2026 VA Chapter 31 Pay Chart

For fiscal year 2026, Chapter 31 subsistence allowance pays $812.84 a month for full-time institutional training with no dependents, $1,008.24 with one and $1,188.15 with two, plus $86.58 for each additional dependent. Rates took effect 1 October 2025.

The 2026 rate table

This is VA’s complete table, reproduced in full. It is worth saying plainly why that matters: almost every page ranking for this query publishes only the full-time institutional row. The three-quarter, half and quarter-time tiers, and four of the five program types, are largely missing from the commercial results — which is precisely where most readers’ actual situation sits.

¹ The quarter-time rate may be paid only during Extended Evaluation. For on-job training, for On-Job Training, training wage plus subsistence allowance cannot exceed the journeyman wage. Source: VA, VR&E Fiscal Year 2026 Subsistence Rates, effective 1 October 2025.

How your rate is calculated

Three inputs decide the number, and readers commonly get the second one wrong:

• Type of training. Institutional study, nonpay on-job training, farm cooperative or apprenticeship, or one of the two combination categories.
• Training time. Only institutional training has part-time tiers. Every other category on VA’s table is published at full-time only, so “half-time apprenticeship” is not a rate that exists.
• Number of dependents. Counted as spouse, children and dependent parents — which is why VA’s own maximum is calculated with a spouse, both parents and 25 children.

More than two dependents

VA prints rates for nought, one and two dependents and then stops, giving a per-dependent increment instead. So for anything above two the rate is derived:

rate = two-dependent rate + (dependents − 2) × increment, up to $3,439.23 a month

For full-time institutional training with three dependents that is $1,188.15 + $86.58 = $1,274.73. The monthly maximum of $3,439.23 is reached at 28 dependents, and the arithmetic reproduces VA’s published figure exactly — $1,188.15 plus 26 increments of $86.58. Only the full-time rows can reach it; the part-time tiers have increments too small to approach the ceiling.

Why apprenticeships pay less

Full-time institutional training pays $812.84 with no dependents, while farm cooperative, apprenticeship or other on-job training pays $710.67 — a gap of $102.17 a month. The reason is that on-job training is paid work: you are drawing a training wage from the employer as well as the allowance. VA caps the combination, and the rule is worth quoting because it catches people out: for on-job training, training wage plus subsistence allowance cannot exceed the journeyman wage.

The two combination categories follow the same logic. Where institutional study is the larger share, you get the institutional rate; where on-job training is the larger share, you get the lower on-job rate.

Quarter-time and Extended Evaluation

VA publishes a quarter-time rate of $204.30 with no dependents, but it is not generally available. VA’s footnote restricts it: “The quarter-time rate may be paid only during Extended Evaluation.” 38 CFR § 21.260 carries the same limitation. For ordinary institutional training the lowest tier you can actually be paid at is half-time.

Tax treatment, and what this is not

Subsistence allowance is exempt from taxation. The authority is statutory rather than a matter of VA policy — 38 U.S.C. § 5301(a)(1) provides that payments of benefits under any law administered by the Secretary “shall be exempt from taxation, shall be exempt from the claim of creditors, and shall not be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure”.

Two things it is not. It is not a wage, so it does not appear on a W-2 and nothing is withheld from it. And it is not the Post-9/11 GI Bill monthly housing allowance — a different benefit, under a different chapter, calculated a different way. The two intersect only through the election described below.

What Chapter 31 pays besides subsistence

Subsistence allowance is a living stipend paid while you train. It is separate from the cost of the training itself: where a rehabilitation plan includes education or training, VA covers those costs under the plan rather than expecting the allowance to fund them. Chapter 31 is a services programme built around a rehabilitation plan agreed with a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, and the allowance is one line in it. VA’s programme page, linked below, sets out the full range of services.

Who is entitled to Chapter 31

None of these rates apply unless you are entitled to a rehabilitation programme in the first place, and the threshold is widely misstated as a flat 20 percent. The statute has two routes, at 38 U.S.C. § 3102:

• A service-connected disability rated at 20 percent or more, and a determination by the Secretary that you are in need of rehabilitation because of an employment handicap; or
• A service-connected disability rated at 10 percent, and a determination that you are in need of rehabilitation because of a serious employment handicap.

So 20 percent is not a floor. A 10 percent rating qualifies where the employment handicap is serious — a route often left out of summaries, and one worth raising with a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor rather than self-screening out of. There is also a route for servicemembers still pending discharge who are receiving care for a condition likely to be compensable at 20 percent or more.

Note that entitlement turns on a rating plus a handicap determination. The rating alone does not establish it, which is why the counselor’s evaluation and the resulting rehabilitation plan sit ahead of any payment. The detailed rules are in 38 CFR part 21, subpart A.

When the rates change

Every 1 October, indexed to the Consumer Price Index. VA states the basis for this year verbatim as “Based Upon 2.5% Consumer Price Index (CPI) Increase”.

One trap worth naming, because it produces confidently wrong answers elsewhere: the dollar tables printed inside 38 CFR § 21.260 are decades out of date — the regulation still shows rates from the mid-1990s. The regulation is the right citation for the rules (how training time is classified, the quarter-time restriction, the journeyman-wage cap) and the wrong one for the amounts. Current figures come only from VA’s annual fiscal-year rate page.

Chapter 31 vs Chapter 33: the election

A veteran entitled to both Chapter 31 and Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33) benefits can choose which rate to be paid, and this is the comparison that actually decides the money. Under 38 U.S.C. § 3108(b)(4) the alternative is

“an amount equal to the applicable monthly amount of basic allowance for housing payable under section 403 of title 37 for a member with dependents in pay grade E–5 residing in the military housing area that encompasses all or the majority portion of the ZIP code area in which is located the institution providing the rehabilitation program concerned.”

38 U.S.C. § 3108(b)(4)

So the real question is a flat national rate against a location-indexed one. The Chapter 31 full-time rate is $812.84 everywhere in the country; the election pays the E-5-with-dependents housing allowance for wherever your school is. In an expensive metropolitan housing area that is usually the larger number, and in a low-cost area usually the smaller one. Note also that the election is pegged to E-5 with dependents regardless of your own former rank or your actual dependents, and to the school’s location rather than your home.

Because it turns on a housing rate for a specific ZIP code and a specific year, there is no general answer to “which pays more” — look up the current housing allowance for your school’s military housing area and compare it with the figure from the table above.