When to Claim Social Security: 62, 67 or 70?

1One benefit, nine possible sizes

Everything starts from one figure: the benefit Social Security pays if you claim exactly at full retirement age, called your primary insurance amount. It is worked out from your 35 highest years of earnings, adjusted for wage growth, and our guide to how much Social Security you will get explains the formula. The age you claim then moves that figure up or down, permanently.

Swipe sideways to see the whole table.

The change runs month by month, so a claim at 64 and a half falls between two rows, and nothing is gained by waiting past 70. One detail catches people out: to be paid for a month you must be 62 for all of it, so most people's first possible month is the one after their 62nd birthday, unless they were born on the first or second day of a month. If you were born before 1960, your full retirement age is a few months short of 67 and the percentages shift slightly; Social Security's own chart gives yours. Anyone reaching 62 in 2026 or later has a full retirement age of 67.

2The break-even question

The usual way to weigh the choice is to ask when waiting catches up. A larger check that starts later has to make up for the checks you skipped. Using the same $2,000 example, and leaving out cost-of-living increases, which raise every option by the same percentage:

• 62 or 67: waiting comes out ahead in total after about age 78 and a half.
• 62 or 70: waiting comes out ahead a little after 80.
• 67 or 70: waiting comes out ahead after about 82 and a half.

Swipe sideways to see the whole table.

The ages are the same whatever your benefit, because every option scales with it. What the arithmetic cannot tell you is how long you will live, and it leaves out taxes, what the money could earn in the meantime and the value of a larger check to a widow or widower, which for many married couples is the biggest number of all. Social Security's life expectancy calculator gives averages by birth date and sex; your own health and family history say more.

3When claiming early makes sense

Claiming at 62 is often treated as a mistake. For many people it is the right call, and the reasons are practical rather than mathematical.

• Your health is poor, or your family history suggests a shorter life. If you are unlikely to reach about 80, the early checks usually add up to more.
• You cannot work and have little saved. A smaller check now can be better than running up debt or selling investments at a bad time. If a health condition stopped you working, ask first whether you could qualify for disability benefits, which pay your full amount without the reduction for claiming early.
• You are single, with no one who could collect on your record. The survivor benefit, a large reason for married people to wait, does not apply.
• You are the lower earner in a couple whose partner plans to delay. Your early check brings money in while the larger benefit grows.

Claiming early while still working is a different case. Before full retirement age, Social Security withholds $1 for every $2 you earn above $24,480 in 2026, and in the year you reach that age, $1 for every $3 above $65,160 earned before the month you do. The money is not lost, because your benefit is raised at full retirement age for the months withheld, but it makes an early claim far less useful to someone on a full-time salary. Our guide to working while collecting Social Security explains the details.

4When waiting pays

Waiting is a hedge against living a long time, the risk that most often leaves older people short of money. Each year of delay after full retirement age buys a check 8 percent larger, and that check rises with the cost-of-living adjustment every year for the rest of your life. Delay tends to fit when:

• You are in good health and people in your family tend to live into their late 80s or 90s.
• You are still working and do not need the money yet.
• You have savings or a pension that can cover the years between leaving work and claiming.
• You are the higher earner in a married couple, because your benefit, delay credits included, can become your spouse's.

That last reason is the one most often missed. When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits. If the higher earner waited until 70, a survivor who has reached full retirement age can receive that larger amount for the rest of their life. The reverse holds too: if the higher earner claims at 62, the survivor benefit is reduced with it, though it cannot fall below 82.5 percent of the worker's full benefit. Our guide to survivor benefits explains how the amount is set.

5If you are married, divorced or widowed

Couples have two claiming decisions, and they interact. A spouse can receive up to half of the other's full benefit, but only once the other has claimed, and that spousal amount does not grow after full retirement age: there are no delay credits on it. Claimed at 62, it is reduced to 32.5 percent of the worker's full benefit.

There is also no longer a way to take one benefit and let the other grow. Anyone born after January 1, 1954, who applies for retirement benefits is treated as applying for spousal benefits at the same time, and receives the higher combination. Our guide to spousal benefits works through the numbers, and divorced-spouse benefits follow similar rules for a marriage that lasted ten years.

Widows and widowers have a choice of their own. A survivor benefit can start as early as 60, reduced, and a survivor who also has a retirement benefit can usually take one first and switch to the other later, letting the second one grow. For survivors, that option is still open.

6Medicare, taxes and the rest of the budget

Medicare does not wait for Social Security. You become eligible at 65 whenever you claim, and if you are not yet collecting benefits you must sign up yourself during the seven-month window around your 65th birthday, or risk a late penalty that lasts for life. Our guide to when to sign up for Medicare has the dates. Once you claim, the Part B premium, $202.90 a month in 2026 for most people, is usually taken from your check.

Taxes can shift the math, too. Up to 85 percent of benefits can be taxable once your income, counting half your benefits, passes set thresholds. Some people live on retirement savings in their 60s and claim later, an order that changes how much of the benefit is taxed in later years; our guide to whether Social Security is taxable explains the thresholds, and a tax professional can show how they would apply to you.

If you stop working before 65, health coverage is often the larger question. Claiming early does not bring Medicare any sooner, so the years between leaving a job and turning 65 need another source: retiree coverage, COBRA for up to 18 months, or a Marketplace plan, whose premium tax credit depends on income that includes your Social Security benefits. Our guide to COBRA, the Marketplace and a spouse's plan compares them.

7If you change your mind

The decision is less final than it looks, in two ways. Within 12 months of first claiming, you can withdraw your application, repay everything you and your family received on it, and claim again later as if you never had. You can do this once in your lifetime.

After full retirement age, you can also ask Social Security to suspend your benefit and earn delay credits until 70, when payments restart automatically. And if you apply after full retirement age, you can ask for up to six months of back benefits, though not for any month before full retirement age; taking them means fewer delay credits on the check that follows.

8Three people, three answers

None of these is a recommendation. Each shows the same rules pointing different ways. To see your own numbers, the retirement calculator estimates your benefit at each age from your earnings, and the spousal calculator shows what a husband or wife could receive.

9Before you decide

• Check your earnings record, because a missing year lowers every option; our guide to checking your earnings record shows how.
• Get your own estimate at each age from your my Social Security account.
• Work out how you would cover the years between leaving work and claiming, and what health coverage you will have before 65.
• If you are married, compare your two benefits and decide which of you, if either, should wait.
• When you are ready, apply up to four months before you want benefits to start; our guide to applying for retirement benefits walks through the form.

11What this guide cannot weigh for you

Your health, savings, taxes and family are what decide this, and no guide can weigh them for you. The percentages here are Social Security's; the dollar figures are examples. Social Security can confirm your own benefit at each age, and an independent financial or tax adviser can help with the decision itself if you want one.