How Much Has VAERS Paid Out? VICP vs. CICP Payouts

VAERS has paid out zero dollars. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is a safety monitoring database run by the CDC and FDA, not a compensation fund, and filing a VAERS report does not start any claim for money.¹²³

Why VAERS Has No Payout Figure

VAERS collects reports of health problems that occur after vaccination. Since 1990 it has received more than two million such reports from patients, family members, doctors, and manufacturers, some submitted voluntarily and some required by law. The reports are used to look for unusual patterns that warrant deeper study through more rigorous methods.¹

A VAERS report does not establish that a vaccine caused the event described in it. Reports may be incomplete, inaccurate, or coincidental, and the FDA states plainly that the system cannot determine causation.⁴ Nothing about being in the database entitles anyone to money. To pursue compensation, an injured person has to file a separate claim with the VICP or the CICP, both administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration.

What the VICP Has Paid

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and began operating in 1988. Over the program’s lifetime it has paid approximately $5.6 billion in total, a figure that includes petitioner awards, structured settlements, and attorneys’ fees, according to HRSA data updated March 1, 2026.²

From fiscal year 1988 through fiscal year 2025 the program received 28,673 petitions. Of the roughly 25,000 that were adjudicated, about 12,000 resulted in compensation and about 13,000 were dismissed. From fiscal year 1989 through fiscal year 2025 the program made roughly 12,400 compensation payments totaling about $4.89 billion in petitioner awards, separate from attorneys’ fees.⁵

Awards can cover medical expenses, rehabilitation, lost earnings, and pain and suffering, with a statutory cap of $250,000 for pain and suffering and $250,000 for vaccine-related death. The largest single award in program history was $9.1 million.⁶ The program also pays reasonable attorneys’ fees, even in cases that are denied, so long as the petition was filed in good faith.

What the Total Doesn’t Mean

The $5.6 billion figure is easy to misread. Roughly 60% of all VICP compensation comes from negotiated settlements in which HHS has not concluded that the vaccine actually caused the alleged injury.⁷ Settlements are often reached to keep litigation costs down or to resolve cases faster. Being paid through the VICP is not the same as an official finding that a vaccine caused harm, and KFF Health News has reported that the program’s payout statistics are frequently cited out of context to raise doubts about vaccine safety.⁸

Another point worth knowing: recent claims are dominated by SIRVA (Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration), which was added to the Vaccine Injury Table in 2017. By 2019, SIRVA claims accounted for 55% of VICP petitions and more than $200 million in payouts that year.⁹ SIRVA results from how a shot is given, typically an injection placed too high on the shoulder, rather than from anything in the vaccine itself.

How the Money Comes In

VICP awards do not come from general tax revenue. The program is funded by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund, which collects a $0.75 excise tax on each dose of a covered vaccine for each disease it prevents. A measles-mumps-rubella shot, covering three diseases, is taxed at $2.25 per dose.¹⁰ As of September 2025 the trust fund held $4.66 billion and was taking in about $131 million per year.⁵

VICP Payouts by Year

Total annual VICP spending, including petitioner awards, attorneys’ fees for both compensated and dismissed cases, and interim fees, has stayed in a fairly narrow band. Recent fiscal years, according to HRSA’s monthly reports:

FY 2015: $225 million
FY 2016: $253 million
FY 2017: $282 million
FY 2018: $226 million
FY 2019: $226 million
FY 2020: $218 million
FY 2021: $244 million
FY 2022: $230 million
FY 2023: $174 million
FY 2024: $203 million
FY 2025: $141 million

These figures are drawn from HRSA statistics reports.¹¹ Between fiscal years 2016 and 2025 the share of adjudicated claims found compensable rose to about 77%, up from 28% in the preceding decade, though average per-claim payments have stayed below $500,000 since 2015.⁵

What the CICP Has Paid

COVID-19 vaccines are not covered by the VICP. Claims for those vaccines go to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, a separate system created in 2005 under the PREP Act to handle medical countermeasures deployed during declared public health emergencies. COVID-19 vaccines remain under CICP jurisdiction through 2029.¹²

The scale is completely different. As of April 2026, CICP payouts across the program’s entire history, covering all countermeasures since 2010, totaled about $13 million for 34 compensated claims. The single largest payment was nearly $5.9 million for a case of thrombotic thrombocytopenia syndrome linked to a COVID-19 vaccine.³ Most individual COVID-19 payouts have been much smaller: myocarditis awards were generally between about $600 and $5,500, and anaphylaxis and fainting awards were typically $1,400 to $5,600.

The gap between claims filed and claims paid is wide. As of March 2026, more than 14,000 COVID-19 claims had been filed. Of the roughly 6,800 that had received a decision, only 95 were found eligible for compensation, less than 1.4%.¹³ A December 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that 75% of claims were still awaiting review as of mid-2024, and that the average time to a decision was 24 months. The most common reason for ineligibility was missing the filing deadline.¹⁴

Why CICP Awards Are So Much Smaller

The CICP is a tougher and narrower program than the VICP. It runs as an administrative process inside HRSA, with no judges, no hearings, and no judicial appeals. It does not compensate pain and suffering and does not pay attorneys’ fees. It also has no formal vaccine injury table for most countermeasures, so each claim requires an individual scientific review rather than benefiting from a presumption of causation.¹⁵ The CICP is also a payer of last resort, covering only expenses not already paid by insurance or another source.¹³

COVID-19 vaccines could eventually be moved into the VICP, but three things would need to happen: the CDC would have to recommend the vaccine for routine administration to children or pregnant women (which occurred in 2023), Congress would have to apply the trust fund excise tax to the vaccine, and HHS would have to add it to the Vaccine Injury Table.¹⁶ The last two steps have not happened.

1
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. VAERS Frequently Asked Questions
2
Health Resources and Services Administration. VICP Statistics Report
3
Health Resources and Services Administration. CICP Data – Table 4
4
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. VAERS Questions and Answers
5
KFF. Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs: Overview and Current Issues
6
U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Vaccine Program Background
7
Health Resources and Services Administration. VICP Data
8
KFF Health News. Autism, Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and Public Health Trust
9
National Library of Medicine. SIRVA Claims in the VICP
10
Health Resources and Services Administration. About VICP
11
Health Resources and Services Administration. VICP Statistics Report
12
American Hospital Association. PREP Act Liability Protections Extended Through 2029
13
Health Resources and Services Administration. CICP Data
14
U.S. Government Accountability Office. COVID-19: Information on HHS’s Medical Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program
15
Health Resources and Services Administration. Comparing the CICP and VICP
16
Congressional Research Service. Federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs