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VA rating schedule, diagnostic code 5025
Fibromyalgia is a condition that causes widespread, ongoing pain along with tender points, and it can come with other problems like fatigue, sleep trouble, stiffness, headaches, irritable bowel symptoms, depression, or anxiety. The VA recognizes it in its rating schedule under 38 CFR 4.71a, where it is listed as diagnostic code 5025 (fibromyalgia, also called fibrositis or primary fibromyalgia syndrome). The VA's rule explains that "widespread pain" means pain on both the left and right sides of the body, both above and below the waist, that affects both the spine area and the arms or legs.
The VA rates fibromyalgia under diagnostic code 5025 at three levels based on how severe and how frequent the symptoms are. A 40% rating applies when symptoms are constant, or nearly so, and do not respond to treatment. A 20% rating applies when symptoms are episodic, with flare-ups often triggered by environmental or emotional stress or overexertion, but are present more than one-third of the time. A 10% rating applies when symptoms require continuous medication for control. So what drives a higher percentage is mainly how constant the symptoms are and whether they keep going despite treatment.
There is an important exposure-related pathway for fibromyalgia. Under 38 CFR 3.317, the VA may pay compensation to a Persian Gulf veteran who has a "qualifying chronic disability," and fibromyalgia is specifically named as a medically unexplained chronic multisymptom illness covered by this rule. To qualify under this presumptive route, the disability must have appeared either during qualifying service in the Southwest Asia theater of operations, or to a degree of 10 percent or more by December 31, 2026, and it cannot be tied to a known clinical diagnosis through history, exam, and lab tests. This presumptive pathway can ease the usual requirement of proving a direct link (a "nexus") between current illness and service.
This is general educational information about how the VA's rules work, not legal advice or a VA decision about any individual claim.
Grounded in federal regulations and VA guidance, independently reviewed June 2026. Educational information, not legal advice or a VA determination.
Across 5,973 Board decisions mentioning Fibromyalgia
A denial is often not the end either — remands (shown below) are sent back for more development and can still end in a grant. These are whole-decision outcomes, not condition-specific success rates or a prediction of your case.
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These are decision-level labels in granted or partly granted decisions mentioning Fibromyalgia. They do not establish which theory succeeded for this condition.
In appeals where Fibromyalgia was the only condition decided and the Board granted it, the rating most often assigned was:
A decision may address several conditions. Its overall outcome or exposure tags do not establish what happened to each individual claim. Verify the specific issue against the original Board decision.
Browse decisions mentioning Fibromyalgia →Jump to the decisions from a specific year.
Coverage is incomplete and may lag publication. A year that looks thin or missing here (especially 2011–2017) is a gap in our library, not in the Board’s decisions.
Veterans appealing Fibromyalgia often look at outcomes for these too:
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