jobs, veterans receive 5 preference points with a DD214 (Member 4) showing honorable service, and 10 points with a VA or armed service letter dated within the past 12 months confirming qualification, which generally means a service-connected disability.
SOURCE: Hawaii Department of Human Resources Development · retrieved 2026-07-10
State veterans homes
Hawaii runs two state veterans homes: the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home in Hilo on Hawaii Island, with 24-hour skilled nursing, short-term rehabilitation, and long-term placement, and the 120-bed Daniel Kahikina Akaka State Veterans Home in Kapolei on Oahu.
SOURCE: Office of Veterans' Services · retrieved 2026-07-10
State and county veterans cemeteries
The Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery sits in Kaneohe on Oahu, and county-run veterans cemeteries operate on Hawaii Island (Hilo and Kailua-Kona), Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kauai, so interment near home is possible on every major island.
SOURCE: Office of Veterans' Services · retrieved 2026-07-10
Vehicle registration fee exemption
A Hawaii resident veteran with a 100% service-connected disability rating and an honorable discharge is exempt from the $46 state vehicle registration fee, and the Office of Veterans' Services provides free certified copies of a DD-214 it has on file.
SOURCE: Office of Veterans' Services · retrieved 2026-07-10
Hawaii’s stack is narrow but deep at the top. If you are rated permanently and totally disabled and you own the roof over your head, the counties essentially remove your property tax bill, and in a state where the median Oahu home clears a million dollars, that exemption is worth more per year than most mainland states’ full benefit lists combined. The catch is the shape of the benefit: it rewards the disabled veteran who already owns, and does almost nothing for the 40% rated renter in Ewa Beach paying mainland-topping rents.
Two details separate the veterans who capture the property exemption from those who leave it on the table. First, it is a county benefit, not a state one, so you file with your county’s real property office on the county’s forms and calendar; Honolulu’s windows close June 30 and December 31. Second, the exemption survives you. Your unremarried widow or widower keeps it, which belongs in your estate planning alongside the federal survivor benefits covered in our guide to burial and memorial benefits.
On income, Hawaii treats a 20-year retirement check kindly: military retired pay rides the employer-funded pension exclusion and arrives state-tax free, while your VA compensation is untaxed everywhere, as laid out in is VA disability taxable. Watch the seam, though. TSP withdrawals do not get the pension exclusion, so the common retiree mix of pension plus TSP is only half exempt here.
Education is where Hawaii is honestly thin for separated veterans. There is no state tuition waiver keyed to veteran status; the state’s money flows through Guard membership. A veteran finishing a degree in Hawaii should run the Post-9/11 GI Bill first and treat Guard STAP as the stacking option if continued service fits their life. For work, the 5 or 10 civil service preference points are real but only apply to open competitive recruitments, and they are separate from the federal hiring preference you would use for the large federal workforce around Pearl Harbor.
The commonly missed item is the smallest one: the $46 registration fee exemption for 100% rated veterans. It is not life-changing money, but it is a two-minute win at the satellite city hall, and the same visit can confirm your county property exemption is actually on the books. Check your rating math with the VA disability calculator before you assume you miss the totally disabled threshold.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through Office of Veterans' Services or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in Hawaii will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.