Disabled Veteran Benefits in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico stacks three exemptions, all on the home that is your main residence. Every veteran, with or without a rating, has up to $5,000 of the home's assessed value exempt permanently. If the VA pays you compensation for a disability of 50% or more, you get an exemption on the first $50,000 of assessed value, and the law says it comes in addition to the $5,000 and to any other exemption the commonwealth gives taxpayers.

The third is a total exemption for the house a disabled veteran builds, buys or remodels and lives in, with its lot up to 1,000 square meters in town or one cuerda in the country. The law does not name a rating percentage for this one. It points to a federal law instead, so ask the property tax office whether your disability qualifies before counting on it.

You apply to CRIM, the municipal revenue collection center. An approved claim for the $5,000 exemption reaches back up to three years. The 50% exemption is claimed every year at its regional office, unless the VA has made your rating permanent: then you file once. A surviving spouse keeps a veteran's exemptions until remarriage.

This changed recently. A 2024 law (Ley 191-2024) gives veterans who are retired members of the Armed Forces and live in Puerto Rico a complete exemption on their military pension. It can be claimed on the return for tax year 2025 and after.

Separately, every veteran gets an additional personal exemption of $1,500 for life. If you are married, file jointly and both of you are veterans, it is $3,000. Since the 2024 law, this one applies to your other income, not to the pension that is already exempt.

Both are claimed on your Puerto Rico income tax return; the Treasury (Hacienda) writes the rules for them.

The big one is at the top of the scale. Veterans the VA has rated 100% pay no license fees on a vehicle they own and none of the fees for getting a driver license. The same goes for disabled veterans whose car was provided by or with help from the VA, and that car is also exempt from the excise tax on vehicles. If you sell the car, the buyer pays the fees from that year on.

You do not need a rating for the next two. Every veteran gets 50% off the annual fees when buying the marbete, the yearly registration sticker, for one vehicle registered in the veteran's name. Veterans over 60, with or without a service-connected disability, are excused from paying for vehicle license transfers, title and license applications, and driver license renewals.

The transportation department also gives disabled veterans a removable parking placard marked for a disabled veteran.

For the veteran, the law fills the gap the GI Bill leaves. If your federal education benefits run out before you finish your degree, or you have none, you are entitled to free tuition at the University of Puerto Rico, every one of its campuses, and any other public post-secondary school. You keep the school's normal academic standing and show a VA certification of where your federal benefits stand. The school may not ask for anything more.

For the family, spouses, children and dependents of veterans get 50% off tuition, fees, books and required materials at the same public schools, from technical programs through graduate and professional degrees. If the servicemember was killed in action or died on active duty from a service-related cause, the children, surviving spouse and dependents pay nothing.

There is also a scholarship. The OPV's 65th Infantry Regiment Scholarship is for a veteran's child under 26 who lives in Puerto Rico, holds at least a 2.50 average and is not using VA education benefits. One child per family, and awards depend on the money available that year.

The Casa Estatal del Veterano in Juana Díaz offers domiciliary living and nursing care. A rent subsidy run by the OPV lowers the monthly payment for a veteran, the veteran's spouse or a surviving spouse, and the amount depends on income. The law caps it at $600 a month for domiciliary residents and $800 a month for nursing care, and it guarantees that every resident gets some level of subsidy.

For burial, the State Veterans Cemetery law places the cemetery in Aguadilla and opens it to veterans whose service ended and to members who die in honorable service, with no fee for veterans who qualify. Family members can be buried there for a fee the OPV sets. On top of that, any municipality with a public cemetery must provide, free, the funeral service and a grave, niche or place for ashes to a veteran who lived in that municipality and is entitled to VA burial benefits.

State and municipal health facilities must also give veterans, spouses and children medical care, hospital stays and prescribed medicine at no cost, after an evaluation of their finances under Medicaid criteria.

Puerto Rico's preference is not limited to government jobs. It binds the commonwealth government, its agencies, public corporations and municipalities, and also private persons and companies doing business in Puerto Rico. When a veteran and another candidate are equal in education, skills or experience, the veteran is to be preferred for the appointment or the promotion, in permanent, temporary, full-time and part-time jobs alike.

Where a job uses a test, a veteran who earns the minimum passing score has 10 points or 10% added to it, whichever is greater. A veteran or reservist called to service also has the right to the same or an equivalent job back, on a formal request to the employer within 180 days of an honorable discharge.

Outdoors, the benefit is modest and worth knowing. Veterans, their spouses and their minor or disabled children get 10% off the individual rate at the commonwealth's National Parks sites, such as beaches, zoos, vacation centers and campgrounds. It passes to the surviving spouse and children when the veteran dies.