DVA Hearing Loss Payout: How Your Hearing Test Sets the Amount

Why the Amount Is Not Fixed

DVA puts no set price on a hearing loss diagnosis. DVA works it out as a weekly amount, using the same inputs it applies to any accepted condition.

DVA explains that it combines three measures to calculate the amount:

• Impairment rating: Your points across all of your accepted conditions
• Service type: Peacetime, non-warlike or warlike
• Lifestyle rating: A score from 0 to 7 for how much your conditions limit daily life

Veterans with matching hearing tests can end up with different weekly amounts. Their other conditions, their service and their daily lives can all differ.

Liability Comes First

DVA only works out the amount once it accepts your hearing loss as linked to service. It usually looks at permanent impairment after that, during a DVA needs assessment.

Where your condition is sensorineural hearing loss, DVA tests the link to service against the Statements of Principles concerning sensorineural hearing loss. These list the factors that can tie the condition to service.

Several listed factors deal with noise and blasts:

•  A peak sound level at the eardrum reaching 140 dB(C) and above before the hearing loss began
• Exposure to an explosive blast in the 30 days before the hearing loss began
• Noise averaging 85 dB(A) or more across an 8-hour period, for a total of six months or one year

There are two Statements for this condition. The one applied to your claim sets which of those two periods counts.

Both Statements were amended from 22 September 2025. The definition now needs a lasting shift in your hearing threshold to 20 decibels or worse, at any one of seven set frequencies. Before that, the level was 25 decibels.

Our page on hearing loss claims covers the claim itself. This article stays with what happens after DVA accepts the condition.

How DVA Turns a Hearing Test Into Impairment Points

DVA rates tinnitus by matching your symptoms to written bands. Rating hearing loss works differently, because the figure starts with your hearing test.

The rules sit in Part 7.1 of GARP M, the legal instrument DVA uses to rate impairment. The steps below summarise that Part.

The Hearing Test DVA Needs

The assessment uses a pure tone audiogram. That is the standard hearing test where you respond to tones across a range of pitches and loudness levels.

GARP M sets these rules for the test:

• It measures your hearing without a hearing aid
• It should record results at 500 Hz, 1,000 Hz, 1,500 Hz, 2,000 Hz, 3,000 Hz and 4,000 Hz
•  It should ideally show both air conduction and masked bone conduction results
•  It should be no more than six months older than the period being assessed

If you say your hearing got worse in the last six months, the test should be no more than six weeks old. One or two missing results can be estimated. A test may need to be repeated if it is too old or is missing too many results to estimate.

From Decibels to a Percentage of Hearing Lost

For each of the six frequencies, the results for your better and poorer ears are looked up in a table. Each table gives a percentage figure. The six figures are then added together.

The total is your accepted percentage hearing loss. It is a measure of how much hearing you have lost, not your impairment rating.

The frequencies do not count equally. The most each one can add is shown below.

Total loss at every frequency across both ears comes to 100 per cent. The lower and middle pitches carry most of the weight.

Adjusting for Age and Halving the Result

Some hearing loss comes with age alone. For most kinds of hearing loss, GARP M allows for this by taking an age figure off the total. The figure depends on your age on the day of the test.

For loss across both ears, nothing comes off at age 60 or under. For men, the deduction starts at 61. For women, it starts at 74, and it stays smaller than the figure for men at every age after that.

What remains is halved, then rounded to a whole number, with a half rounding up. That number is your hearing rating in points.

Take a veteran aged 45 whose accepted hearing loss across both ears comes to 22 per cent. No age deduction applies, so the rating is 11 points. By itself, hearing loss tops out at 50 points.

One Ear or Both

DVA treats accepted hearing loss as one condition; however, many diagnostic terms are used to describe it. Loss in the left ear and loss in the right ear are treated as one loss across both ears.

Where only one ear is accepted, a further step called the paired organs policy applies. DVA doubles the rating for the accepted ear.

It then works out a second rating from the total hearing loss across both ears, from all causes. The lower of the two ratings is used.

Why a Clear Loss Can Still Rate Low

The two frequencies weighted least are 3,000 Hz and 4,000 Hz. A loss that shows up mostly at those pitches can look obvious on the chart and still add up to a modest total.

The definition in the Statements of Principles also counts a threshold at 6,000 Hz. The GARP M calculation stops at 4,000 Hz, so a loss measured only at that higher pitch adds nothing to the rating.

Acceptance and rating are two separate questions. A claim can clear the first and still produce few points on the second.

The Minimum Before Anything Is Paid

Having an impairment rating does not mean compensation is payable. There is a minimum to reach first, with hearing loss one of the few conditions that have a lower bar.

Hearing Loss Needs Five Points

The usual minimum is 10 points. DVA confirms that hearing loss needs only 5 points. The same lower bar applies to losing a finger or toe and to a lost ability to smell or taste.

GARP M applies that lower threshold to each of those losses as impairment for a single condition. Any mix of conditions that combines to 10 points or more can attract compensation, subject to the other payment conditions.

Where both ears are accepted, 5 points need an age-adjusted hearing loss of 9 per cent or more. My table of impairment points by condition shows how other conditions compare.

Tinnitus Gets Its Own Rating

GARP M gives tinnitus a rating of its own, next to the hearing figure. Tinnitus is assessed if it is accepted in its own right, or if it is in an ear where DVA has accepted hearing loss. It is not assessed if DVA has rejected it.

Tinnitus uses its own table, with bands from nil to 15 points. Unlike hearing loss, tinnitus does not get the lower 5-point threshold. My guide to how tinnitus compensation is worked out covers those bands.

Both ratings then go into a combined values chart with your other accepted conditions. Each further rating counts only against the part of the whole person not already rated, so the total is less than a straight sum. Two ratings of 10, for example, combine to 19.

My guide to lodging a tinnitus claim sets out the steps.

Where the Gold Card Fits

A combined rating of 60 points or higher is one MRCA route to the Veteran Card for all conditions. DVA notes the card is informally known as the Veteran Gold Card. DVA lists other routes on the same page.

Under GARP M, hearing loss alone cannot reach that level. Even the top rating of 50 points, combined with the top tinnitus rating of 15, works out below 60.

Reaching 60 or more would need other accepted conditions as well. My guide to how many points the Gold Card takes explains the card and its other routes.

DVA's Published Weekly Rates

Once your combined rating clears the minimum, the calculation follows published figures. DVA takes the compensation factor GARP M sets and applies it to a maximum weekly rate.

The maximum is $447.39 a week. DVA indexes it every 1 July.

Rates for Non-Warlike and Warlike Service

These are DVA's published factors and weekly rates as of 1 July 2026, for the ratings a hearing loss may produce.

Rates for Peacetime Service

Conditions linked to peacetime service attract lower factors at every rating shown. At 50 points the peacetime figure is a little over half the warlike figure.

DVA publishes every 5-point step from 5 to 80. We have shown the steps most relevant to hearing loss.

Why the Published Rate Is Only a Guide

These rates are expected outcomes, not a quote. GARP M sets out its factors in tables, with a shaded area marking the lifestyle ratings expected at each level. DVA's published rates use the upper factor in that shaded area.

GARP M expects most lifestyle ratings to fall within that shaded area, and allows a rating outside it in exceptional cases. It gives you three ways to have your rating set:

•  Assessing yourself on a DVA form
•  Completing a lifestyle questionnaire
•  Leaving DVA to set it from your impairment level

If you leave it to DVA, the rating is not to be lower than the top of the shaded area. The rating covers your personal relationships and mobility. It also covers community and recreational activities, plus domestic and employment activities.

Hearing loss may affect several of those areas at once, from following a conversation at dinner to hearing a colleague on a job site. An accurate picture of those effects is what the rating relies on.

DVA's tables also leave out claims that mix warlike and peacetime conditions. Our guide to how the weekly amount is worked out has fuller examples.

Choosing Between Weekly Payments and a Single Sum

DVA first sets the payment as a weekly figure and pays it fortnightly. You may then be able to swap part or the whole of it for a single lump sum.

How Much of It You Can Convert

What you can convert turns on how your weekly figure compares with the maximum rate, rather than on your points. GARP M and DVA's payment options set three bands:

• Less than 10 per cent of the maximum: You may convert all of it
• Between 10 and 20 per cent: You can convert half of it, or all of it
•  More than 20 per cent: You can choose to convert 25, 50, 75 or 100 per cent of it

Using DVA's published rows, a rating of 5 points for non-warlike or warlike service sits in the lowest band. Ratings of 10 and 15 points fall in the middle band, and 20 points or more falls in the top band.

For peacetime service, 15 points or fewer sits in the lowest band. The middle band covers 20 to 30 points, and 35 points or more sits in the top band. Your own lifestyle rating can move a rating into a different band.

Making the Choice

The decision window is six months from when DVA makes the offer. An extension needs special circumstances.

If you miss that window, the fortnightly payments continue and the lump sum option ends. Once made, a choice to convert is final.

Weekly and lump sum compensation are both tax free. DVA works out the lump sum using life expectancy tables from the Australian Government Actuary.

Which option suits you depends on your own situation. DVA strongly recommends getting advice from qualified people first, but you do not have to.

Hearing Aids Are a Separate Entitlement

Compensation and treatment run on separate tracks. Hearing aids come through a different program, and your rating is measured without one, so wearing a hearing aid does not lower it.

DVA may help you access hearing treatment and devices if you hold either of these:

• A Veteran Gold Card
•  A Veteran White Card with tinnitus or hearing loss accepted as a condition

DVA says most hearing needs can be met through the Hearing Services Program, which offers fully subsidised hearing aids. Where a device has a cost, your provider needs prior approval before you buy it. DVA does not reimburse a device you have already bought.

Access is based on eligibility and approval rather than being open-ended. Our guide to the Veteran White Card explains how that card works for accepted conditions.

When Your Hearing Changes

Hearing may worsen over time, so a rating is not always the end of it. DVA may pay more if your impairment has risen by at least 5 points.

The 5 points apply to your combined rating. With other accepted conditions, your hearing rating may need to rise by more than 5 points to lift the combined figure that far. DVA describes this as a claim you lodge, so an increase does not happen automatically.

Age works against a later test in one way. The age deduction uses your age on the day of each test. A test taken in your sixties or seventies can attract a larger deduction.

The 1 July 2026 Change to Claims

A new law commenced on 1 July 2026. It is the Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act 2025. Since then, DVA decides all new compensation claims under the MRCA, regardless of when you served or were injured.

Noise damage from service can date back decades, so this matters for hearing claims. If you lodged before 1 July 2026, confirm which arrangements apply to your claim rather than assuming.

If you already have conditions accepted under the previous arrangements, GARP M uses a separate method to calculate your compensation. The published tables above may not reflect your figure in that case.

Checking the Assessment Yourself

You can contact DVA at any point. The official routes include MyService, a visit to a Veterans' Access Network office and a call to 1800 VETERAN (1800 838 372).

Questions That Explain Your Rating

My guide to the PI assessment form DVA uses explains the medical evidence an assessment draws on. The answers to these questions show how DVA reached a hearing rating:

• The type of accepted hearing loss used, including whether it covers one ear or both
•  When the audiogram was done and whether bone conduction results were used
• Whether an age deduction was taken and how large it was
•  Whether the paired organs policy was applied
•  Whether tinnitus was rated as well
• Your combined rating, the service classification and the lifestyle rating behind your factor

If an answer does not match your hearing or your service, it is reasonable to ask DVA for an explanation. My guide to DVA reviews and appeals sets out the review options.

Where Your Rating Comes From

Each step, from the hearing test to the weekly rate, follows set rules that you can check.

Veterans First Consulting, an independent, paid service provider separate from DVA, has supported 10,000-plus veterans through DVA claims, including permanent impairment claims. Contact our team to talk through the evidence behind your claim.