Newsweek reported this week that the VA's burial allowance for non-service-connected deaths rose to $1,002 from $978, with the same bump to the plot allowance, and that disabled veterans should expect a cost-of-living raise of somewhere between 3.2% and 3.6% for 2027. Half of that is right. The burial figure is a year stale, and even the correct number comes with a condition the coverage skipped.
The number on VA.gov
The VA adjusts burial allowances every October 1, and its
burial allowance page lays out the schedule by date of death. For veterans who die on or after October 1, 2026, the non-service-connected burial allowance is $1,032, and so is the plot or interment allowance. The $1,002 figure in the news was last year's rate, covering deaths from October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026. The $978 before it was the year before that.
Small money either way, next to a funeral. The National Funeral Directors Association's median for a funeral with viewing and burial was $8,300 as of 2023, before the cemetery costs. The allowance was never designed to cover a funeral. It's a partial reimbursement, and the person who paid has to claim it.
The condition the headlines left out
The $1,032 burial allowance for a non-service-connected death goes to families of veterans who died while in VA care: hospitalized at a VA facility, in a VA-contracted nursing home, or under VA-authorized care. If the veteran died at home or in a civilian hospital, which is most veterans, the burial allowance is $300. The plot allowance, the separate $1,032, is available in both situations, provided the veteran isn't buried in a national cemetery, where the plot is free.
So the realistic non-service-connected package for most families is $300 plus $1,032, not $1,032 plus $1,032. That distinction has been in the regulations for years and the coverage this week ran right past it.
Service-connected deaths are a different tier. If the veteran died from a service-connected condition, the burial allowance is up to $2,000, and the VA may also reimburse the cost of transporting the remains to a national cemetery. A death from a service-connected condition is also what opens the door to
DIC for the surviving spouse, which is worth far more over time than any burial payment, and which families miss when nobody tells them the death might count as service-connected.
The deadline that catches people
For a non-service-connected death, the claim for the burial allowance has to be filed within two years of the burial. Miss that and the money is gone. There's no time limit when the veteran died in VA care, and no time limit on the plot and transportation allowances, and none on a service-connected burial allowance. The VA also pays the burial allowance automatically to a surviving spouse of record in many cases, which is helpful when it happens and a trap when a family assumes it did.
If you paid the funeral costs and nobody's been paid by the VA, file. The form is the burial benefits application, and it accepts claims from a spouse, a child, a parent, the executor, or a friend who covered the bill. We've written before about
what a family has to do in the weeks after a veteran dies; add this to that list.
The COLA, and the date to watch
The other half of the Newsweek story is the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment for VA compensation, which rides on the Social Security COLA and gets set by the September inflation data, scheduled for release October 14. The projections it cites, 3.2% to 3.6%, come from third-party forecasters, not the VA. For comparison, the 2026 raise was 2.8% and the 2025 raise was 2.5%.
The article's "$1,800" headline comes from one example: a veteran rated 100% with a spouse, a child, and two dependent parents, whose monthly check would rise from $4,671 to $4,821 under a mid-range projection. Most veterans' raises will be a fraction of that. A 10% rating moves by about six dollars a month.
New rates take effect December 1 and show up in the payment that arrives at the end of December. Congress has to pass the annual Veterans' COLA Act for the VA raise to track Social Security, which it has done every year in recent memory, and which is still a step to watch. We'll update
the fall calendar once the figure is official.
Where we come in
We're a veteran-led firm, and burial allowances aren't something anyone needs a lawyer for. The question underneath them sometimes is. If a veteran in your family died and you think the cause traces back to service, the burial allowance is the small claim and DIC is the one that counts.
Reach out and we'll tell you whether the service connection is there.
