The schedule has versions, and the current one may not be yours
The current eCFR text is today's rating schedule. A decision covering an earlier period may call for the version in force then.
This is why so much published guidance is confidently wrong. An article written in 2019 described the schedule accurately in 2019. Nothing marks it as stale, and nothing about it looks different from an article written last week.
The live example on this site: the digestive schedule was revised effective 19 May 2024, and GERD now rates on esophageal stricture rather than heartburn frequency. A great deal of material still describes the old criteria.
Three things that get confused
A proposed rule is not a rule. Proposals are published, commented on, revised and sometimes abandoned. Until a final rule takes effect, the existing text governs — so a change you have read about may not have happened.
The effective date of a regulation is not the effective date of your award. They answer different questions. One says when the rule started applying; the other says when your benefit starts. Neither sets the other.
"Current" depends on the period being decided. If VA is evaluating a condition from 2021 forward, more than one version may bear on it, and which applies to which stretch is a real question rather than a formality.
How to check
- Find the exact diagnostic code on your decision — not the diagnosis, the code.
- Find the final rule that changed it, and read its effective date.
- Compare the historical text with the current text for that code. The eCFR's point-in-time tools can show earlier versions.
- Identify the period VA is actually deciding, which is on the decision and in the claims file.
What this page cannot do
It describes a method. It does not tell you which version governs your period — that depends on the dates, the procedural history, and sometimes on rules about which version applies when a change falls mid-claim.
If a changed schedule bears on a pending or appealed claim, that is a good reason to get accredited help rather than to work it out alone. It is also exactly the kind of question where a confident answer from an unreliable source does real damage.
Rules and forms change, and exceptions apply. Follow the instructions on your own decision letter and the linked governing sources. This site does not track your deadlines or file anything for you.
Reviewed October 6, 2026