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The VA can propose to lower a rating, but the law puts real limits on when it can, and the longer you have held a rating, the harder it is to touch. Here is what protects you, what the VA has to prove, and exactly what to do if you get a proposed reduction.
Sources: 38 CFR 3.344 — stabilization of disability ratings, 38 CFR 3.951 — preservation of ratings (20-year rule), 38 CFR 3.957 — service connection (10-year rule), 38 CFR 3.105 — revision of decisions
The VA cannot cut your rating just because you had a good exam day. It has to follow specific rules, and three time-based protections make ratings progressively harder to reduce: at 5 years your rating is stabilized, at 10 years your service connection is protected, and at 20 years your rating level is protected for life. If you get a proposed reduction, you have a 60-day window to fight it, and requesting a hearing within 30 days keeps your money coming while you do.
Under 38 CFR 3.344, once a rating has been in effect for five or more years, it is treated as stabilized. The VA cannot reduce it off a single re-examination. It has to review your entire medical history, not just the latest exam, and show that your condition has shown sustained material improvement that is reasonably certain to continue under the ordinary conditions of life and work. A one-time better reading, or an exam that is less thorough than the one that set your rating, is not enough.
Under 38 CFR 3.957, once a disability has been service-connected for ten or more years, the VA cannot sever that service connection, except in cases of proven fraud or if it turns out you did not have the required service. The percentage can still be reduced if the rules allow it, but the condition stays service-connected, which keeps the door open to increases later.
This is the strongest one. Under 38 CFR 3.951(b), a rating that has been continuously in effect for twenty or more years cannot be reduced below the lowest level it held during that period, except for fraud. In practice, your rating is locked at that floor for the rest of your life. If your knee has been rated 30% for 20 years, the VA cannot drop it below 30%, no matter what a future exam says.
A total (100%) rating gets extra protection under 38 CFR 3.343. The VA cannot reduce a total rating without showing material improvement in your condition, based on a thorough exam and your full record, not a snapshot. And if your rating is marked Permanent and Total (P&T), the VA generally is not scheduling future re-examinations at all, because it has already decided the condition is not expected to improve. P&T is also the gate that unlocks benefits like CHAMPVA and Chapter 35 dependent education.
Even when a rating is not yet protected by time, the VA cannot reduce it casually. For any rating that has been in effect long enough to be stabilized, it must base a reduction on a re-examination as full and complete as the one that established the rating, and it must find actual, lasting improvement in your ability to function, not just a better number on one visit. If the reduction notice does not show that, it is beatable.
A reduction does not happen overnight. Under 38 CFR 3.105(e), the VA first sends a proposed reduction notice. From that date:
Separately, if a past VA decision contained a Clear and Unmistakable Error (CUE) under 38 CFR 3.105(a), an undebatable mistake in the facts or the law that would have changed the outcome, you can ask the VA to revise that decision, and a successful CUE claim is retroactive to the original date. CUE is a high bar (a mere disagreement is not enough), but it is a real tool when the record shows a clear mistake.
Reduction defense is exactly the kind of thing a free accredited VSO handles every day, at no cost to you. Never pay someone a fee or a percentage of your back pay to protect a rating you already earned. This page is general education, not legal advice.