Every jurisdiction in this catalog has entries whose figures move when a bill passes, whose act takes effect on a later date, or whose program is repealed while its agency keeps advertising it. This page watches each jurisdiction's law, follows a bill through its own jurisdiction's process where its stages are recorded, and names the catalog entries each instrument touches.
9 instruments in New Jersey. Tracked across 51 jurisdictions. Every other jurisdiction on the board is still watched by hand.
A bill that died is listed only where a guide, an agency, or a news story has described it as current law. That is the failure that puts a number in front of a veteran which no assessor, registrar, or school will honor.
▲Expands benefitsExempts a veteran's, service member's or military spouse's two homes, pensions, benefits and one vehicle from creditors.
Enacted the New Jersey Veterans and Military Spouses Asset Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:17-17.1 to 2A:17-17.6. The primary residence and one secondary residence of an honorably discharged veteran, a current service member or the spouse or surviving spouse of either are exempt from levy, execution and forced sale without a value limit if ownership is recorded, and retirement accounts, pensions, disability and veterans' benefits and one vehicle worth up to $30,000 are exempt from creditor claims. Mortgages, government debts and judgments for fraud or crime are excepted. Approved January 20, 2026, effective immediately and retroactive to January 1, 2025 for debts incurred or claims filed on or after that date.
▲Expands benefitsExtends Law Against Discrimination protection in employment, housing and public accommodations to past service in the Armed Forces, which reaches veterans.
Amended N.J.S.A. 10:5-3, 10:5-4, 10:5-5, 10:5-12 and related sections so that the protected characteristic reads "service in the Armed Forces of the United States or liability for service in the Armed Forces of the United States", reaching veterans in employment, housing and public accommodations, and rewrote the veteran definition in N.J.S.A. 10:5-39 for public works affirmative action as 90 days of active service with a discharge other than dishonorable. Approved January 20, 2026, effective immediately.
▲Expands benefitsCreates an independent Veteran Advocate to take and investigate veterans' complaints about the department and state-funded veterans' services.
Enacted N.J.S.A. 38A:21A-1 to 38A:21A-12. The Veteran Advocate sits in, but not of, the Department of Veterans Affairs, serves as ombudsman for veterans and families, may investigate a death or serious injury of a veteran in the department's care, issue subpoenas and sue the department on probable cause. Approved December 19, 2025, effective immediately.
Established the Department of Veterans Affairs under a commissioner who must be an honorably discharged veteran (N.J.S.A. 38A:21-1 et seq.), moved the memorial homes, the Doyle cemetery, the blind and paraplegic allowances, veterans' tuition programs and veteran-status determinations for civil service and pensions to it, re-enacted the veterans' facility and tuition sections in chapters 22 and 23 of Title 38A, and repealed the chapter 3 sections they replaced. Effective 120 days after approval, January 9, 2026. The act defines a veteran for its own purposes as anyone with 90 days of service, with no discharge test. Flagged because downstream documents still cite the old structure: the memorial homes rule, N.J.A.C. 5A:5, names repealed sections 38A:3-6.4 to 38A:3-6.12 as its authority, and the Vietnam-era tuition sections were re-enacted with application windows that closed decades ago while the department's January 2026 guide still advertises one of them.
▲Expands benefitsRequires public colleges to readmit a student who withdrew for uniformed service with the same academic status and no fee.
Enacted N.J.S.A. 18A:62-4.3d. A public institution must readmit an undergraduate who withdrew because of service in the uniformed services, including Guard duty under state authority, with the same academic status, for the next semester after a written request, without an application or other fee. Approved March 7, 2025.
▲Expands benefitsWould have asked the voters to raise the $250 veterans property tax deduction to $2,500 over four years.
A proposed constitutional amendment to raise the deduction to $1,000 in tax year 2025, $1,500 in 2026, $2,000 in 2027 and $2,500 from 2028. Reported from the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee and referred to Senate Budget and Appropriations on June 17, 2024, it went no further and died when the session ended in January 2026. Guides describing New Jersey's veterans deduction print its schedule beside the current figure. The deduction is $250, as it has been since 2003.
▲Expands benefitsRaises the blind and the paraplegic and hemiplegic veterans' allowances to $1,800 a year.
Amended N.J.S.A. 38:18-2, 38:18-3, 38:18A-2 and 38:18A-3 to set both allowances at $1,800 a year in monthly payments, continuing to the surviving spouse. Approved September 15, 2022.
▲Expands benefitsGives civil service veterans preference to a veteran awarded a campaign or expedition medal, without wartime theater service.
Added paragraph (16) to N.J.S.A. 11A:5-1(b): service "in a campaign or expedition for which a medal has been authorized and recognized by the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944" and which has been awarded to the veteran. Approved January 18, 2022. Flagged because the Department of Veterans Affairs' civil service preference page, updated September 23, 2026, lists only the war and operation dates and omits the medal route.
▲Expands benefitsRemoves the wartime service requirement from the $250 veterans deduction and the 100 percent disabled veteran exemption.
Amended N.J.S.A. 54:4-3.30, 54:4-3.31, 54:4-8.10, 54:4-8.11, 54:4-8.12 and 54:4-8.17 to remove the requirement of service in time of war or other emergency. Approved January 21, 2020, it remained inoperative until voters approved the constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020. Flagged because the Department of Veterans Affairs' benefits guide, first edition January 2026, still says the deduction requires active service "during any of the statutory periods listed on the application form".
A bill moves when the people who vote on it hear from the people it affects. Enter your address to see who represents you in Congress and in your state legislature, and where to get free, accredited help with a VA claim: your county veterans service officer or town veterans’ agent, and your state’s service offices.