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Veterans Alliance — Veterans Alliance
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Veterans' Scoring Criteria

Ten percent added to a passing examination score — but only five if you draw military retirement, and only until your first appointment.

Verified August 19, 2026

What this benefit is

Ten percent added to a passing examination score — but only five if you draw military retirement, and only until your first appointment.

What it's worth: Ten percent for war or armed-conflict service, five percent otherwise

  • The ten percent route requires that you do NOT receive military retirement. A veteran drawing a military pension takes five percent instead.
  • The percentage is added to a passing mark only, and applies until your first appointment.

Who is entitled to it

  • You were honorably discharged.
  • You served during a period of war or in an armed conflict — the ten percent route, if you do not draw military retirement.
  • You are a veteran — five percent applies where the wartime route does not.
  • The scoring criteria apply to Washington public employment.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

  1. 1File the scoring criteria declaration with the application. It is not applied from your record.
  2. 2Work out which percentage you are on before you rely on it — drawing military retirement moves you from ten to five.
  3. 3If you were called to active service out of a Washington public job, claim the separate five percent on promotional examinations. It is a different route and it is used once.
Form
Veterans scoring criteria declaration
File with
The hiring authority, with your application
Documents you will need
dd214
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionDrawing military retirement CUTS this preference. A wartime veteran who receives military retired pay takes five percent rather than ten. No other employment preference in this corpus is reduced by a pension, and a retiree who assumes the wartime figure applies to them will be wrong.
Worth knowingIt is spent, not held. The examination percentage applies until your FIRST appointment and then stops. It is not a standing advantage through a career.
Worth knowingThere is a separate five percent on PROMOTIONAL examinations, but only for a veteran who was called to active military service from employment with the state or one of its political subdivisions, and only until the first promotion.
Known gapThe percentage is added only to a passing mark, so it changes rank and never eligibility. RCW 41.04.005 defines which periods count as a period of war or armed conflict, and we have not reproduced that list — check it if your service is near a boundary.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.