Do I qualify?
Free phone for veterans: Lifeline through the VA pension
Independent site, not the FCC, USAC or a phone company. Lifeline applications are made only on the official National Verifier or through your state.
The VA pension is already selected in the checker above. Switch it off to test the income route if your VA payment is not the pension.
You qualify through your benefit
$9.25 off per month
| 2026 income limit, 2 people | $29,214 |
| Your income is over it by | $2,786 |
| Share of the poverty guideline | 148% |
| Discount over a year | $111 |
| Where to apply | National Verifier (USAC) |
- Veterans or Survivors Pension: checked automatically against government records in this state.
- One Lifeline per household (48 states, DC and territories table). How to apply
Everything you enter stays in this browser: nothing is sent or stored. This is an estimate from the published rules; the decision is made by the National Verifier or your state.
Veterans do not get Lifeline for having served. What qualifies is one specific VA payment, the Veterans and Survivors Pension Benefit, which 47 CFR 54.409 lists next to SNAP, Medicaid, SSI and Federal Public Housing Assistance. A household in which the veteran, a dependent or a surviving spouse receives that pension qualifies whatever its income, and gets up to $9.25 a month off one phone or internet plan, or $34.25 on qualifying Tribal lands. It is also the easiest program to prove: USAC has a federal data connection with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and its table shows the pension matched automatically in every state, DC and every territory, with Oregon and Texas using their own state process. Other VA payments are not on the list. A veteran whose only VA payment is something else qualifies through income, $21,546 for one person or $29,214 for a couple in 2026, and can prove it with a VA statement of benefits, or through SNAP, Medicaid or another listed program.
Rules and figures read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
The one VA payment that counts
The qualification rule and the FCC definitions both name the qualifying VA program the same way: Veterans and Survivors Pension Benefit. The list is closed, so a payment that is not named there does not qualify a household by itself. That leaves veterans in two groups.
The first group receives the pension, or lives with someone who does. For them the income figure is irrelevant. A veteran in Richmond receiving the pension and living with a wife who works, with $32,000 of combined gross income, would be $2,786 over the two-person limit, but the pension qualifies the couple anyway.
The second group receives another VA payment, or none. They go through income or through another program. A single veteran in Richmond with $1,700 a month of VA payments and no other income has $20,400 a year, $1,146 under the $21,546 limit, and qualifies on income. A veteran couple at $2,700 a month, $32,400 a year, is over the $29,214 limit for two and would need SNAP, Medicaid or another listed program.
Automatic everywhere, unlike most programs
The USAC table of automated data sources lists the Veterans Pension as automatic in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, through USAC’s federal connection with the Department of Veterans Affairs. That is broader than Medicaid, which is manual in three territories, and much broader than SSI, matched in two states. Check how your state handles each benefit:
Will your benefit be checked automatically?
In Virginia
Checked automatically by the National Verifier
| Benefit | Veterans or Survivors Pension |
| Where to apply | Apply through the National Verifier |
| A document must be dated | within 12 months |
From USAC’s table of automated data sources by state.
An automatic match can still fail when a name or date of birth differs between the VA file and the application. The manual review then takes a copy of a document that shows the name of the person receiving the pension, the program, the issuing agency and a date within the last 12 months or a future expiration date.
Proving income with VA documents
For a veteran on the income route, the eligibility rule accepts a Veterans Administration statement of benefits, alongside a prior year tax return, a retirement or pension statement, a Social Security statement of benefits or 3 consecutive months of pay stubs. The figure that matters is the household’s total gross income, compared with the USAC table: $21,546 for one, $29,214 for two, $36,882 for three, $44,550 for four. If the household includes a working spouse or an adult child who shares expenses, their income is added in.
Two documents can serve twice. A statement of benefits proves income on the application and, if the identity check fails, can also help prove identity, since USAC lists statements of benefits from a qualifying program and military discharge documentation among the documents accepted to confirm a date of birth and the last four digits of a Social Security number.
Keeping the benefit each year
Because the pension is matched automatically, a veteran who qualified through it usually passes the yearly recertification without doing anything. A veteran who qualified on income may have to return a form within 60 days with a fresh proof of income. Older veterans will find more on living arrangements and plan choices on the seniors page, and survivors of domestic violence should read the separate survivor benefit page.