Disabled Veteran Benefits in Ohio

Ohio's homestead exemption for disabled veterans is a reduction, not a full exemption. For tax year 2026 you get a credit equal to the taxes on the first $59,400 of your home's market value, up from $58,000 for 2025. The amount is adjusted for inflation every year, and the dollars it saves depend on your local tax rate.

To qualify you need a total disability rating, or a total rating for compensation based on individual unemployability, plus a discharge under honorable conditions. There is no income limit, and it covers one home that you own and live in.

File form DTE 105I with your county auditor by December 31. If you die, your surviving spouse keeps the same reduction until they remarry.

Ohio's Veteran with Disabilities plate is for a veteran whose service-connected disability is rated or compensated at 100%, or who received a VA allowance toward buying a vehicle. With it you pay no registration fee, no service fee and no local motor vehicle tax on your first vehicle, and you can park in spaces marked for people with disabilities. Additional vehicles pay the normal fees.

The same veteran gets a driver license at no cost: new, renewal or duplicate. Apply in person at a deputy registrar and bring proof every time: a VA letter dated within the past year stating the 100% rating, or a DoD ID card marked 100% disabled. The BMV page asks for a 100% rating; the statute also covers a disability compensated at 100%.

Below 100% the savings are small: military plates carry no additional fees, Purple Heart plates have no fees, and adding the Armed Forces emblem to a license has no fee of its own, though the normal license fee still applies.

This is the one big Ohio benefit that does not need a total rating. It is for children of veterans with a 60% or greater service-connected disability who served during a period of war or conflict, and for children of veterans who died. For academic year 2026-2027 it pays 77% of tuition and general fees at Ohio public colleges, or $6,397 for the year at a private one.

The scholarship board can cut the percentage when the state does not fund the program fully, and it sets the figure at the end of each July, so it changes from year to year.

The student must be an Ohio resident, apply between the ages of 16 and 24, and study full-time for an associate or bachelor's degree. The deadline is May 15 every year. Spouses are not covered. Veterans themselves get in-state tuition: a year or more of active duty and an honorable discharge make you a resident once Ohio is your home.

Ohio's income tax starts from your federal adjusted gross income. VA disability compensation is a tax-free payment that never enters that number, so Ohio does not tax it at any rating.

Military retirement pay is in your federal income, but Ohio lets you deduct it if it is retired pay for service in the uniformed services, the reserves or the National Guard. A surviving or former spouse can deduct Survivor Benefit Plan payments the same way. If a federal civil service pension is only partly based on military time, only the military share is deductible.

Grants from Ohio's Military Injury Relief Fund and veterans' disability severance payments are not taxed by Ohio either.

Ohio residents whose disability the VA has found permanently and totally disabling, who receive VA compensation or a pension and were honorably discharged, get hunting and fishing licenses, deer and turkey permits, fur taker permits and the wetlands stamp free of charge. The Division of Wildlife is blunt: any rating less than 100% does not count. There is a second door. A veteran who holds Ohio's disabled veteran license plates qualifies too, and those plates go to veterans rated or compensated at the 100% rate.

Approval lasts five years, but the licenses expire annually, so you pick up new free ones each year. Apply on form DNR 9032-B and leave time: approval can take up to 12 weeks.

State parks give the same veterans a free camping pass, good for five years, if they were honorably discharged and live in Ohio. You still pay the $6.50 reservation fee. And if your service-connected disability is rated 100%, Ohio waives the registration fee on your boat.

Ohio's hiring preference does not depend on your rating. A resident veteran who was honorably discharged receives an additional credit of 20% of their total grade on a classified civil service exam. You have to pass first: the credit is not added unless you reach the minimum passing grade without it.

Guard and Reserve members who have finished initial entry training get 15%. When a veteran and a non-veteran tie on a hiring list, the veteran ranks first. The law sets no larger credit for disabled veterans.

The homestead reduction, free registration and the free driver license all require a disability rated or compensated at 100%. If you are below that and cannot work, a VA finding of individual unemployability is what opens them.

What you do get: the children's scholarship at 60%, the income tax treatment above, the exam credit and in-state tuition. Veterans injured in service after October 7, 2001, or diagnosed with PTSD from that service, can apply to Ohio's Military Injury Relief Fund for a grant, one per state fiscal year. Every county also has a Veterans Service Commission. Its service officers help veterans and their families present claims, and it takes applications for financial assistance from veterans and family members who have lived in the county at least three months.

One thing to cross off: the Ohio Veterans Bonus ended on August 30, 2024, and applications are no longer accepted.