Special Monthly Compensation: Benefits Beyond the Standard Rating

Special Monthly Compensation (SMC) provides extra payments for veterans with severe disabilities. From loss of limbs to housebound status, here's what qualifies.

Special Monthly Compensation (SMC) is an additional tax-free payment above the normal disability compensation rate. It's designed for veterans with particularly severe disabilities or combinations of disabilities that go beyond what the standard 0-100% rating system captures. The levels take their letters from the subsections of 38 U.S.C. 1114 that create them, running from SMC-K to SMC-T, and 38 CFR 3.350 sets out the criteria for each.

Under 38 CFR 3.350(a), SMC-K is payable for each anatomical loss or loss of use of one hand, one foot, both buttocks, or one or more creative organs; blindness of one eye having only light perception; deafness of both ears, having absence of air and bone conduction; complete organic aphonia with constant inability to communicate by speech; or, in the case of a woman veteran, loss of 25% or more of tissue from a single breast or both breasts in combination (including loss by mastectomy or partial mastectomy), or following receipt of radiation treatment of breast tissue. It is paid in addition to the basic rate for your degree of disability, within two ceilings: alongside 1114(a) through (j) or (s), the combined rate does not exceed the (l) rate; alongside (l) through (n) or an intermediate rate under (p), the total does not exceed the (o) rate. If your service-connected condition has caused any of these losses, you may be entitled to this additional compensation on top of your regular rating.

SMC-L through SMC-O are paid at rates that rise from (l) to (o). Under 38 CFR 3.350(b), SMC-L is payable for anatomical loss or loss of use of both feet, or of one hand and one foot; blindness in both eyes with visual acuity of 5/200 or less; or being permanently bedridden or so helpless as to be in need of regular aid and attendance. SMC-M and SMC-N cover the losses of the hands, arms, legs and eyes listed in 3.350(c) and (d). SMC-O covers, among other things, conditions entitling the veteran to two or more of the rates in (l) through (n), no condition being considered twice (3.350(e)).

SMC-S (often called "housebound" SMC) is payable under 38 CFR 3.350(i) where the veteran has a single service-connected disability rated as 100 percent and either has additional service-connected disability or disabilities independently ratable at 60 percent, separate and distinct from the 100 percent disability and involving different anatomical segments or bodily systems, or is permanently housebound by reason of service-connected disability. Permanently housebound means substantially confined to the dwelling and its immediate premises, with the confinement reasonably certain to continue throughout the veteran's lifetime.

Those two routes to SMC-S are alternatives. A veteran who meets the first, a single 100 percent disability plus separate disability independently ratable at 60 percent, meets the (s) criteria without being confined to the home; the "housebound" name describes only the second route.

If you believe you qualify for an SMC level that hasn't been awarded, you can ask VA to address it. Your VSO can review your disabilities against the criteria in 38 CFR 3.350 and identify any level that may have been missed.

Each SMC level is a rate set by 38 U.S.C. 1114, and VA publishes the current amounts in its compensation rate tables.