Social Security Survivor Benefit Calculator

Who Can Claim, and From What Age

A surviving spouse needs nine months of marriage — not the year a spousal benefit asks for — and that requirement disappears entirely if the death was accidental or in the line of military duty. A surviving divorced spouse needs ten years of marriage, and what they claim takes nothing from the deceased's current spouse or from anyone else on the record. The ordinary starting age is 60, but it is 50 for a survivor who is disabled, and there is no age limit at all while you are caring for the deceased's child who is under 16 or disabled.

Up to 100% of what they were getting or had earned, reduced if you claim before your survivor full retirement age

The Widow's Limit, and Why It Sometimes Helps

If the person who died had already started their benefit before their own full retirement age, their payment was permanently reduced — and a rule called the widow's limit, or RIB-LIM, decides how much of that reduction a survivor inherits. The ceiling becomes the greater of two things: what they were actually drawing, or 82.5% of what they would have had at their full retirement age. So the reduction is passed on, but only down to a floor.

Which way it cuts depends on how early they claimed. Someone who claimed at 62 with a full amount of $2,400 was drawing about $1,680 — below the $1,980 floor, so the survivor is lifted up to $1,980. Someone who claimed a few months early and was drawing $2,300 is already above the floor, and the survivor is held to that $2,300. The limit only exists where the deceased claimed early; if they claimed at or after their full retirement age, or had not claimed at all, there is no limit and any delayed retirement credits they earned pass straight through.

The Switch: You Are Not Made to Choose

Everywhere else in Social Security, filing for one benefit files you for all of them. Survivor benefits are the exception. Someone entitled to both a survivor benefit and a retirement benefit of their own may draw one now and switch to the other later, and the one left alone keeps growing in the meantime. That single exception is worth more to most survivors than any other detail on this page.

Which order is better depends on which record is larger. If your own benefit, left to grow to 70, would beat the survivor benefit, take the survivor benefit first. If it would not, take your own first — reduced if need be — and move to the survivor benefit at your survivor full retirement age, when it reaches its maximum. The calculator above compares the two for you, because doing it in your head means holding two different full retirement ages at once.

Two Traps: Remarriage and the Application Date

Remarrying at 60 or later — 50 if you are disabled — has no effect on a survivor benefit whatsoever. Remarrying before that ends it, though it can be restored if the later marriage itself ends. This is the reverse of the rule for a living ex-spouse, where any remarriage closes their record to you permanently, and people who know one rule often assume the other works the same way. Some widows have postponed a wedding by a few months for exactly this reason, and were right to.

The second trap is quieter. Survivor benefits are generally not paid for months before the month you apply, so months spent deciding are usually months lost for good — unlike a disability claim, where back pay can reach a year before the application. The $255 lump-sum death payment has its own deadline: two years from the death, after which it cannot be claimed at all. If you are unsure whether you qualify, apply and let Social Security decide rather than waiting until you are certain.