VA Proposed to Reduce Your Rating — What to Do Now

The envelope says VA. Inside is a letter proposing to reduce your rating from 70% to 30%, and somewhere in the second paragraph is a sentence about how much your monthly payment will drop.

Almost every veteran who gets this letter reads it as a decision that has already been made. It isn't. It is a proposal, and the regulation that governs it hands you two deadlines and a set of protections most people don't know they have.

The deadlines are short. This article is about using them.

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A Proposal Is Not a Decision

Nothing has changed yet. Your rating is still what it was this morning, your next deposit is the same amount, and no reduction has taken effect.

38 CFR § 3.105(e) sets out what VA has to do before it can reduce a rating that is already paying you:

The beneficiary will be notified at his or her latest address of record of the contemplated action and furnished detailed reasons therefor, and will be given 60 days for the presentation of additional evidence.

Three things are in that sentence, and each one is worth something.

"Contemplated action." The regulation's own word for it. VA is telling you what it intends to do so that you can argue against it first.

"Detailed reasons therefor." VA has to tell you why. Not "your condition has improved" — the specific evidence it is relying on, which in practice is almost always a recent examination. That reasoning is the thing you are going to take apart, so read it closely and find out which exam it points to.

"60 days for the presentation of additional evidence." A window that belongs to you.

The one thing you must not do is nothing. If you let the window pass, § 3.105(i)(2) says the final action "will be based solely upon the evidence of record" — which means the exam VA already has, unopposed.

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Two Clocks — and the Shorter One Protects Your Money

The 60 days gets all the attention. The clock that matters more is the 30-day one, and most veterans never hear about it.

30 days: request a predetermination hearing

Buried in § 3.105(i) is a right with a consequence attached:

If a predetermination hearing is timely requested, benefit payments shall be continued at the previously established level pending a final determination concerning the proposed action.

Read that again. Requesting the hearing keeps your money at its current level until VA finishes deciding. Not until the hearing — until the final determination.

The request has to reach VA within 30 days from the date of the notice. That is the shortest deadline in this process and the only one that protects your payment while the rest of it plays out. Once VA schedules the hearing, it has to tell you the time and place in writing at least 10 days in advance.

There is no downside to asking. It is not an admission, it does not waive your evidence window, and it does not replace it — you still have the full 60 days to submit evidence either way.

If you request a hearing and then don't show up without good cause, § 3.105(i)(2) puts you back where you would have been: the final action is based solely on the evidence of record.

60 days: submit your evidence

The evidence window runs from the same notice. What to put in it is the back half of this article — but note the order the two clocks impose. The hearing request is due at day 30 and takes ten minutes. The evidence takes weeks to assemble.

Do the ten-minute thing first.

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First: Can VA Touch This Rating at All?

Before you build an evidence case, check whether VA is allowed to do what it is proposing. Some ratings are protected by the length of time they have been in place, and the protections are automatic — you don't apply for them.

Find the effective date of the evaluation VA is proposing to cut. It's on your decision letter or your code sheet. Then count forward to today.

20 years or more — the percentage itself is protected

§ 3.951(b):

A disability which has been continuously rated at or above any evaluation of disability for 20 or more years for compensation purposes under laws administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs will not be reduced to less than such evaluation except upon a showing that such rating was based on fraud.

This is the strongest protection in the set. A rating continuously held at or above a level for twenty years cannot be dropped below that level at all, and the only exception is fraud. Not improvement, however dramatic. Fraud.

The period runs from the effective date of the evaluation to the effective date of the reduction — so it is the rating's age that counts, not how long you have been service-connected and not your age.

10 years or more — service connection is protected, but the percentage is not

This is the protection veterans most often misread, and the mistake is expensive.

§ 3.957 says service connection in effect for 10 or more years "will not be severed" except on a showing that the original grant was based on fraud, or where military records clearly show the person lacked the requisite service or character of discharge.

Severed. Not reduced. Ten years protects the fact that your condition is service-connected. It does not protect the number.

A veteran twelve years into a 70% rating is fully protected against VA deciding the condition was never service-connected in the first place. They are not protected against a reduction from 70% to 30%. Those are different actions under different regulations, and the ten-year rule only answers one of them.

5 years or more — the stabilization rules attach

§ 3.344(c) draws the line:

The provisions of paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section apply to ratings which have continued for long periods at the same level (5 years or more). They do not apply to disabilities which have not become stabilized and are likely to improve.

Cross five years at the same level and the extra evidentiary requirements in the next section apply to your case. They are the most useful thing in this article, and they are the reason a lot of proposed reductions do not survive contact with a response.

Under 5 years — fewest protections, but not none

If the rating is newer than five years, § 3.344(a) and (b) don't attach, and VA can act on evidence of improvement without clearing those additional bars.

What still applies to you: the entire § 3.105(e) procedure. The detailed reasons, the 60 days, the 30-day hearing request that keeps your payments running, and the right to appeal afterward. Every veteran gets those regardless of how new the rating is.

100% total ratings

§ 3.343(a) adds a requirement specific to total ratings: they are not reduced without an examination showing material improvement, and the improvement has to have happened under the ordinary conditions of life — the regulation's phrasing is while working or actively seeking work, rather than under a treatment regimen or a period of rest that precludes work.

An improvement that only shows up when someone isn't working is not the kind that supports cutting a total rating.

TDIU is different. If your 100% comes from individual unemployability rather than a schedular total, § 3.343(c) sets out its own rules — including a bar on reducing the award based on employment unless it has been maintained for 12 consecutive months. That is a topic of its own and this article doesn't cover it.

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What VA Has to Prove — and Where Reductions Fall Apart

If your rating has been at the same level for five years or more, § 3.344(a) is the section to read, twice.

The examination has to be at least as good as the one that granted the rating

Examinations less full and complete than those on which payments were authorized or continued will not be used as a basis of reduction.

This is a comparison, and it is often the whole argument.

If your 70% rating came out of a two-hour examination with a specialist who reviewed your full file and ran objective testing, and the proposal rests on a twenty-minute review appointment with a contract examiner who did not have your records, that second examination is not a lawful basis for a reduction. The regulation doesn't ask whether the new exam was adequate in the abstract. It asks whether it was less full and complete than the one before it.

So pull both. Compare them side by side: how long each took, who performed it, what testing was done, whether the examiner reviewed the claims file, whether a DBQ was completed and how much of it. Write down the differences specifically. "What happens at a VA C&P exam" covers how to request your examination report.

Improvement has to be likely to last

Though material improvement in the physical or mental condition is clearly reflected the rating agency will consider whether the evidence makes it reasonably certain that the improvement will be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life.

Two separate bars, and VA has to clear both.

The first is that you actually got better in a material way. The second — the one that catches most proposals — is that the improvement is reasonably certain to hold up in ordinary life. Not on the day of the exam. Not during a good stretch. Under the ordinary conditions of living and working.

This matters enormously for conditions that fluctuate. A mental health condition in a stable period, a back that behaves on a morning you weren't flaring, an autoimmune condition between episodes — a single good day is a snapshot, and a snapshot is not evidence that improvement will be maintained. If your condition has a documented pattern of getting better and worse, that pattern is your argument, and your own records prove it.

A change to the rating schedule is never a reason on its own

§ 3.951(a):

A readjustment to the Schedule for Rating Disabilities shall not be grounds for reduction of a disability rating in effect on the date of the readjustment unless medical evidence establishes that the disability to be evaluated has actually improved.

VA revises the rating schedule periodically. When criteria for a body system are rewritten, veterans already rated under the old criteria sometimes get letters. This provision is the answer: a rule change is not improvement, and VA needs medical evidence that you got better, not evidence that the schedule got stricter.

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What to Send Inside the Window

Aim everything at the standard above. A response that is mostly about how unfair this is will not land, however true it is. A response built around § 3.344 is answering the actual question in front of the rater.

The comparison between the two examinations. Specific and factual. Length, examiner's credentials, whether the claims file was reviewed, what objective testing was performed, what the earlier exam covered that the new one skipped.

Recent treatment records. Everything since the examination VA is relying on, especially anything showing continued treatment, medication changes, or flare-ups. Continuing to be treated for a condition VA says has improved is straightforward evidence.

A medical opinion addressing sustained improvement. If you can get one, this is the most valuable thing in the packet. What you want your provider to speak to is not just current severity but whether any improvement is reasonably certain to be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life. That is the regulation's question, and a provider who answers it directly is answering the one that decides the case.

A statement about work and daily life. § 3.343(a) and § 3.344(a) both turn on the ordinary conditions of life. What you can and cannot do at work, what you have had to give up, what accommodations you rely on, what a bad week costs you — that is on-point evidence, not background.

Lay statements. A spouse, coworker, or supervisor who sees you across good and bad stretches can describe the pattern a single exam cannot. Our evidence guide covers the form these go on and what makes one carry weight.

And request the hearing. By day 30.

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If the Reduction Goes Through Anyway

The effective-date trap

There are two 60-day periods in § 3.105(e), and conflating them is the most common budgeting mistake veterans make here.

The first is your evidence window, running from the proposal.

The second governs when the money actually changes. If VA goes ahead, the reduction is made effective:

the last day of the month in which a 60-day period from the date of notice to the beneficiary of the final rating action expires.

That clock starts at the notice of the final rating action — a second, later letter — not at the proposal. So the reduction does not take effect the day the decision is signed. You get another 60 days from that notice, and then it takes effect at the end of that month.

That is real time to prepare for a lower payment, and real time to file. It is not, however, time in which the decision is still open for evidence; that window has closed. Read the two letters as two separate clocks, because that is what they are.

It is appealable like any other decision

A final reduction is a decision, and the three decision-review lanes are open to it on the same one-year deadline that governs every other VA decision. Your three appeal options covers which lane fits which problem in full, but the short version for a reduction:

• Higher-Level Review suits you if VA had everything it needed and applied § 3.344 wrongly — for example, reducing on an examination plainly less complete than the original. This is an argument about the law on a closed record, and it is the natural fit for most reductions.
• A Supplemental Claim suits you if you now have evidence you didn't submit in the 60 days — a new opinion, records you couldn't get in time.
• A Board appeal is the longest lane and the one where you can testify.

This is also the point at which representation earns its keep. Reductions are legal arguments about a specific regulation more than they are medical arguments, and accredited representatives handle them constantly.

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Severance Is a Different, Worse Action

Everything above concerns a reduction — a lower percentage. VA can also propose to sever service connection entirely, ending the benefit rather than shrinking it. It is rarer, and it is governed by § 3.105(d).

The standard is high, and the burden is not yours:

Subject to the limitations contained in §§ 3.114 and 3.957, service connection will be severed only where evidence establishes that it is clearly and unmistakably erroneous (the burden of proof being upon the Government).

"Clearly and unmistakably erroneous" is a demanding standard — the kind of error where reasonable minds could not differ that the outcome would have been manifestly different without it. A rater simply disagreeing with the original decision does not meet it. And the burden sits with VA, which is unusual and worth knowing.

The procedure mirrors a reduction: notice, detailed reasons, and 60 days to present additional evidence, with the discontinuance taking effect the last day of the month in which a 60-day period from notice of the final rating action expires.

And this is where the ten-year rule finally does its work. If service connection has been in effect for 10 or more years, § 3.957 bars severance outright unless the original grant was based on fraud or military records clearly show you lacked the requisite service or character of discharge. That is the protection people think shields their percentage. It doesn't — it shields this.

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Why You Were Reviewed at All

§ 3.327(a) is broad:

Reexaminations, including periods of hospital observation, will be requested whenever VA determines there is a need to verify either the continued existence or the current severity of a disability.

That covers a scheduled periodic review, evidence reaching VA that suggests a change, and a claim you filed yourself.

§ 3.327(b)(2) then lists six situations where periodic future examinations are not scheduled: when the disability is established as static; when symptoms have persisted without material improvement for five years or more; where the disability from disease is permanent with no likelihood of improvement; in cases of veterans over 55 years of age, except under unusual circumstances; where the rating is a prescribed scheduled minimum; and where a combined evaluation would not be affected if the individual rating were reduced.

About the over-55 rule

Veterans repeat this one constantly, and unlike a lot of claims-forum lore, it is genuinely in the regulation. But it is narrower than it sounds, in two ways.

It is about scheduling, not about outcomes. It governs whether VA sets up a routine periodic future examination. It is not a bar on reducing a rating, and being over 55 is not a defense to a proposal that has already arrived.

It carries an exception. "Except under unusual circumstances" is doing real work, and it means the provision is not the absolute rule it gets described as.

The same goes for the other five. They describe when VA won't schedule a routine review — not a promise that no examination will ever happen. An examination prompted by something else, including a claim you filed, is a different thing entirely.

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"Can Filing for an Increase Get Me Reduced?"

Yes. It can, and anyone who tells you otherwise is managing your feelings rather than answering you.

When you file for an increase, you put that condition's current severity in issue. VA examines it and evaluates what it finds — which can be a higher rating, no change, or a lower one.

Now the rest of the picture, which is why this is not usually a reason to stay silent:

Every protection above still applies. Twenty years still means the percentage cannot go below its level. Five years still means the examination has to be at least as full and complete as the one that granted the rating, and any improvement has to be reasonably certain to last.

The procedure still runs. VA cannot reduce you by surprise inside an increase claim. It still has to propose, give detailed reasons, allow 60 days, and offer the predetermination hearing.

The evidence you file is the record. A veteran who files with current treatment records and a provider's statement is not presenting a rater with an evidentiary vacuum.

The honest summary: if your condition has genuinely worsened and you have records showing it, an increase claim is a normal thing to file. If you're filing on a hunch about a condition you haven't been treated for in years, you are handing VA a fresh look at a rating it wasn't otherwise examining. That is a real risk and it is worth weighing — and it is a different question from whether you should be frightened of the whole process. Understanding the combined-rating math will also tell you whether an increase on that condition would move your combined rating at all, which is worth knowing before you put anything in issue.

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The Bottom Line

The letter proposing to reduce your rating is the beginning of a process, not the end of one, and the regulations give you more to work with than the letter suggests.

Do these in order:

1. Request the predetermination hearing. Within 30 days. It keeps your payments at the current level until a final determination.
2. Find the effective date of the rating. Twenty years means the level is protected outright. Five years means § 3.344 attaches. Ten years protects service connection, not the percentage.
3. Get both examinations and compare them. "Less full and complete" is the most common reason a proposed reduction fails.
4. Build the 60-day response around the regulation — material improvement, reasonably certain to be maintained under the ordinary conditions of life.
5. If it goes through, appeal it. A reduction is a decision like any other, on the same one-year clock.

The single most costly thing you can do is read the letter as final and wait for the money to change. It isn't final, and both clocks are already running.

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Tools on Legatus

• Rating Calculator — see what a proposed reduction would do to your combined rating before it happens
• Condition Guides — the rating criteria your evaluation is assigned under, and what each level requires
• Appeal Tracker — the three decision-review lanes and the deadlines that govern them
• VSO Finder — accredited representatives who handle reductions at no cost

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This article is general information about VA rating reductions, not legal advice. The regulations quoted here were checked against 38 CFR in August 2026. Deadlines run from the date on your notice letter, not from the date you received it — check yours. For a specific claim, work with an accredited VSO, attorney, or claims agent.