DIC Calculator

First, the human part

You are reading this because someone who served is gone, and you are the one left holding the paperwork. That ordering is backwards and everyone knows it: the person mattered, and the forms are just forms. But one of those forms is the country keeping a promise to your household, and you should not need a law degree, or a good week, to understand what it says. So this page walks it slowly, in plain words, and every answer it gives is a starting point rather than a ruling. Go at whatever pace the day allows.

What DIC is (and what it is not)

Dependency and Indemnity Compensation is a monthly, tax-free payment to the surviving spouse, children, and in some cases parents of a veteran or service member whose death is connected to their service. Two things make it different from most benefits with "surviving" in the name. First, it is not needs-based: there is no income test for spouses and children, your salary does not reduce it, and other benefits do not count against it. Second, for a surviving spouse it generally continues for life, unless a remarriage before the ages described below pauses it. The check for a parent of a veteran works differently (that one is income-based); if that is your situation, VA's survivor compensation pages cover it, and everything else on this page is about spouses and children.

The eligibility paths, in plain words

There are two doors in, and you only need one. The direct door: the service member died on active duty (or during training), or the veteran died from a condition VA connected to service, including a condition VA connects to service after the death. The duration door is the one most people have never heard of, and it is why "he was 100 percent disabled but died of a heart attack" is not the end of the conversation. If the veteran was rated totally disabling (100 percent, or TDIU, which pays at the 100 percent level because the conditions prevented substantially gainful work) for a continuous period of at least 10 years immediately before death, or continuously from release from active duty and for at least 5 years immediately before death, or at least 1 year before death for a former prisoner of war who died after September 30, 1999, DIC may still be paid even though the death itself was not service connected. The calculator does the date arithmetic for you.

A surviving spouse also passes a marriage test (any one of: married at least 1 year, had a child together, or married within 15 years of the discharge from the period of service in which the qualifying condition began), and generally lived with the veteran until the death, with an exception when a separation was not the survivor's fault. Remarriage matters only at certain ages: remarrying at 55 or older on or after January 5, 2021 (or at 57 or older, on or after December 16, 2003) generally keeps DIC. A remarriage outside those windows pauses payments, and eligibility can be restored if that marriage later ends. Children count when they are unmarried and under 18, or 18 to 23 in a VA approved school, or "helpless" (permanently unable to support themselves since before age 18). When there is no eligible spouse, the children as a group receive DIC at their own published rates.

The formula

The base is the 2026 surviving spouse rate, effective December 1, 2025 after the 2.8 percent COLA. The add-ons, in order: the 8 year provision ($360.85, when the veteran was rated totally disabled for the 8 continuous years before death and you were married for those same 8 years), aid and attendance ($421.00) or the housebound allowance ($197.22, never both), $421.00 for each eligible child, and the transitional benefit ($359.00 a month for the first 2 years after the death when at least one child is under 18). When there is no eligible spouse, the children share a group rate instead: $717.50 for one child, $1,032.18 for two, $1,346.92 for three, and $255.95 more for each child beyond that, plus $421.00 for each helpless child over 18. Every figure is the published amount from VA's current rate table.

Worked example

DIC or the Survivors Pension: the other door

VA has a second benefit with a similar shape and a very different test. The Survivors Pension is needs-based: it is for surviving spouses and children of wartime veterans with income and assets under set limits, and the death does not need to be service connected at all. DIC is the opposite: no income test, but the death (or the rating history before it) must connect to service. A survivor who fits both is generally paid the larger of the two, and for almost everyone that is DIC. If the screener above suggests DIC may not fit, the pension is the door worth checking next, not a consolation prize: for a low-income survivor of a wartime veteran it is real monthly money.

How to apply, and what never to pay for

The form is VA Form 21P-534EZ (21P-534a after an active duty death; 21P-535 for a parent). One date genuinely matters: if VA receives the claim within 1 year of the death, payments run from the first day of the month of the death, so filing in month eleven still collects everything back to the start. File after the year and payments run from the date VA receives the claim instead. That is a reason to file sooner rather than perfectly.

Now the protective sentence, the one worth more than the rest of this page: you never need to pay anyone to file a DIC claim, and no one legitimate charges a percentage of your back pay. Accredited Veterans Service Officers (the VFW, DAV, American Legion, your county veterans office) do this work for free, every day, and they are good at it. There is an industry of unaccredited "claims consultants" that targets recent widows and widowers with confident promises and contracts taking a cut of retroactive benefits. Walking away from anyone who asks for a percentage is not rudeness; it is the correct reading of the situation. If you want help, search "accredited VSO near me" on va.gov and take the free kind.