U.S. Veterans are disproportionately affected by chronic pain. This research sought to examine and compare U.S. Veterans and non-Veterans regarding recent trends in chronic pain by severity and associations with economic burden for healthcare services. This study has significant implications for policymakers, providers, Veterans, and other stakeholders because up-to-date data on chronic pain and associated cost burden for Veterans can support better resource allocation and planning to promote the health and well-being of Veterans. Data came from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a well-established national survey that follows respondents for two years and provides detailed information on health care use and costs, verified medical conditions, and sociodemographic characteristics in a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized U.S. civilians including Veterans. We pooled 11 years of MEPS data from 2007 to 2017. The analytic sample included adults aged 18-64 (n=109,964). Veterans were defined as individuals being honorably discharged from active duty in the Armed Forces (n=4,868). We created chronic pain measures using responses to a pain question of the SF-12 questionnaire collected once a year and categorized individuals into one of the five pain categories, including no pain, acute pain, mild chronic pain, moderate chronic pain, and severe chronic pain. We employed a novel statistical model known as two-part model (TPM) of healthcare costs in which the first part estimated the probability of incurring any healthcare cost using logistic regression and the second part modeled healthcare expenditures among those who had non-zero costs using a generalized linear model with the log link function and the gamma distribution. All estimates were survey-weighted and adjusted for the complex design of the MEPS. Thirty-three percent of Veterans reported having chronic pain compared to 21.3% for non-Veterans. The rates of severe and moderate chronic pain were as twice as high among Veterans: severe–11.2% vs. 6.7%; moderate–8.4% vs. 4.9% (p<.001). Multivariate regression analyses revealed that the annual rates of chronic pain declined especially as of 2014 (p<.001) for all severity levels in the non-Veteran population. However, no statistically discernable trend was discovered for Veterans. TPM estimates show that both total and OOP healthcare costs incremented monotonically with chronic pain severity. Individuals with severe chronic pain had greater annual healthcare spending than those without pain by ,751 in total healthcare spending (p<.001) and 9 in OOP spending (p<.001). The overall relationship between chronic pain severity and healthcare spending varied by Veteran status (p=.043). Veterans with severe chronic pain spent a total of ,944 more on healthcare than non-Veterans annually (p=.034). However, there was no statistically discernable difference in OOP spending for any chronic pain severity between Veterans and non-Veterans (p=.95). Veterans experienced significantly higher rates of chronic pain of greater severity than non-Veterans, which persisted over the past decade. Total healthcare spending increased with the severity of chronic pain for both Veterans and non-Veterans. Notwithstanding, healthcare cost associated with chronic pain does not appear to disproportionately affect Veterans. Nor does it appear be a substantial economic burden for Veterans.