Tinnitus VA Claim Grants
Real BVA decisions granting service connection for tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Tinnitus is subjective — a veteran's own lay statement that they have ringing in the ears is competent evidence of the diagnosis. The single rating under 38 CFR § 4.87 Code 6260 is 10%. Grants turn on whether in-service noise exposure is credible, which is nearly always the case for vets with qualifying MOS.
Top 5 recent grants
Ranked by decision date. Each card shows verbatim Findings of Fact and Reasons & Bases pulled directly from the Board's published decision — no summarization, no AI rewording.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. The evidence is approximately evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran's preexisting right ear hearing loss was aggravated by acoustic trauma during a period of inactive duty for training (INACDUTRA) with the Air National Guard in September 1977. 2. The evidence is approximately evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran's left ear hearing loss is related to in-service acoustic trauma incurred during a period of INACDUTRA or active duty for training (ACDUTRA) with the Air National Guard. 2.…
Reasons & Bases (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran served on active duty from June 1966 to October 1966 and in the Air National Guard for approximately 20 years. These matters initially came before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) on appeal from a March 2015 decision of a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO) that, among other things, denied the claims of service connection for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus. The Veteran testified at a Travel Board hearing in November 2019 before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge (VLJ). A transcript of that hearing is of record. The Board remanded the claims for further development in January 2020. As the Board is, for the reasons explained below, granting the benefits sought in full, discussion of compliance with the Board's January 2020 remand instructions is unnecessary. Stegall v. West, 11 Vet. App. 268 (1998). Entitlement to service connection for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus The Veteran contends that his hearing loss and tinnitus began while serving in the Air National Guard working on the flight line as a loadmaster and fueling aircraft.…
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran's tinnitus is related to active duty service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. The evidence is at least in approximate balance that the Veteran's current bilateral hearing loss was incurred in and is etiologically related to active service. 2. The evidence is at least in approximate balance that the Veteran's current tinnitus was incurred in and is etiologically related to active service.
Reasons & Bases (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran served on active duty from June 1991 to June 1995. This matter comes before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) from a December 2018 legacy rating decision by a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO). The Veteran timely appealed that decision and requested de novo review of the claims by a Decision Review Officer (DRO). See January 2019 Notice of Disagreement. That was provided in the October 2019 Statement of the Case (SOC) which continued the denials for the claims. The Veteran timely filed an appeal requesting a hearing. See October 2019 VA Form 9. The Veteran provided sworn testimony at a November 2022 Board hearing before the undersigned Veteran's Law Judge (VLJ) (formerly with the last name Costello). A copy of the hearing transcript has been associated with the Veteran's electronic claims file. See 2022 Hearing Transcript. Entitlement to service connection for bilateral hearing loss is granted. Entitlement to service connection for bilateral tinnitus is granted. Service connection will be granted if it is shown that a veteran has a disability resulting from an injury or disease contracted in the line of duty, or for aggravation of a preexisting injury or disease contracted in the line of duty in the active military, naval, space, or air service. 38 U.S.C. § 1110; 38 C.F.R. § 3.303.…
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The evidence is in relative equipoise as to whether the Veteran's tinnitus is causally or etiologically related to his service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The evidence is at least evenly balanced as to whether the Veteran's current tinnitus is related to in-service acoustic trauma.
Get a filed-ready brief on your specific facts — $99
The decisions above are the most recent grants — they may not match your specific nexus theory or fact pattern. The NexusVetClaims Precedent Brief runs a semantic search on your exact situation and returns 10 decisions (8 closest analogous matches + 2 instructive contrasts) as a filed-ready PDF with suggested citations and placement guidance for every VA form.
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How to use these decisions in your claim
- ›Charles v. Principi: tinnitus is a condition where lay testimony of symptoms is sufficient — you do not need a doctor to "prove" you hear ringing.
- ›Duty MOS Noise Exposure Listing is often decisive. Find your MOS/rate and cite it.
- ›Tinnitus secondary to service-connected hearing loss is routinely granted — the nexus is medically obvious.
- ›BVA decisions are non-precedential under 38 CFR § 20.1303 but the Board and rating officials regularly find recent analogous decisions persuasive — especially when your facts materially match.
- ›Paste the suggested-citation line into VA Form 21-4138 (Statement in Support of Claim), then attach the full decision PDF as an exhibit.
Also helpful for Tinnitus claims
- Precedent Finder — search all Board decisions for your exact fact pattern (free).
- Nexus Letter Drafter — doctor-ready nexus letter template for Tinnitus.
- Tinnitus rating guide — 2026 compensation tables + rating criteria under 38 CFR.
- C&P Exam Prep — the DBQ questions and how to answer them.
More BVA grant guides
BVA decisions are public-record Department of Veterans Affairs rulings. Under 38 CFR § 20.1303 they are non-precedential but may be cited as persuasive evidence of how the Board has treated similar facts. NexusVetClaims provides software, not legal representation. This page shows retrieval output from the nexusvetclaims.com BVA corpus and is updated as new decisions are indexed.