Standing archive, updated monthly
The VA Paperwork Ledger: The Hours VA Asks of the Public
Applying for a benefit means filling out forms, and federal law requires VA to estimate, publicly, how much of the public's time each form takes. Those estimates live in the Office of Management and Budget's inventory, which always shows the current state and never the history. Each month we archive the full VA slice of that inventory, so that anyone, including VA, can see how the numbers move over time. An accurate estimate serves everyone: it helps VA design better forms and helps veterans know what to expect.
- By Alec Morgan
- The Veteran Benefit Desk
- Published August 16, 2026
- ISSN 3144-0835
- https://doi.org/10.68077/vbd.paperwork-burden
Independent research; not peer reviewed. Corrections and version notes are published under our Corrections Policy.
What this ledger is
Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, every form, report, and survey the federal government asks the public to complete needs approval from the Office of Management and Budget, and every approval records two numbers: how many people respond each year, and how long the agency estimates each response takes. Multiplied together, those numbers are the official price of the public's time. OMB publishes the current inventory on reginfo.gov and updates it in place, which means the public record has no memory. This page gives it one for VA: we capture every active VA collection monthly and keep every snapshot.
We built this archive for researchers, veteran service organizations, journalists, and the agency itself. Trend questions that were previously unanswerable become simple lookups: which collections grew, which shrank, which estimates have stayed unchanged across renewal cycles, and which forms are coming up for the public comment windows where improvements actually happen.
Where the hours concentrate
The twelve collections asking the most public time in the September 2026 snapshot:
| Control No. | Collection | Hours / yr | Responses / yr | Minutes per response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2900-0798 | Veteran/Beneficiary Claim for Reimbursement of Travel Expenses (VA Form 10-3542 and BTSSS) | 1,216,667 | 7,300,000 | 10 |
| 2900-0747 | Application for Disability Compensation and Related Compensation Benefits (VA Form 21-526EZ) | 836,323 | 2,508,969 | 20 |
| 2900-0091 | VA Health Benefits: Application, Update, Hardship Determination - VA Forms 10-10EZ,10-10EZR, 10-10HS | 703,300 | 1,406,000 | 30 |
| 2900-0073 | VA Enrollment Certification (VA Form 22-1999) | 633,307 | 3,799,847 | 10 |
| 2900-0876 | Clearance for A-11 Section 280 Improving Customer Experience Information Collection | 504,232 | 5,940,778 | 5.1 |
| 2900-0045 | Request for Determination of Reasonable Value Real Estate (VA Forms 26-1805 & 26-1805-1) | 467,100 | 519,000 | 54 |
| 2900-0075 | Statement in Support of Claim (VA Form 21-4138) | 317,265 | 1,269,058 | 15 |
| 2900-0043 | Application Request to Add and/or Remove Dependents (VA Form 21-686c) | 267,769 | 535,538 | 30 |
| 2900-0770 | Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery (VBA, VHA, NCA) | 256,000 | 450,000 | 34.1 |
| 2900-0945 | Veterans Child Care Assistance Program (VCAP) | 215,639 | 4,174,528 | 3.1 |
| 2900-0734 | Reports of: General Information, First Notice of Death, Nursing Home or Assisted Living, Defense Finance & Accounting, Non-Receipt of Payment, Incarceration, Month of Death (VA Forms 27-0820 series) | 212,500 | 2,550,000 | 5 |
| 2900-0523 | Loan Analysis (VA Form 26-6393) | 210,000 | 420,000 | 30 |
Renewals opening for public input
Every collection's approval expires within three years, and each renewal begins with a 60 day public comment window. That window is the moment when a well documented suggestion, from a veteran, a service officer, or anyone who fills out the form, can improve it for everyone. These VA collections expire within the next 150 days:
We track every open VA comment window on our rule changes page.
What moved since the last snapshot
How a record like this gets used
When VA's dependency verification form (VA Form 21-0538, OMB Control No. 2900-0500) came up for renewal in August 2026, the approval history let us compare three cycles side by side and build a public comment for the open window: we asked VA to consider verifying from records the government already holds, to support its time estimate with the same measurement discipline it applies to its own staff processing costs, and to finish the online submission flow. Suggestions of that kind are only possible when the historical numbers are available. That is the purpose of this page, and it is open to anyone who wants to do the same.
The monthly archive
| Snapshot month | Collections | Public hours / yr | Responses / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08 | 249 | 9,146,315 | 45,438,372 |
| 2026-09 | 249 | 9,131,482 | 45,415,372 |
The archive grows by one row each month. Every underlying snapshot is preserved in full.
Methodology and sources
- Source: the OMB Paperwork Reduction Act inventory published at reginfo.gov , captured monthly.
- Scope: collections with OMB control numbers beginning 2900 (Department of Veterans Affairs). Government wide common forms that VA also uses are excluded so the series reflects VA's own collections.
- All burden figures are VA's own estimates as approved by OMB. Hours totals are reported by OMB in whole hours; minutes per response is our computed convenience column (hours times 60 divided by responses).
- We publish the complete snapshot, not a selection. Download it below.
Writing about VA benefits? You are welcome to reference this page. Copy the citation below and link back so your readers can verify the source.