There are two tools, and they are not interchangeable

This trips people up constantly, and most guides blur it. VA's own instruction is specific:

VA's upload page states it directly: if you have filed a disability compensation claim, "you can upload evidence to support that claim using our claim status tool," and "Use the QuickSubmit tool to upload evidence to support a decision review or an appeal."

Sending a document through the wrong door does not usually lose it. It can route it slowly, or associate it with the wrong issue, which is a problem you will not discover until you read your claims file months later and find the thing you remember sending.

QuickSubmit

QuickSubmit is VA's evidence intake tool, reached through AccessVA. VA describes it as "a fast and effective alternative to faxing or mailing your documents, while also maintaining a record of your uploads."

How to find it, written out rather than linked

The direct sign-in address for QuickSubmit is a long single-use-looking URL that has already moved once — VA's older announcement points at eauth.va.gov/accessva, which now redirects elsewhere. So here is the route, which outlasts any particular link:

1. Go to AccessVA tools and services on VA.gov.
2. Open Veterans, family members, and service members — the page starts with both categories collapsed.
3. In that list, choose QuickSubmit Upload Tool. The tools are in alphabetical order, so it sits between Million Veteran Program and Sports4Vets.
4. You land on VA's sign-in page at login.va.gov.

On that sign-in page, pick "Sign in with ID.me or Login.gov." The other option, "Sign in with PIV card," is listed under employees, contractors, and business partners — not you, unless you are also one of those. It is the one thing on that screen that is easy to get wrong.

If the tools list has changed by the time you read this, the category and the tool name are what to search that page for.

VA's own help line for these tools is on that same page: 800-698-2411, then select 9, then 3, for technical support, 24/7.

The limits are generous now, and were not always:

• 200 MB per file, raised from 25 MB
• 30 documents per submission, raised from 10

Those ceilings matter for exactly the situation on the private-records page — a complete chart from one provider is frequently a single scanned PDF running to hundreds of pages, and it used to have to be split.

The record of your upload is the point

Faxing and mailing both work. Neither gives you anything afterwards that proves what you sent and when.

That receipt is not bureaucratic comfort. It is the thing that lets you say, later and precisely: this document, this date, and it is not in the file. 38 C.F.R. §3.159(e) puts the responsibility for getting evidence into the record on you; a confirmation is how you show you met it.

Keep your own copy of everything, regardless. A confirmation that a file was received is not the file.

Timing

Two numbers from VA's own page, and they pull in different directions:

• You can keep uploading for up to 1 year from the date VA receives your claim.
• But "if you don't provide any evidence or give us the information we need to help you get evidence within 30 days, we may make a decision on your claim earlier."

So the year is real but it is not a plan. If VA has heard nothing in the first month it can decide on what it holds, and a decision made early is still a decision — you would then be working a review route rather than a pending claim.

VA also notes that even if it decides early, you still have the rest of the one-year period to submit more. That is a genuine safety net and a poor substitute for sending things promptly.

Before you upload

Name the file so a stranger can tell what it is. Smith_John_Dr-Alvarez-ortho-notes_2011-2014.pdf survives being looked at by someone who has never met you. scan0007.pdf does not. Nothing requires this and it costs nothing.

One provider per file where you can. It makes the eventual argument easier to make, because you can point at a document rather than a page range.

Check the scan before you send it. Phone scans of two-sided pages routinely drop the backs. A page that did not scan is, as far as the record is concerned, a page that does not exist.

Do not send records that are already in the file. Ask for your C-File first if you are not sure what VA already holds — duplicates add volume and nothing else.

If online does not work for you

Mail and fax remain available, and some people have good reason to prefer them. If you use either, send it in a way that produces proof of delivery and keep that proof with your copy of the documents. The current addresses and fax numbers belong on your own decision letter or on VA's page rather than on this one — a mailing address copied onto a site and left there is wrong the day it changes, and nobody finds out until something does not arrive.

What this page cannot do

It cannot tell you which of your documents help your claim, or which issue a given record belongs to. That is the work an accredited representative does, free, and they can see your file.

Next: getting your private records · what each kind of evidence can establish · compare the review routes

Reviewed October 7, 2026