State veteran benefits · VA
Virginia Veteran Benefits
Virginia erases the entire property tax bill on a 100 percent permanent and total disabled veteran's home and up to one acre, an exemption the unremarried surviving spouse keeps even after moving.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What Virginia adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what Virginia itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Full real estate exemption at 100 percent P&T
Virginia Code 58.1-3219.5 exempts from taxation the principal residence, and up to one acre beneath it (more where the locality allows larger homestead acreage), of a veteran rated by VA with a 100 percent service-connected, permanent, and total disability. Non-business accessory structures like garages are covered, and a manufactured home qualifies as a dwelling. The unremarried surviving spouse keeps the exemption if the veteran died on or after January 1, 2011, with no restriction on moving to a new principal residence.
A companion provision, Virginia Code 58.1-3668, exempts one passenger car or pickup owned and used primarily by or for a 100 percent P&T veteran from local personal property tax, effective from January 1, 2021 or the acquisition date. The vehicle exemption ends at the veteran's death and does not pass to the spouse.
SOURCE: Code of Virginia, Virginia Law Portal · retrieved 2026-07-10
Military Benefits Subtraction: up to $40,000 off, any age
For tax year 2025 and later, Virginia lets you subtract up to $40,000 of eligible military benefits from taxable income: military retirement income and Survivor Benefit Plan payments to a surviving spouse. The subtraction phased up from $20,000 (2023) and $30,000 (2024), and the current rules carry no age requirement. Only income that appears on the federal return qualifies, and VA disability compensation never does because the IRS excludes it from gross income in the first place.
SOURCE: Virginia Tax · retrieved 2026-07-10
VMSDEP: tuition and fees waived for the family, not the veteran
The Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program waives tuition and mandatory fees at Virginia public colleges for spouses and children aged 16 to 29 of veterans rated at least 90 percent permanently disabled (or totally and permanently disabled) due to service, and of service members killed, missing in action, or taken prisoner. The Commissioner of Veterans Services can certify a dependent past 29 when extenuating circumstances blocked earlier use.
Domicile rules apply, satisfied by entering service in Virginia or five years of Virginia residence, among other pathways. Certification runs through the Department of Veterans Services; the colleges apply the waiver and any stipend.
SOURCE: Code of Virginia, Virginia Law Portal · retrieved 2026-07-10
5 to 10 percent added to state exam scores
Virginia Code 2.2-2903 adds five percent to a passing score for an honorably discharged veteran competing for state employment, and ten percent when the veteran has a VA-rated service-connected disability. Where no exam is used, qualifying veterans who meet the position's knowledge, skill, and ability requirements receive preference in selection, with additional consideration for service-connected disability. Surviving spouses, children under 27 of veterans killed in the line of duty, and National Guard members carry defined preferences of their own.
SOURCE: Code of Virginia, Virginia Law Portal · retrieved 2026-07-10
Lifetime licenses priced by rating, free at P&T
Virginia's Department of Wildlife Resources sells resident disabled veterans lifetime licenses under Code 29.1-302, priced by rating: totally and permanently disabled veterans pay $0 for the lifetime freshwater fishing and lifetime hunting licenses ($15 for trapping); 70 percent and above pay $50 per license; 50 to 69 percent pay $75; 30 to 49 percent pay $100.
SOURCE: Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources · retrieved 2026-07-10
Three state veterans cemeteries
Virginia's state-run veterans cemeteries are the Virginia Veterans Cemetery in Amelia, the Southwest Virginia Veterans Cemetery in Dublin, and the Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery in Suffolk, complementing the national cemeteries concentrated in the eastern part of the state.
SOURCE: VA National Cemetery Administration · retrieved 2026-07-10
Virginia wrote its flagship benefit into the state constitution, which changes how you should think about it. The full real estate exemption for 100 percent P&T veterans is not a budget line a future legislature can quietly trim; it is Article X, Section 6-A, implemented by statute, and it covers the house, the acre under it, the garage, and, since 2021, one vehicle. In Northern Virginia, where a modest townhouse carries a five-figure annual tax bill, this single benefit can outvalue the entire benefit stack of most other states. The qualifying language is precise, though: 100 percent service-connected, permanent, and total. A temporary 100 percent rating does not open the door, which makes the permanence designation on your rating decision worth understanding down to the letter before you file with the commissioner of the revenue.
The income side is deliberately middle-of-the-road. A $40,000 subtraction shelters most enlisted pensions entirely but only part of a senior officer’s, and Virginia still taxes the remainder, so a high-three O-5 comparing Virginia against Texas or Tennessee is really comparing the property exemption against full pension exemption elsewhere. For the 100 percent P&T homeowner, Virginia usually wins that trade. VA compensation itself stays untaxed everywhere, which matters double here because compensation is what qualifies the house.
VMSDEP is the piece families misfile mentally. It is not a veteran’s benefit; it is the family’s, it starts at a 90 percent permanent rating rather than 100, and each eligible child gets a window from 16 to 29. Run it alongside the federal DEA and Fry programs rather than instead of them, because the state waiver plus a federal monthly stipend is the strongest combination available to a disabled veteran’s college-bound kid.
The winner’s profile in Virginia is unambiguous: a 90 to 100 percent P&T veteran with a mortgage and teenagers, who stands to collect a tax-free house, tuition-free state colleges for the kids, and score preference on the government jobs the region runs on. The commonly missed item is the surviving spouse’s portability: the exemption follows the spouse to a new Virginia home, so downsizing after the veteran’s death does not mean surrendering it, a detail that should sit in every estate plan next to the burial arrangements.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through Virginia Department of Veterans Services or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in Virginia will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.