What’s your situation?
- VA denied my claim: What to check after a denial
- I'm claiming this condition for the first time: How to file a VA claim for tinnitus
- My current rating no longer fits: Tinnitus rating increase: what can actually change
- I have a claim exam coming up: C&P exam preparation
Deadline: An Intent to File can protect your potential effective date for 1 year — file it before you gather evidence Prepare an intent to file.
Tinnitus VA rating: a single 10%
| Rating | Criteria — Diagnostic Code 6260, Tinnitus | In plain language | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | Tinnitus, recurrent | Recurrent tinnitus — ringing or another sound that comes back — in one ear, both ears, or in the head. One 10% evaluation is the whole scale. | Note (2) allows a single evaluation however the sound is perceived; there is no higher tinnitus percentage under this code. |
Notes from the regulation:
- Note (1): A separate evaluation for tinnitus may be combined with an evaluation under diagnostic codes 6100, 6200, 6204, or other diagnostic code, except when tinnitus is used in support of an evaluation under any of those diagnostic codes.
- Note (2): Assign only a single evaluation for recurrent tinnitus, whether the sound is perceived in one ear, both ears, or in the head.
- Note (3): Objective tinnitus (in which the sound is audible to other people and has some identifiable cause that may be resolved by surgery or other treatment) is not evaluated under DC 6260, but rather as part of the underlying condition from which it results.
The whole scale is one line
Most VA rating schedules run from 0% to 100% in steps. Tinnitus does not. Diagnostic Code 6260 assigns a single 10% evaluation for recurrent tinnitus, and Note (2) to the code allows only one evaluation whether the sound is perceived in one ear, both ears, or in the head. Severity, loudness, and how much the ringing bothers you do not move the percentage — recurrence and service connection are the whole test.
That makes tinnitus claims simpler than most, and worth filing even at 10%: the evaluation combines with other ratings, and a service-connected tinnitus finding documents the noise exposure that often sits behind a hearing-loss claim too.
What decides the claim
Because the rating itself is fixed, tinnitus claims are won and lost on service connection. VA looks for a current record of recurrent tinnitus, an in-service event or exposure — typically noise — and a link between the two. The link can come from service records showing the exposure and symptoms, from continuity of ringing since service described in your own statement, or from a medical opinion connecting the tinnitus to the exposure or to a service-connected condition.
A separate tinnitus evaluation may also combine with evaluations for hearing loss and certain other ear conditions under Note (1) — except when the tinnitus itself was used to support the evaluation under one of those codes.
When 10% is not the end of it
The 10% cap applies to tinnitus rated under DC 6260. It does not cap the conditions around it. Hearing loss is rated separately on its own schedule. Meniere's syndrome (DC 6205) is evaluated either under its own criteria or by separately evaluating vertigo, hearing impairment, and tinnitus — whichever method gives the higher overall evaluation. And after a traumatic brain injury, DC 8045 directs that tinnitus be evaluated under its own diagnostic code as a distinct residual rather than folded into the TBI table.
If a rater denied tinnitus or folded it into another evaluation in a way the notes do not allow, that is an error worth challenging — the criteria page walks through the three notes that govern the code.
Tinnitus evidence worksheet
DC 6260 turns on recurrence and service connection rather than severity, so the useful record is a timeline: when the ringing started, what you were exposed to, and that it has continued since. Use this worksheet to assemble that line before you file.
Tinnitus guides in this series
- Tinnitus VA rating criteria: the DC 6260 notes
The full text of Diagnostic Code 6260 — recurrent tinnitus at 10% — and the three regulatory notes that decide how the evaluation combines with other ear ratings.
- How to file a VA claim for tinnitus
What to file for tinnitus under DC 6260: the claim itself, the noise-exposure and continuity evidence that carries service connection, and the audiology exam.
- Tinnitus rating increase: what can actually change
There is no tinnitus evaluation above 10% under DC 6260. What can change: a missing separate evaluation, a Meniere's evaluation, and the ratings of the conditions around the tinnitus.
- Tinnitus after a TBI: rating it as its own residual
DC 8045 directs that hearing loss and tinnitus after a traumatic brain injury be evaluated under their own diagnostic codes — what that means for a tinnitus claim alongside TBI residuals.