How to claim a War Pension

Who can claim a War Pension

The War Pension Scheme covers regular and reserve personnel whose injury or illness was caused, or made worse, by service before 6 April 2005. You claim once you have left the forces, and there is no need to prove anyone was to blame; you only have to show the link between the condition and your service. If the condition relates to service on or after 6 April 2005, it falls under the AFCS instead, which is assessed by a tariff rather than a percentage.

The date of the injury or illness, not the date you put your claim in, decides which scheme applies. Long-latency conditions are common in older service, such as hearing loss, joint problems, or a mental health condition that surfaced years later, and these can still be claimed under the War Pension Scheme as long as the cause traces back to service before 6 April 2005. A surviving spouse, civil partner, or dependant may also be able to claim where a service condition contributed to a death.

The claim form and how to submit it

You apply to Veterans UK using the single armed forces compensation and war pension claim, the same form that covers the AFCS, either online or on paper. You give your service history and personal details, describe the condition, and explain how you believe service caused it. There is one form because Veterans UK works out which scheme fits from the date and the facts, so you do not have to decide the scheme yourself.

You can post the paper form or submit online, and you can ask the Veterans Welfare Service to help you fill it in. Keep a copy of everything you send and note the date you submitted it, so you have a record if you need to chase progress or challenge a decision later.

The evidence Veterans UK needs

The heart of a War Pension claim is the link between your condition and your service, so the most useful evidence explains what the condition is, when it started, and how it connects to what you did in the forces. You do not need to gather all your own medical records first, because Veterans UK can request your service medical records and your current NHS records directly, but anything you already hold, such as letters from your GP or a consultant, will speed things up.

Set out your account clearly and factually. Dates, units, incidents, and the treatment you have had all help. For a mental health condition such as PTSD, the same principle applies: current medical evidence about how the condition affects you day to day carries the most weight. Our War Pension for PTSD guide explains how mental health is assessed under the scheme.

How your degree of disablement is assessed

Once you have claimed, a doctor appointed by Veterans UK assesses how much your condition affects you compared with a healthy person of the same age, and expresses that as a degree of disablement, a percentage. That percentage sets your award. Where you have more than one accepted condition, the separate assessments are combined into a single figure.

If you are assessed at 20% or more, you receive a tax-free weekly pension for as long as the assessment holds. Below 20% the scheme pays a one-off gratuity instead of a weekly pension. These are the Other Ranks weekly and yearly rates from April 2026; officers are paid a yearly equivalent. The rates are index-linked and rose 3.8% in April 2026 in line with the previous September's CPI.

Below 20% the gratuity is £3,945 for a 1 to 5% assessment, £8,770 for 6 to 14%, and £15,339 for 15 to 19%, paid once for an assessment of indefinite duration. For every band from 20% to 100%, the sub-20% gratuities, and the extra allowances, see the War Pension rates page.

Extra allowances on top of the pension

Severe or complex cases can add allowances to the basic pension. Constant Attendance Allowance helps where you need daily care and runs up to £187.20 a week at the exceptional rate from April 2026. Unemployability Supplement (£153.25 a week) applies where the condition stops you working, the War Pensioners' Mobility Supplement (£89.25 a week) helps with getting around, and there is an age allowance of £51.10 a week once a 100% pension continues into older age.

Which allowances apply depends on your assessment and your circumstances, and Veterans UK considers them as part of the claim rather than as a separate application. If you think one should apply and it has not, that is one of the things you can raise on a reconsideration.

Timescales and what happens next

How long a decision takes depends mostly on how much medical evidence is needed and how quickly records come back, so a straightforward claim is quicker than one that needs specialist reports. Veterans UK writes to you with the decision, the conditions that have been accepted, and the percentage assessed.

An assessment is not always final. Some are made for a fixed period and reviewed at the end of it, and many at the higher percentages are made for life. If an accepted condition gets worse, you can ask Veterans UK to look at it again, and up-to-date medical evidence is what supports a higher assessment, and so a higher pension.

Getting a decision reconsidered or appealed

If you think a decision is wrong, whether on which conditions were accepted or on the percentage assessed, you can ask Veterans UK to reconsider it, and you should do this within the time limit set out in your decision letter. Send any new evidence that supports your case, such as a more recent medical report.

If you are still not satisfied after a reconsideration, you can appeal to an independent tribunal, which looks at the claim afresh. You do not need a paid solicitor for any of this. Free, independent help is available from the Veterans Welfare Service and from service charities, both to make the original claim and to challenge a decision.