Federal agency
Department of Veterans Affairs
Veterans’ benefits and the largest integrated health system in the country. The VA has more than doubled its staff since 1981 and is now the biggest civilian department by headcount — mostly doctors, nurses and hospital staff.
Source data last read . OMB publishes the historical tables once a year; USAspending updates within the fiscal year.
Outlays, FY 2025
$376.6 billion
Money actually paid out
Share of federal spending
5.4%
Of $7.01 trillion total
Rank by spending
5 of 26
Among agencies with a page here
Staff
452,000
Civilian FTE, FY 2025
Spending history
Department of Veterans Affairs paid out $5.6 billion in FY 1962 and $376.6 billion in FY 2025 — a 67.2-fold increase in nominal terms. These are current dollars, not adjusted for inflation, so across 63 years the nominal change substantially overstates the real one. The share-of-budget figure below is the inflation-neutral way to read the same series.
Hover or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to read any year.
Read as a share of the federal budget, the same series says something the nominal one cannot. A share is immune to inflation and to the growth of the budget itself, so it answers the question people usually mean when they ask whether an agency has grown: did it take a larger or smaller slice than it used to?
Hover or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to read any year.
Staffing
OMB reports this department by name in its staffing table, so its headcount can be read directly rather than inferred. It employed the equivalent of 214,000 full-time civilian staff in FY 1981 and 452,000 in FY 2025 — +111.2%. These are full-time equivalents, not headcounts, and they exclude contractors and anyone in uniform.
Hover or focus the chart and use the arrow keys to read any year.
This fiscal year, so far
Department of Veterans Affairs reports its budgetary resources, obligations and outlays to USAspending.gov continuously. These figures are for FY 2026 and are partial — a fiscal year in progress cannot have a final number.
| Measure | FY 2026 |
|---|---|
| Budgetary resources | $525.6 billion |
| Obligated | $371.1 billion |
| Outlayed | $382.6 billion |
| Share of government-wide resources | 3.4% |
Check these figures on USAspendingCongressional budget justification
The years that moved the line
A sixty-year spending chart is mostly gradual with a few sharp steps, and the steps are the interesting part. These are the largest single-year changes in Department of Veterans Affairs’s outlays, ranked by size in dollars rather than by percentage: the early years involve small enough numbers that a percentage ranking would surface nothing but the 1960s.
| Fiscal year | From | To | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $325.0 billion | $376.6 billion | +$51.6 billion (+15.9%) |
| 2022 | $233.8 billion | $273.9 billion | +$40.1 billion (+17.1%) |
| 2023 | $273.9 billion | $301.0 billion | +$27.2 billion (+9.9%) |
Decade by decade
Averaging each decade smooths out the single-year spikes and shows the level the agency actually settled at. Decades with fewer than five years of data are left out rather than averaged, because a three-year average sitting beside a ten-year one looks like the same statistic and is not.
| Decade | Average annual outlays | Years averaged |
|---|---|---|
| 1960s | $6.2 billion | 8 |
| 1970s | $14.6 billion | 10 |
| 1980s | $25.7 billion | 10 |
| 1990s | $36.6 billion | 10 |
| 2000s | $65.2 billion | 10 |
| 2010s | $153.4 billion | 10 |
| 2020s | $288.1 billion | 6 |
Year by year
| Fiscal year | Outlays | Share of federal spending |
|---|---|---|
| 2031 (est.) | $601.3 billion | 6.5% |
| 2030 (est.) | $575.0 billion | 6.4% |
| 2029 (est.) | $526.2 billion | 6.1% |
| 2028 (est.) | $544.9 billion | 6.5% |
| 2027 (est.) | $475.1 billion | 5.9% |
| 2026 (est.) | $439.8 billion | 5.8% |
| 2025 | $376.6 billion | 5.4% |
| 2024 | $325.0 billion | 4.8% |
| 2023 | $301.0 billion | 4.9% |
| 2022 | $273.9 billion | 4.4% |
| 2021 | $233.8 billion | 3.4% |
| 2020 | $218.4 billion | 3.4% |
| 2019 | $199.6 billion | 4.5% |
| 2018 | $178.5 billion | 4.3% |
| 2017 | $176.1 billion | 4.4% |
| 2016 | $174.0 billion | 4.5% |
| 2015 | $159.2 billion | 4.3% |
| 2014 | $149.1 billion | 4.3% |
| 2013 | $138.5 billion | 4.0% |
| 2012 | $124.1 billion | 3.5% |
| 2011 | $126.9 billion | 3.5% |
| 2010 | $108.3 billion | 3.1% |
| 2009 | $95.5 billion | 2.7% |
| 2008 | $84.7 billion | 2.8% |
| 2007 | $72.8 billion | 2.7% |
Common questions
What is the Department of Veterans Affairs's budget?
Department of Veterans Affairs paid out $376.6 billion in FY 2025, which was 5.4% of all federal spending that year. That is outlays — money actually paid out — rather than an appropriation, and it is in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
How many people work at the Department of Veterans Affairs?
OMB reports the equivalent of 452,000 full-time civilian staff in FY 2025. That is a full-time-equivalent count of work-years rather than a headcount, and it excludes contractors.
When did Department of Veterans Affairs spending change the most?
Its largest single-year move was FY 2025, when outlays went from $325.0 billion to $376.6 billion — a change of $51.6 billion (+15.9%).
Where does this data come from?
The spending series is OMB Historical Table 4.1, published annually with the President's Budget, and the current-year figures are the agency’s own reports to USAspending.gov. Every figure is checked against the source table's own internal totals before it is published here; nothing is estimated or interpolated.
Sources and methods
Every figure on this page comes from one of the datasets below and nowhere else. Nothing is estimated, interpolated or carried over from a previous edition. Where two sources measure something similar, they are reported separately rather than combined, because they are not measuring the same thing.
Historical Table 16.1 — Total Executive Branch Civilian Full-Time Equivalent Employees
Office of Management and Budget
- Covers
- FY 1981–2027
- Last read
- September 6, 2026
Full-time equivalents, not headcount: one FTE is 2,080 paid hours, so two half-time employees count as one. Excludes the Postal Service, the uniformed military, the legislative and judicial branches, and contractors.
Historical Table 4.1 — Outlays by Agency
Office of Management and Budget
- Covers
- FY 1962–2031
- Last read
- September 6, 2026
Outlays are money actually paid out in a fiscal year, in millions of current (nominal) dollars — not appropriations, and not adjusted for inflation. Some rows are net of offsetting receipts and can be negative.
Agency budgetary resources, obligations and outlays
USAspending.gov (Department of the Treasury)
- Covers
- FY 2026, reported to date
- Last read
- September 6, 2026
Reported by agencies under the DATA Act and updated within the fiscal year, so a current-year figure is partial by definition. Budgetary resources include unobligated balances carried in from prior years, which is why they exceed the year’s appropriation.
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