How to get a DVA Gold Card under the new Act

What the Gold Card actually is

The DVA Veteran Card comes in three colours. A White Card funds treatment for your accepted conditions only. An Orange Card covers pharmaceuticals for certain veterans. A Gold Card funds treatment for all your health conditions, whether or not they are service related — which is why it matters so much as you get older and conditions accumulate that have nothing to do with service.

If you already hold a Gold Card under the VEA, nothing about your entitlements changes.

The three pathways from 1 July 2026

1. Sixty or more impairment points

Being assessed at 60 or more impairment points under the MRCA carries a Gold Card. Impairment points are the whole person impairment figure produced by rating each accepted condition against GARP M and combining the results — and because points combine rather than add, reaching 60 requires either one very severe condition or, far more commonly, a lot of accepted conditions. This is the pathway most veterans reach by claiming everything they are entitled to rather than a selection. Our impairment estimator shows how points combine.

2. Special Rate Disability Pension eligibility

Becoming eligible for SRDP carries a Gold Card with a 'TPI' embossing. Eligibility requires that you are receiving MRCA incapacity payments, have 50 or more permanent impairment points, and have confirmation from treating medical specialists both that you cannot work more than 10 hours a week and that rehabilitation is unlikely to improve that. Crucially, the MRCA has no 'alone test' — the requirement that defeated so many TPI applications under the VEA.

3. Additional Disablement Amount eligibility

The ADA is new, for veterans over pension age with high impairment. It requires that you are pension age or older, assessed at 70 or more impairment points under the MRCA, and have a lifestyle rating of 6 or above. It carries a fortnightly payment, a Gold Card with an 'EDA' embossing, and automatic benefits for dependants including education schemes and death compensation.

See SRDP and ADA explained for how those two interact — you cannot hold both, and veterans already receiving EDA keep it rather than moving to ADA.

What this means practically

All three pathways run through impairment points, and impairment points run through accepted conditions. A veteran with four accepted conditions and a veteran with fourteen are not in the same position, even if their injuries are identical — the difference is what was claimed and what was rated.

That is the argument for claiming comprehensively rather than selectively, and for having the impairment assessment done by someone who does them regularly. A permanent impairment assessment that under-rates you by a few points is not just a smaller payment; at these thresholds it can be the difference between a White Card and a Gold Card.

If you are not sure how many conditions you could have accepted, the sequelae mapper shows what your existing accepted conditions open up.

General information for Australian veterans, not legal or financial advice, and current as at September 2026. The authority is DVA — see the Veterans' Legislation Reform pages or call 1800 VETERAN (1800 838 372).