VA HISA grant and stair lifts

It does not. On the VA's HISA page, porch lifts and stair glides appear on the list of things HISA will not pay for. The same list also rules out equipment you can move, like portable ramps, along with ordinary home repairs.

The letters HISA stand for Home Improvements and Structural Alterations. This VA benefit helps pay for home changes a veteran needs because of a disability. Since the VA treats a stair lift as a stair glide, asking HISA for one runs into this exclusion.

HISA provides up to $6,800 when the need comes from a service-connected condition, or up to $2,000 for other eligible veterans.

Those are lifetime amounts, not something that resets each year. Whatever a veteran has already spent on past HISA projects comes off the total. Each project also has to be medically justified, meaning the VA has to agree the change is needed because of your disability.

Your local VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service can tell you how much of your HISA amount you have left.

Two bigger housing grants sit alongside HISA at the VA. In FY 2026, the Specially Adapted Housing grant reaches $126,526. The Special Housing Adaptation grant tops out at $25,350.

Each of these grants has its own eligibility requirements, which the VA lays out on its housing grants page. The stair glide exclusion lives in the HISA rules, so those rules do not tell you what the two larger grants cover.

If HISA will not help, the shape of the staircase drives most of the price. A lift for straight stairs costs far less than one for curved stairs, as these figures from the NCOA show.

With straight stairs, the step count sets how long the rail must be. Our cost tool estimates use a 15.5-foot standard rail and allow for extra cost when a longer rail is needed.

So a staircase with 16 straight steps calls for about 19 ft of rail, and that extra length adds roughly $300 to the bill.

How wide the stairs are determines which lifts will work. Minimum stair widths vary by model: the Acorn 130 lists 26 inches, the Bruno Elan lists 28 inches, and the Bruno Elite Curved lists 30 inches.

Weight capacity matters too. Looking at the 16 models we compared, the middle limit is 350 lb. The Harmar Pinnacle SL600HD tops out at 600 lb, while the Acorn 180 sits lowest at 265 lb.

Here are some straight lifts with lower published prices, along with how much weight each one carries:

• AmeriGlide Rave 2: listed online at $2,249, 350 lb limit. You can install it yourself at home or hire a paid installer, per AmeriGlide.
• Handicare 1100: one dealer charges $3,299 for the lift, with installation billed separately, 310 lb limit.
• Acorn 130: about $3,000 to $5,000 installed (a reviewer's estimate; Acorn quotes in your home). It carries 280 lb, or 350 lb in the heavy-duty version, and it's the only straight lift we looked at that fits stairs as narrow as 26 inches.
• Harmar Pinnacle SL300: one dealer sells the lift for $3,640 plus $725 to install, 300 lb limit.
• Savaria K2: one dealer sells the lift for $3,790 plus $345 to $445 to install, 350 lb limit.
• Stannah Siena 600: Stannah's published starting price is $4,700 installed, 350 lb limit.

On the curved side, published starting prices include the Handicare Freecurve at $9,999 from one dealer, the Stannah Siena 260 at $10,800 installed, and the Harmar Helix at $10,995 from one dealer. What a curved lift finally costs depends on the shape of the staircase it is built for.

Warranties vary widely from one manufacturer to the next. Bruno covers the Elan with a limited lifetime warranty, while Acorn gives just 12 months on its lifts. Looking at the warranty next to the price gives a truer picture of the cost across the years a lift stays in use.