State veteran benefits · MI
Michigan Veteran Benefits
Michigan wipes out the full property tax bill on the homestead of a veteran rated permanently and totally disabled, or paid at 100 percent for individual unemployability, and since 2025 the exemption no longer requires annual refiling.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What Michigan adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what Michigan itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Full homestead exemption under MCL 211.7b
A veteran discharged under honorable conditions qualifies for a 100 percent property tax exemption on the homestead they own and occupy if the VA has found them permanently and totally disabled from service, rated them individually unemployable, or certified them for specially adapted housing assistance. The unremarried surviving spouse keeps the exemption. There is no partial version: the property is either fully exempt or not exempt at all.
File the exemption with Treasury Form 5107 through your local assessor. Beginning January 1, 2025, the exemption stays in effect once granted, without annual reapplication, until the owner rescinds it or the assessor denies it.
SOURCE: Michigan Department of Treasury · retrieved 2026-07-10
Military retirement pay is exempt from Michigan income tax
Compensation paid from federal appropriations for military service, including retirement benefits, is exempt from Michigan individual income tax; military pensions are subtracted on Schedule 1 to the extent they appear in adjusted gross income. VA disability compensation is never taxed, by Michigan or federally.
SOURCE: Michigan Department of Treasury · retrieved 2026-07-10
Children of Veterans Tuition Grant
Michigan pays undergraduate tuition assistance of up to $2,800 per academic year for full-time students who are the natural or adopted child of a Michigan veteran who died, became totally and permanently disabled from a service-connected condition, or is missing in action. The student must be older than 16 and younger than 26, a Michigan resident for the prior 12 months, and file the FAFSA each year.
SOURCE: Michigan Student Aid · retrieved 2026-07-10
Veterans preference in the state classified service
Michigan Civil Service Commission Rule 3-8 grants hiring preference in the state classified service to honorably discharged veterans with 90 or more days of active duty and to qualifying spouses; applicants must register for the preference in the state jobs portal before applying. The program was expanded to cover promotional postings for current state employees, military retirees, and service members applying before discharge.
SOURCE: Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget · retrieved 2026-07-10
Three Michigan Veteran Homes
The state operates long-term care homes in Grand Rapids (2950 Monroe Ave. NE), Chesterfield Township (47901 Sugarbush Rd.), and Marquette (Michigan Veteran Homes D.J. Jacobetti, 425 Fisher St.), giving the Lower and Upper Peninsulas each a member-focused care option.
SOURCE: Michigan Veteran Homes · retrieved 2026-07-10
Hunting and fishing license fees waived at 100 percent
Michigan resident veterans whom the VA has determined permanently and totally disabled from service, or rated individually unemployable, get hunting and fishing license fees waived. Carry documented proof of the disabled veteran status when using the license.
SOURCE: Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency · retrieved 2026-07-10
No state cemetery, but four national cemeteries in-state
Michigan does not operate a state veterans cemetery. Veterans instead use the four national cemeteries inside the state: Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, Fort Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, Lakeside Cemetery in Port Huron, and Fort Mackinac Cemetery on Mackinac Island, where eligible veterans receive a gravesite, opening and closing, perpetual care, a headstone, and a burial flag at no cost.
SOURCE: Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency · retrieved 2026-07-10
The number that matters in Michigan is zero: the property tax bill on a qualifying disabled veteran’s homestead. The MCL 211.7b exemption is all or nothing, with no cap tied to home value and no income test, which makes it one of the cleanest full exemptions in the country. Just as important is who qualifies. Michigan explicitly includes veterans paid at the 100 percent rate for individual unemployability and recipients of specially adapted housing grants, two groups that stricter states leave out. If your rating sits at 70 or 80 percent but you draw compensation at the 100 percent rate for unemployability, Michigan treats you as fully exempt, and the combined rating math that gets you there is worth understanding before you assume you miss the cut.
The trap in this program used to be paperwork. For years the exemption expired annually and veterans lost a year of relief because nobody told them to refile Form 5107. That ended January 1, 2025: once granted, the exemption now runs until you rescind it or the assessor denies it. If you were granted the exemption before 2025 and stopped filing out of habit or confusion, confirm with your assessor that your status carried over rather than assuming.
On income, Michigan is straightforward where other states are birthday math. The state’s general retirement subtraction phases by birth year, but military pensions sit outside that mess entirely and stay exempt, and VA disability pay is never taxed anywhere. A military retiree at 100 percent P&T who owns a home in Michigan keeps the pension whole, the VA check whole, and pays no property tax on the house.
What renters and lower-rated veterans get is thinner: license fee waivers require the P&T or unemployability finding, and there is no state cash program underneath. The benefit families most often miss is the Children of Veterans Tuition Grant, because eligibility keys off the parent’s status, not the student’s, and a 100 percent P&T veteran’s kids can claim up to $2,800 a year on top of any transferred Post-9/11 GI Bill entitlement. One honest gap to plan around: Michigan has no state veterans cemetery, so the burial conversation runs through the national system, and the federal burial benefits are what your family will actually use.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in Michigan will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.