What changed, when, and what replaced it.
VA retires portals, rewrites processes, and amends rules, but the instructions built on the old versions live on across the internet for years. This archive is the dated record of each major transition: what existed before, exactly when it changed, why, where every function moved, and the official source for each fact. Every entry carries a revision history and the date it was last verified.
The eBenefits portal retirement
VA retired the eBenefits portal in a phased transition. Benefits features became available on VA.gov on April 30, 2021, eBenefits remained usable through March 31, 2022, and after that date VA.gov became the only online source for those functions. Pages that still direct veterans to eBenefits are out of date.
The VONAPP shutdown
VONAPP, the Veterans On Line Application that VA used for online benefit applications since the early 2000s, was officially retired on August 24, 2017 and taken offline shortly after. Its functions moved first to Vets.gov and eBenefits, both of which were themselves later consolidated into VA.gov, where all online applications live today.
The Appeals Modernization Act transition
The Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, Public Law 115-55, replaced VA's single track legacy appeals process on February 19, 2019 with three review lanes: Supplemental Claim, Higher-Level Review, and Board Appeal. Guides that describe filing a Notice of Disagreement and waiting for a Statement of the Case describe a process that no longer applies to new decisions.
PACT Act implementation
The PACT Act, Public Law 117-168, signed August 10, 2022, is the largest expansion of toxic exposure benefits in VA history. It added more than twenty burn pit and airborne hazard presumptive conditions, added hypertension and MGUS to the Agent Orange list, expanded presumptive exposure locations, and VA chose to make all of its presumptives effective immediately instead of phasing them in. Every PACT Act presumptive applies to claims decided today.
The 2026 medication rating rule and its rescission
On February 17, 2026, VA published an interim final rule amending 38 CFR 4.10 that told raters to evaluate disabilities as they present with medication or treatment in place. After strong objections from veteran service organizations, VA halted enforcement within days and formally rescinded the rule effective February 27, 2026, restoring the prior text. Decisions issued today cannot rely on the rescinded rule.
Where to verify a VA accredited representative
The representative search inside eBenefits disappeared when eBenefits was retired in March 2022. Today there are two official places to look: the consumer facing Find a Representative tool on VA.gov, and the VA Office of General Counsel accreditation search, which remains the authoritative database of every currently accredited attorney, claims agent, and VSO representative.
How this archive is maintained
Every official link in this archive is registered in our automated source monitor and recrawled weekly, so a change to any cited government page is flagged for review. Each entry carries a revision history and a last verified date, and updates move the date. If you spot an error, our corrections policy applies.
For people who maintain veteran resource pages
University veteran services offices, libraries, county service officers, and nonprofits maintain thousands of pages that reference VA systems by name. When those systems change, every one of those pages silently goes stale. These archive entries are built as stable explanatory references: each has a permanent URL, is updated when VA changes something, and always links the official VA source first. You are welcome to link to them instead of rewriting your own explanation after every transition.