Social Security Spousal Benefits

Who can claim a spousal benefit

• Current spouses and divorced spouses can both qualify. An ex-spouse needs to have been married to the worker for at least 10 years and not have remarried.
• You have to turn 62 before you can file, but your check only reaches the full 50% once you hit your own full retirement age (FRA), which falls somewhere between 65 and 67 depending on your birth year. Check our full retirement age chart for your exact age.
• If you are a current spouse, the person you are filing on has to have already claimed their own retirement benefit before your spousal benefit can start.
• Ex-spouses get an exception: you can file even if your former spouse has not yet applied, as long as they are at least 62 and you have been divorced for two years or more.
• Filing for a spousal benefit does not change what your spouse or ex-spouse receives. The two amounts are calculated and paid on separate tracks.

Maximizing your spousal benefit

For most couples, Social Security is the foundation the rest of the retirement income plan gets built on, and bringing a spouse into the picture just adds more claiming ages to weigh. Two working spouses can mean four realistic starting points to compare: each spouse's own record at 62, at FRA, or at 70, plus whatever the spousal or survivor math adds on top. It is easy to underestimate how much that combination is worth, and just as easy to get the order of filing wrong and lose money you cannot get back. Whatever year you were born, start by pinning down your own FRA, since almost every dollar figure in this guide is measured against it.

A few minutes spent comparing scenarios before either spouse files usually pays for itself many times over. Once a spouse files, several of these choices close for good, so this is one area where getting professional input before you act tends to matter more than after.

How much will your spousal benefit be?

Social Security runs two numbers side by side for you: what your own earnings record would pay, and what a spousal benefit would pay, capped at 50% of your spouse's PIA at their FRA. You get whichever number is larger, not both stacked together.

Here is how that plays out with round numbers. Say your own PIA works out to $900 a month, and your spouse's PIA is $2,200. Half of your spouse's PIA is $1,100, which beats your own $900, so Social Security pays you the $1,100 spousal amount instead of your own smaller benefit. If your own PIA had been $1,300 instead, you would keep your own benefit, since it beats the $1,100 spousal figure. Nobody adds the two together; you simply get the larger of the two.

There is one legacy exception. If you were born on or before January 1, 1954, you may still be able to file a restricted application at your own FRA, draw only the spousal amount, and let your own retirement benefit keep building delayed credits until you switch to it later, as late as age 70. That option disappeared for anyone born after that date; filing today means Social Security pays you the larger of the two benefits automatically, with no way to separate them.

Run your own numbers at 62, your FRA and 70 with our Social Security claiming calculator.

Qualifying spouses

Two qualifying spouses

When both spouses have their own work record, the one with the smaller PIA effectively has two options: draw their own benefit, or draw a spousal benefit worth half of the other spouse's amount, whichever pays more. Only one spouse can be on a spousal benefit at any given time, and it cannot begin until the higher-earning spouse has filed for their own retirement benefit. Filing before your own FRA permanently shrinks whichever benefit you end up drawing, and there is no way to undo that reduction later by waiting on the other benefit instead.

This is the most common household setup, since most couples today have two earnings records of some size. The planning question is rarely whether you qualify; it is which spouse should file first, and at what age, to get the most out of both records over a full retirement.

One qualifying spouse and one nonqualifying spouse

If only one spouse worked in Social Security-covered jobs, the other is a nonqualifying spouse, meaning they have no earnings record of their own to draw on. A nonqualifying spouse can still collect off the working spouse's record, as long as the marriage has lasted at least a year, or the couple shares a child together. Filing at FRA or later gets the nonqualifying spouse 50% of the working spouse's PIA. Filing between 62 and FRA locks in a permanently reduced check instead, and that reduced percentage follows the nonqualifying spouse for the rest of their life. Either way, the working spouse has to have already started their own benefit before the nonqualifying spouse's claim can begin, so the working spouse effectively controls when the household's second check turns on.

How spousal benefits are taxed

Social Security income, spousal or otherwise, can be partly taxable depending on your total income for the year. The government compares your combined income, generally your adjusted gross income plus any tax-exempt interest plus half of your yearly Social Security benefits, against a threshold set by your filing status.

These thresholds have stayed flat for years, so more retirees cross them every year as other income, including required minimum distributions and pension checks, pushes combined income higher. Adding a spousal benefit to a household's income only makes it more likely that at least some of the combined check becomes taxable. Run your own figures with our Social Security tax calculator, and talk with a tax professional about how other income sources, including withdrawals you control the timing of, could shift your combined income going forward.

Coordination of spousal benefits

Married couples get to choose two claiming ages instead of one, and that opens up real strategy. One spouse might file at FRA for steady income right away, while the other waits until 70 for a bigger check and a bigger survivor benefit down the line. Delaying a worker's own retirement benefit past FRA adds roughly 8% a year in delayed credits, up through age 70, but that credit only applies to a benefit based on someone's own earnings, never to a spousal benefit, so there is rarely a reason to delay a spousal-only claim past your own FRA.

Coordinated well, this timing can raise the total a household collects over both lifetimes and leave a larger check behind for whichever spouse lives longer, since the survivor eventually keeps only one benefit, the larger of the two. A common approach has the lower earner file earlier for cash flow, while the higher earner delays to 70 so the eventual survivor benefit, which carries forward at that higher, delayed-credit-boosted level, is as large as possible.

How claiming strategies vary over time

The table below is a hypothetical illustration only, not a projection of your actual benefits. It assumes the lower-earning spouse has a $1,000 monthly benefit at FRA (age 66), and the higher-earning spouse has a $2,400 monthly benefit at that same FRA.

The phased approach only works if you were already 62 or older by the end of 2015, since it relies on the restricted-application rule that Congress closed off for younger birth years. For nearly everyone reading this today, the real choice is between the first two rows: a smaller check sooner, or a larger one later.

Surviving spouse benefits

If your spouse dies, Social Security pays a survivor benefit, generally as long as you were married for at least nine months beforehand. You can start as early as 60, or 50 if you become disabled within seven years of your spouse's death, or at any age if you are caring for the deceased's child. Starting before your own FRA reduces the check; for people born between 1945 and 1956, that reduction runs about 0.396% for every month claimed early. The starting amount comes from your late spouse's PIA, including any delayed credits they had already earned.

You cannot draw a survivor benefit and your own retirement benefit at the same time, but you can switch between them. If your own benefit ends up larger, you can move to it as early as 62; if the survivor benefit turns out larger, you would generally take that one instead and let your own record keep growing if you have not filed on it yet. Working out which order pays more over your expected lifetime is exactly the kind of comparison worth doing with a calculator, or with a licensed strategist, before you file either one. Remarrying before age 60 (50 if disabled) generally ends survivor eligibility unless that later marriage ends. Remarry after 60, and your survivor benefit from the earlier marriage stays intact.

Spousal benefits for a divorced spouse

Divorced spouses can claim on an ex's record under a similar 50% formula, plus a few extra conditions. The marriage has to have lasted 10 years or more, you have to be 62 or older, and you have to be currently unmarried. Your amount is reduced if you start before your own FRA, and Social Security still pays whichever is larger between your own benefit and the divorced-spouse benefit.

Divorced spouses get one advantage current spouses do not: you can file even if your ex has not yet claimed, as long as you have been divorced for at least two years and your ex is 62 or older. That rule exists because your ex has no way to block or even see your claim, so requiring only that they be old enough to qualify, rather than that they have actually applied, keeps the benefit within your own control. Nothing you collect changes what your ex or their current spouse receives, and your ex's remarriage does not affect your eligibility either.

Survivor benefits for a divorced spouse

A divorced spouse can also collect a survivor benefit if the ex-spouse dies, again after a marriage of 10 years or more. You still cannot start before age 60 (50 if disabled), and the benefit equals 100% of the deceased ex's PIA, reduced if you claim before your own FRA. This payment does not count against the family maximum, so it does not reduce what a former spouse's current family receives. The same remarriage rules apply as with any survivor benefit: remarry before 60 (50 if disabled) and eligibility ends unless that marriage ends; remarry after 60 and eligibility stays.

Social Security key terms

Primary insurance amount (PIA)

Your PIA is the benefit you would get by starting exactly at your full retirement age, before any early-claiming reduction or delayed-credit increase applies. Every spousal, survivor and divorced-spouse figure in this guide starts from someone's PIA.

Full retirement age (FRA)

Your FRA, sometimes called normal retirement age, is the age at which your benefit equals your PIA exactly, with no reduction and no bonus. It depends on your birth year and currently runs from 65 up to 67. See our full retirement age chart for the age tied to your birth year.

Contacting Social Security

You can handle most Social Security business online at ssa.gov, including checking your earnings record and filing an application, once you set up a personal account. To reach someone by phone, call 1-800-772-1213, or 1-800-325-0778 for TTY, weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.