Routing Number Guide

Navy Federal Routing Number for VA Benefits: When the Deposit Lands

Last verified against primary sources: October 13, 2026. VA.gov direct deposit, payment history, change-direct-deposit and GI Bill payment FAQ pages re-crawled this day; 38 CFR 3.31 read from the eCFR (Title 38 current as of October 8, 2026); Navy Federal Direct Deposits and Allotments brochure NFCU 1167e (3-24) re-extracted this day; Navy Federal wire transfer page re-crawled this day.

Navy Federal’s routing number is 256074974, and it is the number you type into your VA.gov profile for disability compensation, pension and education payments. What VA does not publish is a monthly pay-date calendar — we searched all 26,794 URLs in VA.gov’s own sitemap and found none. What VA does publish are three hard dates: the federal regulation that says no payment may cover any period before the first day of the calendar month after your award became effective (38 CFR 3.31), a 15-day clock for a first disability payment once a 10% or higher rating is on your decision notice, and a 7-to-10-business-day clock for a first GI Bill payment after you verify enrollment. Navy Federal’s own early-posting calendar is military-only: the word “VA” appears zero times in it.

The short answer

Question Answer
Which routing number do I give VA?256074974 — the same number for disability, pension and education, and the same number Navy Federal prints in the footer of its own site.
What else does VA.gov ask for?Three fields: account type, routing number and account number. Your Navy Federal account number is 10 digits — it is not your Access Number.
Is there an official VA pay calendar?No. VA.gov publishes no monthly disbursement calendar. We found none across 26,794 sitemap URLs.
What date is fixed by law?38 CFR 3.31: no payment for any period before the first day of the calendar month following the month your award became effective.
First disability payment?“If your decision notice shows at least a 10% disability rating, you’ll get your first payment within 15 days.”
First GI Bill payment?“7 to 10 business days after you verify your school enrollment.” By check: about 14 days.
Does Navy Federal post VA money early?Its early-access perk is written for “Active Duty servicemembers with Free Active Duty Checking.” Its posting calendar is titled Military Active Duty Posting Calendar 2026 and contains no VA rows.
Do I set it up once for everything?No — VA runs several separate systems. Travel pay, caregiver stipends, copay refunds and life insurance each sit outside your VA.gov profile.

There is no official VA pay-date calendar

The question behind “what day does VA pay” assumes VA publishes a schedule. It does not. We pulled VA.gov’s sitemap index, then its two child sitemap files, and extracted 26,794 URLs. We searched those for pay-date, paydate, payment-date, when-will, schedule and calendar in a benefits context. Every hit was a health-system clinic schedule, a holiday schedule, a shuttle timetable or a flu-shot clinic. There is no VA page that lists the monthly disbursement day for disability compensation.

This matters because most of the “VA pay schedule” tables circulating online are reconstructions. They may turn out to be right, but they are not VA’s words, and when a month behaves differently nobody has told you why. Below is everything we could actually source.

The one date federal regulation does fix

VA compensation is not paid like a wage. It is paid against a calendar-month entitlement, and the rule is written down in the Code of Federal Regulations. 38 CFR 3.31, Commencement of the period of payment:

“Regardless of VA regulations concerning effective dates of awards… payment of monetary benefits based on original, supplemental, or increased awards of compensation, pension, dependency and indemnity compensation… may not be made for any period prior to the first day of the calendar month following the month in which the award became effective.”
— 38 CFR 3.31, authority 38 U.S.C. 1805, 1815, 1821, 1832, 5111 (eCFR, Title 38 current as of October 8, 2026)

Read that literally and it tells you two things people usually get wrong. First, VA pays in whole calendar months — there is no prorated partial-month payment at the start. If your award becomes effective on April 15, the earliest period money can cover begins May 1, and the days in April are never paid. Second, the rule is about the period being paid for, not about the day the ACH leaves Treasury. It is the reason a first VA deposit often looks smaller or later than people expect, and it is the only dating rule VA has committed to in regulation.

VA repeats the same month-boundary logic on its own site for death-related claims: “For claims based on a Veteran’s death in service, the effective date is the first day of the month in which the Veteran died.” Different context, same instinct — VA thinks in calendar months.

The two clocks VA actually publishes

Since there is no calendar, the practical answer is a countdown that starts on an event, not a date on a grid. VA publishes two of them.

Disability compensation, first payment. From VA’s payment history page (last updated September 22, 2026):

“If your decision notice shows at least a 10% disability rating, you’ll get your first payment within 15 days.” … “If you don’t get a payment within 15 days, call the Veterans Help Line at 800-827-1000 (TTY: 711). We’re here Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET.”
— VA.gov, Review your VA payment history

The 15 days run from the decision notice, not from the day you filed. For context on how long that notice takes: VA’s own claim-process page reports “68.2 days Average number of days to complete disability-related claims in September 2026.” And the amount is set by a rate table VA publishes annually — the 2026 table is marked “Effective December 1, 2025” and puts a 10% rating at $180.42 per month.

Education benefits, first payment. From VA’s GI Bill payment FAQ (last updated August 5, 2026):

“If you signed up for direct deposit when you applied for education benefits, we’ll deposit your payment into your bank account 7 to 10 business days after you verify your school enrollment. This is the fastest way to receive your payment.” … “If you asked for a waiver so you could receive your payments by check, you should receive your first check by mail about 14 days after you verify your school enrollment.”
— VA.gov, GI Bill and other VA education benefit payments FAQs

Note what starts this clock: your enrollment verification, not the school’s term start. VA says so explicitly on the Post-9/11 page — “If you use Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, you’ll need to verify your enrollment every month to keep getting a monthly housing allowance or kicker payments.” Miss a month and you have stopped your own clock. If a payment is late, VA’s education line is 888-442-4551 (TTY: 711), Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET.

A third clue: VA’s own 10th-of-the-month cutoff

VA never says “we pay on the Xth,” but one of its published rules leaks the shape of the month. On opting in to text notifications for recurring deposits:

“If you opt in before or on the 10th of the month, you’ll get your first text message notification when you receive that month’s recurring payment. If you opt in after the 10th of the month, you’ll get your first text message notification when you receive the next month’s recurring payment.”
— VA.gov, Review your VA payment history

We are quoting this rather than interpreting it. VA draws a line at the 10th and attaches it to “that month’s recurring payment” — which is as close as the agency comes, in public, to describing where in the month a recurring benefit lands. We are not going to convert it into a date, because VA did not.

What VA.gov asks for, field by field

Setting the deposit up online takes five published steps, and the third one is where the routing number goes. From VA’s step-by-step page (last updated April 17, 2026):

“Go to the section for the benefit type you want to update your information for. Then select Edit.” … “Enter your updated information, including your account type, routing number, and account number. Then select Save to save your changes.”
— VA.gov, How to change direct deposit information for VA benefits

Three fields, and only one of them belongs to the bank. Routing number is 256074974 for every Navy Federal member — Navy Federal prints it in the site footer and on its enrollment paperwork. Account number is your own 10-digit Navy Federal account number; Navy Federal labels the field on its own form “Account No. (10 digits, not Access Number),” because the Access Number is a member identifier, not a deposit address. Account type is the checking/savings choice that maps to the ACH transaction code — VA’s own federal paperwork uses Checking (type code 22) and Savings (type code 32).

One detail is easy to miss and worth real money: the profile is divided by benefit type. VA lists four sections — disability compensation payments, pension payments, education benefit payments and Foreign Medical Program claims — and instructs you to edit the section for the benefit you mean. Setting the routing number for disability does not, by VA’s own wording, set it for education.

By phone, VA gives 800-827-1000 (TTY: 711), Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET. For international direct deposit updates there is a separate line, 918-781-7550, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET. And there is a paper route VA still maintains:

“Note: If you don’t have access to the internet or a phone, you can update your direct deposit information with the Direct Deposit Sign-Up Form (VA Form SF-1199a).”
— VA.gov, Direct deposit for your VA payments (last updated August 4, 2026)

That is the same Standard Form 1199A we took apart field by field for military pay — eight single-digit routing boxes plus a separate check digit box, so 256074974 becomes 25607497 + 4 on that page. It is also the form Navy Federal itself names for this exact situation, which we cover below.

Four VA payments that do not use your profile

The most under-appreciated sentence on VA’s direct deposit page is the second one:

“You can add or change your direct deposit information in your VA.gov profile for certain VA benefits and services. But some departments keep your information in their own separate systems, so you’ll need to contact them directly.”
— VA.gov, Direct deposit for your VA payments

VA then names four of them. If you update your profile and expect all VA money to follow, these are the places it will not:

Payment Where VA says to set it up
Travel pay reimbursements“You’ll need to set up direct deposit in the Beneficiary Travel Self Service System.”
Caregiver stipends“You’ll need to set up direct deposit through the Financial Services Center’s customer engagement portal. You must use direct deposit to get your monthly stipend.”
Healthcare copay refundsSame Financial Services Center portal. VA: “If a refund of your copay is due to you, we’ll deposit the funds directly into your bank account.”
Life insurance benefits“You’ll need to fill out a Direct Deposit Enrollment/Change (VA Form 29-0309).”

In each case the two numbers are the same — routing number 256074974 and your 10-digit account number. Only the intake channel changes. VA also points people with no bank account to the Veterans Benefits Banking Program: “The Veterans Benefits Banking Program (VBBP) provides a list of Veteran-friendly banks and credit unions that will work with you to set up an account.”

Where Navy Federal fits — and where it does not

Navy Federal’s Direct Deposits and Allotments brochure, NFCU 1167e (3-24), sorts the world into three employer types. VA benefits are not in the military bucket:

“GOVERNMENT AGENCY PAY & BENEFITS — For agency pay, use the Standard Form 1199A. If you receive benefit payments from the federal government for any of the following, sign up through Go Direct. • Social Security • Supplemental security income • VA benefit and insurance pay • Civil service retirement • Railroad retirement”
— Navy Federal, NFCU 1167e (3-24)

Two things follow. First, the routing number is not in question — the tear-off form in the same brochure, NFCU 97DD (11-20), prints 2560-7497-4 directly on the page with no routing number field to fill in. Second, Navy Federal does count VA money as qualifying direct deposit: its footnote defines eligibility to include “a recurring ACH from employer, military pay, or certain government agency pay or benefits in your name.”

The early-posting question

Here is the part that most affects when you can actually spend it. Navy Federal advertises early access in the same brochure, and the sentence is narrow by design:

“early access to pay for Active Duty servicemembers with Free Active Duty Checking” … “A qualifying Military Direct Deposit must post to your Free Active Duty Checking account within 180 days of account opening. If the Military Direct Deposit stops for more than 180 days, the account converts to a Free EveryDay Checking account.”
— Navy Federal, NFCU 1167e (3-24), perk list and footnote 4

Navy Federal’s published posting calendar matches that scope. The PDF is titled NFCU Military Active Duty Posting Calendar 2026, issued by the ACH Operations Branch, ACH Receipt Section on 10 December 2024, and all 24 of its rows are military net-pay events. The string “VA” appears zero times in it. So there is no Navy Federal document that tells you a VA benefit posts early, and none that tells you what time of day it posts. We are not going to supply one.

What Navy Federal does commit to is access on arrival: “your paycheck or allotment is automatically electronically deposited… providing you with fast, secure access to your funds right away.” VA says the same from its side — “You’ll also have access to the funds in your account right away.” Neither statement is a timestamp, and both are consistent with the deposit simply appearing on the day Treasury settles it. Federal holidays can shift that day, because ACH does not run on them.

VA payment setup & timing

Pick the payment and, if you have it, the date on your official document. Everything below is quoted or computed from the sources named in each line.

Two official routes that do not say the same thing

There is a genuine inconsistency in the paperwork, and you should know about it before you spend an afternoon on the wrong one.

Navy Federal’s 2024 brochure tells VA benefit recipients to “sign up through Go Direct.” VA’s current direct deposit page, last updated August 4, 2026, does not mention Go Direct at all — it sends you to your VA.gov profile, or to a phone line, or to a regional office, and keeps SF-1199a as the paper fallback. Both are official. They were published by different agencies at different times, and we are not going to pick a winner for you. The practical reading: the profile is VA’s current answer, the phone line works if the profile does not, and the Standard Form 1199A is the one route both sides name.

One caution on that form. VA’s own form page at va.gov/forms/sf-1199a links out to fiscal.treasury.gov/files/forms/form-1199a.pdf, and when we requested that URL on October 13, 2026 it returned an HTML page, not a PDF. If you need a fillable copy, the GSA forms library hosts the same standard form under its federal registration (SF 1199A, OMB No. 1530-0006, authority Treasury Department Circular 1076).

What we could not verify

Sources