The 5, 10 and 20 Year Rules

Veterans hear about "the 10-year rule" and assume their rating is untouchable. Others hear about "the 5-year rule" and assume nothing is safe until year five. Both are wrong, because these are separate provisions in separate regulations, each protecting a different thing. Knowing which one applies to you — and from what date — is the difference between a reduction you can stop and one you cannot.

The four protections at a glance

The 5-year rule — 38 CFR §3.344

§3.344 is not really a five-year rule. It is a rule about stabilised ratings, and it applies by its own terms to evaluations that have "continued at the same level for five years or more". Once a rating has been in place that long, VA cannot reduce it on the strength of one better-looking examination.

What VA has to establish before it can reduce a stabilised rating:

1. The examination is as full and complete as the one that established the rating. §3.344(a) says so directly. A brief, records-only review cannot undo a rating built on a thorough in-person examination.
2. There is actual material improvement in the disability — not simply a different examiner describing the same condition in different words.
3. The improvement is reasonably certain to be sustained under the ordinary conditions of life, including at work. A single good day does not meet this.
4. The whole recorded history was considered, as §4.1, §4.2 and §4.13 require, rather than one snapshot.

§3.344(c) is the part people miss: for ratings that have not been in effect five years, the heightened standard in (a) and (b) does not apply, and VA may reduce on any examination that shows improvement. Those ratings are not unprotected — VA still owes you the advance notice and hearing rights in §3.105(e), covered in proposed rating reductions — but the evidentiary bar VA has to clear is lower.

The 10-year rule — 38 CFR §3.957

Once service connection for a disability has been in effect for 10 years or more, VA cannot sever it. The only exceptions in the regulation are a showing that the original grant was obtained by fraud, or that the person did not have the required character of discharge or length of service.

This is a strong protection, and it is also narrower than most veterans believe. Read the words carefully:

• It protects service connection, not the percentage. A 10-year protected condition rated 50% can still be reduced to 30%, or to 10%, if the evidence supports it and VA follows §3.105(e) and §3.344. What VA cannot do is take the condition out of your service-connected list.
• It does not protect against a reduction to 0%. A 0% (or "noncompensable") evaluation is still a service-connected condition. Service connection survives; the compensation may not.
• The clock runs from the effective date of service connection to the date of severance — not from the date of the decision.

Why service connection is worth protecting even at 0%: it preserves the door for a future increase, it supports secondary service connection for conditions caused by it, and it keeps the underlying effective date intact.

The 20-year rule — 38 CFR §3.951(b)

This is the strongest of the three, and the least understood. Under §3.951(b), a disability evaluation continuously in effect for 20 years or more cannot be reduced below the lowest evaluation it has held over that period, except on a showing that the rating was based on fraud.

The phrase that does the work is "the lowest evaluation". It is not your current percentage that is protected — it is the floor.

"Continuously in effect" means the condition has been rated compensably and without a break. A period during which the evaluation dropped to 0%, or during which the award was terminated, can break the chain. As with the other rules, the clock runs from the effective date.

The age-55 rule — and why we describe it differently

You will see this stated online as though it were law. It is not.

The instruction not to schedule routine future examinations for veterans over the age of 55 comes from M21-1, VA's internal adjudication procedures manual. M21-1 is guidance to VA employees. It is not a statute, it is not a regulation in 38 CFR, and courts have repeatedly held that M21-1 provisions do not bind VA in the way a regulation does.

What that means in practice:

• As a matter of ordinary practice, VA generally will not schedule a routine future examination once you are past 55.
• The manual itself carves out unusual circumstances. Veterans over 55 do still get scheduled.
• It does not stop an examination that you triggered. If you file for an increase, or file a Supplemental Claim that reopens a duty to assist, an examination can follow at any age.
• It is not a defence to a reduction. If VA has an examination in hand, "I am over 55" is not an argument under §3.344. The §3.344 arguments are.

We say this plainly because being told a protection is absolute, and then being scheduled anyway, is how veterans get caught unprepared.

Permanent and Total (P&T)

A Permanent and Total designation means VA has found your total disability to be reasonably certain to continue throughout your life. Under 38 CFR §3.327(b), no periodic future examinations are scheduled where a disability is permanent in character.

What P&T does:

• Stops routine scheduled re-examinations.
• Opens ancillary benefits that turn on permanence — Chapter 35 Dependents' Educational Assistance and CHAMPVA being the most significant.

What P&T does not do:

• It is not a separate protection against reduction. P&T is a finding about the expected course of the disability, not a bar in the regulations. If VA later has evidence of material improvement — for example, evidence that surfaces from a different claim you filed — it can still act, subject to §3.105(e), §3.344, and whichever of the 10- and 20-year protections you have earned.
• It does not by itself make your rating "static" in the sense the code sheet uses.
• It is not the same as TDIU. TDIU can be permanent or temporary; permanence is a separate finding.

Static ratings

A static rating is one VA has flagged as not subject to material improvement, so no routine future examination is scheduled. Amputations, ankylosis, and long-established conditions with no realistic prospect of change are typical.

Static status is an administrative flag, not a regulation. It means VA is not planning to look again. It does not mean VA cannot look again, and it is not a substitute for the §3.957 and §3.951(b) protections that accrue with time.

How to tell whether your rating is protected

You do not need to guess. The answer is on the rating code sheet in your claims file — the page listing each diagnostic code, each evaluation, and, critically, each effective date.

1. Get the code sheet. Request your claims file, or download the rating decision and code sheet from your VA.gov account.
2. Find the effective date for the condition — not the date of the decision letter. These are frequently years apart.
3. Count from that date to today. Five years engages §3.344. Ten years engages §3.957. Twenty years engages §3.951(b).
4. For the 20-year rule, trace every evaluation the condition has held across the period and identify the lowest. That is your floor.
5. Check for breaks. A period at 0%, or a period when the award was severed or terminated, can interrupt "continuously in effect".
6. Look for the static or permanent flag and for any scheduled future examination date noted on the sheet.

What these protections do not cover

• Fraud. Every one of these rules yields to a finding of fraud. That is the stated exception in both §3.957 and §3.951(b).
• Ratings based on a period of hospitalisation or convalescence. Temporary total evaluations under §4.29 and §4.30 are time-limited by design and are not protected ratings.
• Ratings that were never correct. VA can act on a clear and unmistakable error in its own decision — in both directions — subject to the notice requirements in §3.105.
• Evaluations changed by a change in the rating schedule. §3.951(a) addresses this separately; a change in the schedule does not by itself reduce a protected evaluation.

If VA has already proposed a reduction

Protection is an argument, and arguments have to be made in the window. A proposal under §3.105(e) starts a 30-day clock to request a predetermination hearing and a 60-day clock to submit evidence. The full sequence is set out in VA proposed to reduce your rating.

If the reduction has already been executed, the route depends on the defect. Where VA reduced a protected evaluation, or reduced a stabilised rating without meeting §3.344, that is an argument on the existing record — which points to Higher-Level Review. Where you need new medical evidence showing the condition never materially improved, that points to a Supplemental Claim. The comparison is set out in HLR vs Supplemental Claim. Where the reduction was procedurally void, CUE can restore the rating with retroactive pay to the date it was taken.

None of this is a promise about how any particular case will come out. It is a map of where the leverage sits, so you can find out where you actually stand before VA decides for you.