State veteran benefits · IN
Indiana Veteran Benefits
Indiana deducts 100% of assessed value on the principal residence for a veteran with 90 days of honorable service and a total disability, stacked on a military pension the state stopped taxing entirely in 2022.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What Indiana adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what Indiana itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Disabled veteran property tax deduction and credits
Under Indiana's restructured property tax relief, a veteran who served at least 90 days, was honorably discharged, has a total disability, and lived in Indiana for at least one year before the assessment date may have 100% of the assessed value deducted from the principal place of residence. On top of that, stackable credits apply: $350 for wartime veterans with a service-connected rating of 10% or more, and $250 for veterans 62 or older with at least a 10% rating.
Surviving spouses of service members killed in action or who died on active or inactive duty can also qualify for the credit. Apply through the County Veteran Service Officer or County Auditor with Form SF 12662, a DD214, and the VA disability award letter. Because these rules are new, confirm current-year treatment with the county auditor rather than older $14,000-era guidance.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Income tax on military retired pay
For 2022 and later, Indiana's deduction equals the entire amount of military retirement income and survivor's benefits, so a military pension is fully free of Indiana income tax. VA disability compensation was never taxable to begin with, federally or in any state.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Revenue · retrieved 2026-07-10
Tuition and Fee Exemption for children of disabled veterans
Indiana remits tuition and regularly assessed fees at state schools for biological or adopted children of wartime or campaign-medal veterans rated for a service-connected disability, at any rating from 0% to 100%. For children of veterans who enlisted before July 1, 2011 the exemption is 100%; for later enlistments it equals 20% plus the parent's disability percentage.
The veteran must have entered service from Indiana or lived in the state for five years, stepchildren are not eligible, and the student must apply through ScholarTrack before turning 33.
SOURCE: Indiana Commission for Higher Education · retrieved 2026-07-10
Indiana Veterans' Home
The Indiana Veterans' Home in West Lafayette provides long-term skilled nursing, short-term rehabilitation, and memory care to honorably discharged Indiana veterans and their spouses, with eligibility extended to Gold Star parents since 2018.
SOURCE: Indiana Veterans' Home · retrieved 2026-07-10
Discounted licenses and Golden Hoosier Passport
An Indiana resident veteran with any service-connected disability can buy a hunting and fishing license for $2.75 a year, or $27.50 for ten years, covering small game and fishing. Eligible disabled veterans also buy the annual Golden Hoosier Passport at half price, $25, for unlimited entry to all state-owned parks, recreation areas, reservoirs, and forests.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery
The Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Madison, open since December 1999 beside Clifty Falls State Park, buries veterans with any discharge other than dishonorable, and surviving spouses of eligible veterans can be interred there as well.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Military Family Relief Fund
The Military Family Relief Fund pays grants with a lifetime maximum of $2,500 per applicant, unless the Indiana Veterans Affairs Commission approves more, for housing, utilities, food, medical services, education and employment expenses, childcare, and basic transportation. Household income must be under twice the federal poverty guideline and the hardship must be documented.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Indiana just rewrote its deal for disabled veterans, and the new version is dramatically better at the top. The old regime of capped dollar deductions has given way to a 100% assessed-value deduction on the principal residence for totally disabled veterans with 90 days of honorable service, plus small stackable credits below that. A totally disabled veteran homeowner in Indianapolis now keeps thousands per year that the 2024 rules would have taxed. The flip side of new law is thin institutional memory: county auditor staff are still internalizing it, and most third-party benefit pages still describe the dead $14,000 and $24,960 deductions. Bring the state’s own page with you when you file, and treat anything quoting the old numbers as stale.
The education benefit is the sleeper, and it starts at a 0% rating. Plenty of Indiana veterans carry a 0% or 10% service-connected rating from a knee or hearing claim and have no idea it makes their children eligible for remitted tuition at IU, Purdue, and every other state school, full remission for pre-2011 enlistments, 20% plus the rating for later ones. That changes the payoff of pursuing a rating you shrugged off as worthless; even before any monthly check from the VA disability pay tables, the rating itself is a college fund. It also stacks conceptually with the Post-9/11 GI Bill: the state exemption can cover the child’s undergrad while the transferred federal benefit holds its value for later.
Retirees keep the whole pension here. Indiana finished phasing in the full military retirement deduction in 2022, and disability pay is untaxed everywhere, per is VA disability taxable.
Who wins biggest: the totally disabled homeowner with kids near college age, who can run the property deduction, the tuition exemption, and the untaxed pension simultaneously. What gets missed: the Military Family Relief Fund. Veterans in a rough patch reach for credit cards before applying, but the fund exists exactly for that rent-utilities-groceries month, and the grant is paid to vendors, not spent from a wallet. The lifetime cap is modest, so save it for the emergency that matters.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in Indiana will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.