Estimate what you can afford with a VA home loan using military income and BAH, and calculate the VA funding fee by down payment amount and prior entitlement use.
Rates last verified August 2026 against the published source tables.
A VA loan needs no down payment and carries no private mortgage insurance, which is the difference that matters most against a conventional loan: PMI on a low-down-payment conventional mortgage runs for years and buys the borrower nothing. In its place the VA charges a one-time funding fee, set by how much you put down and whether you have used your entitlement before. Putting 5% or 10% down lowers the fee; a first use costs less than a subsequent one.
BAH counts as qualifying income, which is what usually makes the affordability figure larger than borrowers expect — the allowance is untaxed and arrives every month. Service members with a service-connected disability rating are exempt from the funding fee entirely, as are surviving spouses receiving DIC. The fee can be financed into the loan rather than paid at closing, though that means paying interest on it for the life of the mortgage.
Entitlement is the part that decides whether a second VA loan needs a down payment. The VA guarantees 25% of the loan, and that guaranty stays charged against your entitlement — usually until the loan is paid off and the property sold — so a service member who keeps the first house as a rental after a PCS buys the next one on partial entitlement. What remains is 25% of the county conforming loan limit minus the amount still charged, and where that remainder does not cover 25% of the new purchase price, the difference is a down payment rather than a refusal. Borrowers with full entitlement have no VA loan limit at all: the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act removed it on 1 January 2020. The entitlement calculator on this page works out both the remaining figure and the largest loan it supports with nothing down.
A service-connected disability rating waives it entirely. A veteran receiving or entitled to receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability pays no funding fee. So do surviving spouses of veterans who died in service or from a service-connected disability, and Purple Heart recipients serving on active duty.
It is the fee that is waived, not the loan's other costs. The exemption removes the funding fee. Appraisal, title, origination and the rest of closing are unaffected, and so is the interest rate — the waiver is worth exactly the fee, which for most buyers is the largest single line but not the only one.
The VA loan is not free money. There is no down payment requirement and no mortgage insurance, and that is the whole of the benefit. A larger loan at the same rate still costs more in interest, which is why the comparison on this page prices the total rather than the monthly payment alone.
The Certificate of Eligibility carries both. Your COE states your entitlement and your funding-fee status, and most lenders pull it for you in minutes. You can also request it yourself on VA.gov — worth doing early, because it is the document that tells you how much entitlement a previous VA loan is still using.
A fee paid before a rating can be refunded. If you paid the funding fee and were later granted a disability rating with an effective date before the loan closed, you are entitled to a refund of it. It is not automatic. Ask your lender or your VA Regional Loan Center, with the rating decision showing the effective date.
Entitlement is restored, not renewed. The guaranty is charged at origination and stays charged until the loan is paid off and, usually, the property sold. A one-time restoration is available where the loan is paid in full but the property kept — which is a form, not an assumption.
The funding fee is a one-time charge set by statute (38 U.S.C. § 3729(b)) and scales with your down payment, not your credit score. On a first-use purchase it is 2.15% of the loan with less than 5% down, 1.50% with 5% to 9.99% down, and 1.25% with 10% or more down. If you have used your VA entitlement before, the under-5% tier rises to 3.30%, while the 5% and 10% tiers stay at 1.50% and 1.25%. The fee replaces mortgage insurance — it is the reason a VA loan can carry no PMI at 0% down.
A significant number of borrowers pay $0. Exemptions apply to veterans receiving VA compensation for a service-connected disability, veterans rated 10% or more disabled, active-duty service members who have received a Purple Heart, and surviving spouses of veterans who died in service or from a service-connected disability. Your Certificate of Eligibility states your exemption status. If you are awarded a disability rating after closing, you can apply for a refund of the fee you paid, so it is worth following up on a pending claim.
No. VA loans never carry private mortgage insurance, even at 0% down, because the VA guaranty replaces it. On a conventional loan, PMI typically runs somewhere around 0.5% to 1.5% of the loan per year. It ends automatically once the balance reaches 78% of the original home price, and you can ask your servicer to cancel it at 80%, but only if you ask. That is the comparison this calculator makes: the funding fee is paid once, while PMI is paid monthly for years, so the VA loan often costs less overall despite the upfront fee.
Not if you have full entitlement. The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 removed VA loan limits for borrowers with full entitlement from 1 January 2020 — you can borrow whatever a lender approves with no down payment. County conforming loan limits ($832,750 nationally in 2026 in most counties, higher in expensive ones) only come back into play when your entitlement is partial, meaning you already have an active VA loan or one that has not been restored. That is the situation the entitlement section of this calculator is built for.
Yes. This is common for service members who PCS to a new duty station and keep the first home as a rental. Your remaining entitlement is your county limit multiplied by 25%, minus the entitlement still charged to the existing loan. If the remainder does not cover 25% of the new purchase price, you make a down payment for the difference rather than being refused. Entitlement is restored when the original loan is paid off, or by a one-time restoration you can request after selling.
Yes, and most borrowers do. The fee is added to the base loan amount rather than paid at closing, which is why the total loan in this calculator exceeds the purchase price when you put nothing down. It does mean you finance the fee over the life of the loan and pay interest on it, so paying it in cash is cheaper if you have the funds available. Note that the funding fee is separate from closing costs, which the VA caps but does not eliminate.