Social Security spousal benefits calculator

How Social Security spousal benefits work

• At your full retirement age, the spousal benefit brings you up to half of your spouse’s full-retirement-age amount. If your own benefit is already that much, there is no top-up.
• The earliest start is 62, with a permanent reduction. Caring for your spouse’s child under 16 or disabled lets you start at any age without it.
• Your spouse has to have started their own benefit. You must have been married at least a year, or be the parent of their child.
• There are no delayed credits on the spousal part. Waiting past full retirement age raises only your own benefit.
• Applying for your own benefit or the spousal benefit applies for both, for anyone born in 1954 or later. You cannot take one now and switch to the other later.
• Before full retirement age, wages above the earnings test limit hold back benefits, spousal included.
• Since the Social Security Fairness Act of 2025, a government pension from work not covered by Social Security no longer cuts the spousal benefit.

Spousal benefits after a divorce

You can claim on a former spouse’s record, and it does not reduce what they or a new spouse get, when:

• The marriage lasted 10 years or more.
• You are not remarried.
• Your former spouse is 62 or older. If they have not claimed, you must have been divorced for at least two years.

Spousal benefit vs survivor benefit

While both of you are alive, the spousal benefit tops out at half of your spouse’s full amount. After a death the survivor benefit can be up to all of what your spouse was getting, including any delayed credits they earned by waiting. That is why the higher earner’s claim age matters more for the couple than the spousal start age.

Method and sources

The full spousal benefit is half of your spouse’s primary insurance amount. If you have your own benefit, Social Security pays your own first and adds the difference between half of your spouse’s amount and your own full amount. Starting before full retirement age reduces that top-up by 25/36 of 1% a month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond, and reduces your own benefit by its own rates. Ages are whole years, plus full retirement age itself.

Tables and sources

• 20 CFR §§404.333, 404.330 (eCFR, current)
  Spouse's benefit: one-half of the insured person's primary insurance amount (§404.333); entitlement only while the insured is entitled to old-age benefits and only if the spouse's own PIA is smaller than the full spouse's benefit (§404.330(d)) · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §404.330
  (d) not entitled when own old-age benefit is based on a PIA equal to or larger than the full wife's or husband's benefit · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §404.411
  (c)(1) old-age benefit of a widow(er) born after 1/1/1928 reduced only under §404.410(a); (d) spouse's benefit when also entitled to a reduced old-age benefit: own reduction plus the §404.410 reduction of the excess over the own PIA · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §404.407
  (a) another monthly benefit is reduced, not below zero, by the old-age benefit payable for the same month · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §§404.409, 404.410, 404.313 (eCFR, current)
  Old-age benefit: full retirement age by date of birth (§404.409(a)), reduction for months before full retirement age (§404.410(a)), delayed retirement credits to age 70 (§404.313) · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §404.410
  (a) 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond 36; total reduction rounded to the next higher multiple of 10 cents · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov
• 20 CFR §404.313
  (b) credit of 2/3 of 1% per month for births after 1/1/1943, months from full retirement age to age 70; increase rounded to the next lower multiple of 10 cents · 2026 · www.ecfr.gov