You have applied for the Veterans online shopping benefit, but received a response that either your record was missing the required information for verification or the record itself could not be located.

Possible Reasons Why

Your records may have not yet been digitized – multiple agencies affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs have been working tirelessly to digitize all U.S. military records, but they are not yet complete.

Your records may have been lost, misplaced or filed in error. For example, in 1973, approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files were destroyed by a fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). For more information about this fire and who it affected, please see the National Archives' website. In 1985, the United States Military began the conversion to digital files to prevent such a loss from happening again.

Finally, if you have been discharged too recently, your information may not yet be available for use in this verification process.

For Veterans Whose Record Did Not Provide Enough Information

If you received this message, your record is most likely missing a type of discharge (also known as "character of service" or "character of separation"). You must submit a digital copy of your discharge paperwork that reflects your discharge status to be reviewed for eligibility.

This must be a federal government form that includes your full name at time of discharge, SSN/Service Number and a discharge status that is either "honorable" or "general under honorable conditions." Your paperwork cannot be redacted in any way, including but not limited to: crossing sections out, covering them with liquid eraser or filling them with dark ink; overlapping and/or folding copies where the full page is not visible or readable; and/or removing sections, whether by cutting them out or otherwise removing them from the document.

Examples of acceptable paperwork include: DD214 (Member Copies 2-8), DD215 (with corrected discharge status), NGB-22 or DD256/257.

Please note that Member Copy 1 of the DD214 does not provide all the necessary information to check your eligibility.

After you submit your verification form, you will be prompted to upload the necessary paperwork. Once received by VetVerify, this process is usually completed on the same day but can take up to 3 business days.

If you do not have a copy of your discharge paperwork, please go to the National Archives to request your service records.

If you are unable to receive your paperwork through the National Archives, please contact the branch of service human resources command or personnel command that applies to you. If you have served in more than one branch, please contact your most recent branch of service. For contact information, please see the FAQ.

For Veterans Whose Information Cannot Be Found

VetVerify is working to integrate new data sources with the current database in order to serve the greatest number of Veterans possible. The most recent update to our data sources was on October 17, 2017. If you visited VetVerify.org prior to this date, please try the verification process again to see if your information has been added. VetVerify will also contact you with next steps if we believe that your information has been located in one of our new sources.

You may also submit your discharge paperwork for manual review. This process will take some research on the part of the VetVerify team. You will receive an email notification when the review is complete. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

To begin, please submit a new verification form.