Calculator Updated with Shareable URLs

The VA disability calculator now supports shareable URLs. Enter your ratings, mark which conditions are bilateral, add your dependents, and click “Copy Link” to share your exact calculation with anyone — a VSO, an accredited attorney, a fellow veteran, or your spouse.

This release also ships a more accurate bilateral factor implementation and a redesigned mobile layout. Calculations run locally by default. An optional results email sends your email address and scenario through our server to our email provider.

What is new in this release

Shareable URLs

When you click Copy Link, the calculator encodes your full input — every rating percentage, every extremity designation, your dependent status, and any optional fields — into the URL itself. The result is a link like:

/calculator?r=70,50,30,20&b=0,1&dep=spouse-1child

That link is yours to share. When someone opens it, the calculator decodes the parameters and displays the same combined rating, bilateral factor application, and 2026 monthly payment estimate that you saw. Copying the link does not submit a results-email request; no account is required. The URL contains the scenario, so anyone you share it with can read those details.

Common ways veterans have been using shareable links during the beta:

• Sending a scenario to a VSO before an appointment, so the VSO can see exactly what numbers you ran and verify the math.
• Showing an accredited attorney the rating breakdown you are working from, without screenshots.
• Comparing two scenarios side by side — for example, “current ratings” vs. “with the new secondary condition added.”
• Family planning — sharing the dependent-adjusted figure with a spouse so household budgeting reflects the real take-home amount.

Improved bilateral factor

The bilateral factor, described in 38 CFR § 4.26, is one of the most commonly miscalculated parts of VA math. It adds 10% to the combined value of disabilities that affect paired body parts — both knees, both shoulders, both ankles, paired skeletal muscles, and so on — before that result is merged with the rest of the combined rating.

This release reworks how the calculator identifies which disabilities should be grouped together for the bilateral calculation. Previously, the calculator could under- or over-apply the factor in scenarios involving three or more bilateral disabilities. The new implementation matches the worked examples in 38 CFR § 4.26 for every test case we ran, including the asymmetric cases (e.g., a 30% on one knee and a 20% on the other).

A simple worked example:

• Right knee instability — 20%
• Left knee instability — 20%
• Combined value of the two: 36% (per the § 4.25 table)
• Bilateral factor: 10% of 36% = 3.6%
• Adjusted bilateral combined value: 36% + 3.6% = 39.6%

That 39.6% becomes the whole-number value 40 before combination with other ratings. The favorable exception in § 4.26(d) removes one or more disabilities from the bilateral group if that produces a higher final evaluation. For a veteran whose only ratings were these two knees, the final rating is 40% either way, because 36% also rounds to 40%. The factor matters when it crosses a rounding line or when the knees combine with other ratings: two 30% knee ratings combine to 51%; adding 10% of 51 (5.1) gives 56, which rounds to 60% instead of 50%.

Redesigned mobile layout

The calculator’s mobile experience has been rebuilt to use larger touch targets, a single-column layout on phones, and clearer rating-input controls. We tested it on iOS Safari and Chrome on Android in screen sizes from 360px wide upward.

Privacy: local calculations and optional email

The calculator runs locally without an account. Copying a shareable link encodes the scenario on your device. Anyone with that link can read the included details.

If you choose Email My Results, your email address, conditions/ratings, dependents, estimated rating and payment, and shareable URL are sent through our server to our email provider to deliver the requested results. The newsletter checkbox is separate, optional, and unchecked by default. See our privacy policy for email and analytics information.

Try it

The updated calculator is live now at /calculator. If you find a scenario where the math does not match what you expect, please contact us — we publish the test cases we use for the bilateral factor and the combined rating table, and we want to know about edge cases.

For the underlying rules our calculator follows, see 38 CFR § 4.25 (combined ratings table) and 38 CFR § 4.26 (bilateral factor). Our 2026 rate tables page shows the monthly compensation amounts the calculator uses.

Update — October 21, 2026: When this post was published, the calculator sent nothing to our servers, and the original privacy statements said so. Since May 3, 2026, you can choose to email yourself your results; doing so sends your email address and the scenario you entered through our server to our email provider. We revised the privacy statements above to reflect that.

Correction — October 21, 2026: Corrected the bilateral-factor example: two 20% knee ratings alone round to 40% with or without the factor, the adjusted value becomes a whole number before it is combined with other ratings, and § 4.26(d) applies when leaving a disability out of the bilateral group gives a higher result.