Veteran Card Eligibility: White, Gold, Orange and the Points Thresholds

Names changed, colours didn’t. Under the VETS Act reforms from 1 July 2026, DVA now calls them the Veteran Card – All Conditions (Gold), Specific Conditions (White) and Pharmaceuticals Only (Orange). DVA’s own client pages describe Gold, White and Orange as the colloquial names, while provider pages still use them. Everyone in the veteran community still says Gold and White, so we use both throughout.

The bigger change behind it: the VETS Act

The Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act 2025 commenced 1 July 2026. It closed both the VEA and the DRCA to new claims. From that date every compensation and rehabilitation claim is determined under a single ongoing Act — the MRCA. Claims lodged before 1 July 2026 remain valid under the old Acts, and existing payments are grandparented and continue uninterrupted.

Several changes matter for eligibility and for claims generally:

A new Additional Disablement Amount (ADA), analogous to the VEA’s Extreme Disablement Adjustment, for veterans at Age Pension age or older with a high degree of service-related incapacity. ADA is also a Gold Card gateway.
A legislated power for the Repatriation Commission to specify conditions determinable on a presumptive basis.
Expanded eligibility for Household Services and Attendant Care, including VEA-accepted conditions for the first time.
Where the RMA updates a Statement of Principles between the primary and reviewable decision, the more beneficial version applies.
“On duty” injuries: a service injury can now be accepted on the basis that it occurred while the person was on duty as a defence member — a heart attack or stroke, for instance — regardless of whether the duties caused it. That is a materially significant change for anyone writing or relying on causation evidence.
Initial review of DRCA decisions now goes to the Veterans’ Review Board rather than the Tribunal.

Veteran Card – Specific Conditions (White Card)

Covers treatment for certain medical conditions within Australia. Three routes in:

1. Accepted service-related conditions

A current or former ADF member, including reservists, with an accepted service-related injury or condition — or a Commonwealth veteran with a condition accepted by their country of service.

2. Mental health, via Non-Liability Health Care

Fully funded treatment for all mental health conditions with no need to prove service caused them. You are eligible if, including as a reservist, you served at least one day of continuous full-time service (CFTS), participated in disaster relief service or border protection service, or were involved in a serious service-related training accident.

CFTS means full-time service in the permanent ADF, a reservist formally designated by Defence to be on full-time service, or a reservist called out under the Defence Act. It does not include training or activities on reserve service days. Full detail: non-liability health care for mental health.

3. Cancer or pulmonary tuberculosis

Non-liability health care is available for malignant neoplasm or pulmonary TB for veterans with certain types of service.

What it covers

Clinically required treatment in Australia for eligible conditions — hospital and day procedure, allied health, GP and specialist, dental and optical, community nursing, pathology and imaging. $7.70 per RPBS item until the calendar-year Safety Net Threshold. It also opens Open Arms counselling, Veterans’ Home Care (co-payments apply), RAP aids and equipment, and travel for treatment.

A practical point clinicians will recognise: DVA notes that when starting with a new healthcare provider you need to show or provide your eligible accepted conditions — “at least once for each different provider”. Keep the list handy.

How to apply

Often issued automatically when a condition is accepted. Otherwise, through MyService (the Veteran Covenant option, or ‘Mental Health Treatment’), by submitting an application for health care for mental health conditions or for cancer and TB, or by lodging a claim for a service-caused condition. Or call 1800 VETERAN (1800 838 372). See how to submit a DVA claim.

Veteran Card – All Conditions (Gold Card)

Covers clinically required treatment for all medical conditions within Australia — regardless of whether they relate to service.

By service type

Qualifying service and now over 70 years of age — issued automatically
Ex-prisoner of war
Service with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan between 16 August 1945 and 28 April 1952
Service as part of the British Nuclear Test program

By compensation — VEA route

Disability Compensation Payment at 100% of the general rate or higher
Receiving an additional amount for specific disabilities
DCP for pulmonary tuberculosis granted before 2 November 1978

By compensation — MRCA route (the points thresholds)

Getting or eligible for the Special Rate Disability Pension (SRDP); or
Getting or eligible for the Additional Disablement Amount; or
Assessed at 60 or more impairment points

Former DRCA veterans — new from 1 July 2026

You may be eligible under the MRCA if your service was covered under the DRCA before 1 July 2026 and you are assessed at 60 or more impairment points, and you have a new MRCA condition after 1 July 2026, or an increase in impairment of 5 impairment points or more.

Service pensioners under 70

A card is sent if you are permanently blind in both eyes, have MRCA permanent impairment of at least 30 points, receive DCP at 50% of the general rate or higher, or have income and assets below certain limits.

Dependants and others

War Widow(er)’s Pension recipients; a wholly dependent partner, eligible young person or dependant eligible for compensation for a veteran’s death; Orphan’s Pension recipients. Commonwealth and allied veterans who lived in Australia before enlistment and had qualifying service before 12 January 1973. Certain Australian civilians — WWII Merchant Navy with qualifying service, British subjects held by the enemy in Papua or New Guinea, British Nuclear Test participants, and SEATO civilian medical aid program members in South Vietnam.

Those point thresholds are why how your impairment is rated matters well beyond the payment. Sixty points is a different life from fifty-nine. Our paper-based impairment estimate works the GARP tables in advance so you know roughly where you sit.

TPI and SRDP — two different things

People use “TPI” for both. They are not the same, and the VEA route is now closed to new claims.

VEA Special Rate (“TPI”) — grandfathered

Payable where a veteran is severely incapacitated at a degree of at least 70% and unable to earn a normal wage. Under 65, all of: at least 70% incapacity from accepted conditions; totally and permanently incapacitated; prevented from normal remunerative work for more than 8 hours per week solely because of accepted conditions; and suffering consequent loss of earnings.

Where accepted conditions are not the sole cause, an alternative applies for those under 65 who are genuinely seeking work and whose accepted conditions are the substantial reason they cannot obtain it. For those 65 or over at claim, the same requirements plus having worked a continuous period of 10 years beginning before turning 65, and having ceased that work due to accepted conditions alone.

Blindness: a veteran blinded in both eyes due to accepted conditions is eligible at the Special Rate regardless of capacity for employment.

The Intermediate Rate uses the same structure but a work bar of more than 50% of ordinary full-time hours, or 20 hours per week, and does not require permanency. Temporary Special Rate covers those meeting all criteria except permanence.

MRCA Special Rate Disability Pension (SRDP) — the current pathway

An alternative to incapacity payments, not automatic. Offered where you have separated from all ADF service, have an injury or disease assessed at 50 or more impairment points likely to continue indefinitely, are receiving incapacity payments (or they have been reduced to nil by superannuation offsetting, or you took a lump sum), are below Age Pension age, and are assessed as unable to work more than 10 hours per week with rehabilitation unlikely to change that.

What TPI actually gets you

This is the part worth knowing, in DVA’s own words: once eligible for SRDP, even if you choose not to receive the SRDP payment, you receive a Veteran Card – All Conditions embossed “TPI” and the high rate of the MRCA Supplement. Your dependent children become eligible for education assistance through MRCAETS. SRDP is tax-free and payable indefinitely, where incapacity payments are taxable and generally cease at Age Pension age. The TPI card also brings an exemption from the allied health treatment cycle for exercise physiology and physiotherapy.

Decisions worth taking slowly. The SRDP offer is in writing and you have 12 months to accept. Mandatory financial advice from a qualified adviser is required first, because — DVA’s words — “once you make a choice to receive SRDP, it cannot be changed at a later stage.” The rate is based on the VEA Special Rate then offset dollar-for-dollar by the weekly value of any permanent impairment compensation already paid. If SRDP eligibility later ceases because you return to work, payments stop but the card and additional benefits are retained. We are doctors, not financial advisers — take the advice DVA requires.

Veteran Card – Pharmaceuticals Only (Orange Card)

For Commonwealth and allied veterans of the Second World War. Concessions on prescription medicines, wound care items and nutritional supplements only — DVA states plainly: “Your card cannot be used for medical or other healthcare treatment.”

All three criteria must be met: be a Commonwealth or allied veteran or mariner; have qualifying service from the Second World War; and have lived in Australia for 10 years or more. $7.70 per prescription item until the Safety Net Threshold.

Talk to us

The cards follow the conditions, and the conditions follow the evidence. We read the whole record and write the medical case for every condition it documents — fixed fee, never a percentage of your compensation. Call 0429 146 039 or email reception@vhc.org.au — Veterans Health Centre, Ipswich, Queensland.

Veteran Card Eligibility: White, Gold, Orange — and the Points Thresholds