VA Certificate of Eligibility (COE)
The first thing you need to obtain in order to use your VA Entitlement is to order a VA Certificate Of Eligibility (COE). This is an official VA document that certifies you have earned VA entitlement for a VA loan. If you do not have a COE, you may order one on this site HERE. Simply fill out the online application. Once we receive your online application, we can usually generate a VA COE within 24hrs. Some veterans who have recently separated from service or may not yet be in the VA COE database, maybe required to provide a DD-214, or a Statement of Service. However, we successfully process COE requests 95% of the time.
Generally speaking almost all active duty and honorably discharged service members are eligible for a VA Home Loan.
You May Be Eligible If Any One of the Following are True:
• Served 181 days during peacetime (Active Duty)
• Served 90 days during war time (Active Duty)
• Served 6 years in the Reserves or National Guard
• You are the spouse of a service member who was killed in the line of duty.
You May also be determined eligible if you:
- Are an unremarried spouse of a veteran who died while in service or from a service connected disability
or
- Are a spouse of a serviceperson missing in action or a prisoner of war
Note: Also, a surviving spouse who remarries on or after attaining age 57, and on or after December 16, 2003, may be eligible for the home loan benefit. However, a surviving spouse who remarried before December 16, 2003, and on or after attaining age 57, must apply no later than December 15, 2004, to establish home loan eligibility. Those applications received after December 15, 2004 where the surviving spouses remarried before December 6, 2003 must be denied.
Eligibility may also be established for:
- Certain US citizens who served in the armed forces of a government allied with the United States in WW II.
- Persons with service as members in certain organizations, such as officers of National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Public Health Service officers, cadets at the United States Military, Air Force, or Coast Guard Academy, midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, merchant seaman with WW II service, and others.
Effective immediately, Certificates of Eligibility will no longer display a veteran’s date of birth. This change was made to limit the amount of personal data being displayed on Certificates of Eligibility. Please note, however, that veterans will still need to provide their date of birth when submitting an application for a determination of eligibility in order to process their request.
