Filing a Migraine Claim: The ITF → 526EZ → DBQ Sequence
The short version
Four steps, in this order. The first three protect your money and your evidence; the fourth is VA's move, not yours:
- File an Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966) — locks in your effective date today, even though it isn't a claim yet.
- Consider a private DBQ — if your own physician completes one, it gathers the medical evidence while your Intent to File clock is running.
- File your claim (VA Form 21-526EZ) — within one year of step 1, with whatever evidence you have attached.
- Attend the C&P exam if VA schedules one — this happens after you file, not before.
Do it out of order — especially skipping step 1 — and you can lose months or years of back pay for no reason other than paperwork sequencing. This part of the process is identical no matter which condition you're filing for.
Step 1: Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966)
An Intent to File is not a claim. It requires no medical evidence, no condition details, no diagnosis — just a statement that you intend to file. What it does is lock in your effective date: the date VA received your Intent to File becomes the date VA uses to calculate retroactive pay if your claim is later approved.
How to submit it (pick one):
- Online, fastest: Start VA Form 21-526EZ at VA.gov and save it — VA.gov automatically creates an Intent to File for disability compensation the moment you save a started application. You don't need to file 21-0966 separately if you do this.
- By phone: Call VA's National Call Center, 1-800-827-1000 (TTY: 711), Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–9 p.m. ET, and ask them to note your intent to file. Get a reference number.
- By mail: Complete VA Form 21-0966 and mail it. Use certified mail with return receipt — VA's effective date is the date VA receives the form, not the date you mailed it.
The clock: once VA receives your Intent to File, you have exactly one year to submit your completed claim. Miss that window and the Intent to File expires — you'd have to file a new one and start over, losing whatever back pay the original date would have covered.
Step 2: Start a headache diary today
This step matters more on a migraine claim than on almost any other, and it is the one thing you can do right now that nobody can do for you.
A knee claim is decided by measurements an examiner takes in a room. A migraine claim is decided by frequency and severity over months — and there is nothing to measure at the exam. The examiner will not witness an attack. What they have to work from is what you tell them and what your records show.
So while your Intent to File year runs, keep a simple record of every headache: the date, how long it lasted, what you were unable to do, and whether you had to stop work or leave early. Two lines per entry is enough. A veteran who walks into an exam with six months of dated entries is in a completely different position from one who says "I get them pretty often."
The rating criteria turn on attacks "averaging one in 2 months," "once a month," or "very frequent" over the last several months. Those are the exact words. A diary answers them; memory does not.
Step 3: Consider getting a private DBQ
There are two ways a Headaches DBQ gets completed, and only one of them is available to you before you file.
Your own physician can complete one now. A privately completed DBQ goes in with your claim as evidence, and in some cases means VA doesn't need to schedule its own exam for that condition at all.
A VA examiner completes one only after you file. VA orders a Compensation & Pension exam as part of developing a claim it has already received — you cannot request one in advance, and there is nothing to attend during your Intent to File year. That's step 5.
You are not required to get a private DBQ. Filing with your treatment records and a lay statement is perfectly valid. But if you do pursue one, bring the diary — a physician completing the frequency questions from your dated records produces a far stronger document than one working from a conversation.
Step 4: File the claim (VA Form 21-526EZ)
This is the actual application — Application for Disability Compensation and Related Compensation Benefits. File it within your one-year Intent to File window, with whatever evidence you have attached: a privately completed DBQ if you obtained one, your treatment records, and a lay statement on VA Form 21-10210 describing what an attack actually does to you. If you don't have a DBQ yet, file anyway — the claim is what causes VA to schedule the exam that produces one.
A lay statement carries unusual weight on a migraine claim, precisely because the condition is invisible at the exam. So does a statement from a spouse, a coworker or a supervisor who has seen you during an attack or covered a shift you could not work.
Step 5: The C&P exam, if VA schedules one
After your claim is filed, VA reviews what it has and decides whether it needs its own examination. If it does, you'll be scheduled for a Compensation & Pension exam — and that exam produces a DBQ completed by a VA or contracted examiner.
This is not optional. Missing it without rescheduling can cost you the claim.
Why the sequence matters for a migraine claim specifically
Most of this site is about making sure an examination measures the right things. A migraine exam measures nothing. There is no goniometer, no x-ray, no range of motion. The examiner asks how often the attacks come and how bad they are, ticks boxes, and that is the rating.
Which means the evidence has to exist before you walk in, and you are the only person who can create it. The Intent to File protects your date while you build that record. Filing first and building the record later is the sequence that works; waiting until you feel "ready" costs you months of back pay for nothing.
What's next
Move to the Migraine DBQ explainer — what the form asks, what the word "prostrating" means to VA, and the one blank field that can cap your rating at 30%.