How Long Do You Have to Be Married to Get Social Security?

To collect Social Security on a spouse’s earnings record, the marriage generally has to have lasted one year if you’re still married, ten years if you’re divorced, or nine months if your spouse has died. Each threshold has its own exceptions, and the wrong assumption can cost you a claim you would otherwise qualify for. Here is how long you have to be married to get Social Security in each of the three situations, and what waives the requirement.

One Year if You’re Currently Married

If you and your spouse are still married, you must have been married for at least one continuous year before you can file for spousal benefits on their record.¹ Your spouse also has to already be receiving their own Social Security retirement or disability benefits. You can’t file on the record of someone who hasn’t yet claimed.²

Two situations waive the one-year wait. The first is if you and your spouse are the biological parents of a child together. The second is if, in the month before the marriage, you were already entitled to (or could have been entitled to) certain Social Security benefits such as widow’s, widower’s, or parent’s benefits.¹ The second waiver mostly comes up when someone remarries later in life after already being on another worker’s record.

Ten Years if You’re Divorced

For a divorced spouse, the marriage must have lasted at least ten years before the divorce was finalized.³ Beyond the marriage length, you have to be at least 62, currently unmarried, and your own Social Security retirement benefit has to be less than the spousal benefit you’d draw on your ex’s record.²

Your ex does not need to have filed for their own benefits. As long as they are old enough to be eligible and the two of you have been divorced for at least two continuous years, you can file on your own.² An ex who is dragging their feet on retirement cannot keep you from claiming.

If you were married to the same person more than once, those marriages can be combined to meet the ten-year requirement, provided you remarried no later than the calendar year after the divorce became final.⁴ So a couple who split at year seven, remarried the following year, and stayed married for another three years can qualify even though neither marriage alone hit ten.

Benefits paid to a divorced spouse do not reduce anything the worker, the worker’s current spouse, or any other qualifying ex-spouse receives.⁵ If a worker had three marriages that each lasted at least ten years, all three former spouses can collect at the same time without affecting each other’s checks.

Nine Months if You’re a Surviving Spouse

For widow’s or widower’s benefits, the marriage must have lasted at least nine months immediately before the worker’s death. Surviving spouses can claim as early as age 60, or age 50 with a qualifying disability, as long as they did not remarry before that age.⁶

The nine-month rule is waived in several circumstances:

The worker died from bodily injuries caused solely by violent, external, and accidental means within three months of the injury.⁷
The worker died while serving on active duty in a uniformed service.⁸
The couple had a biological or legally adopted child together.
The surviving spouse was previously married to and divorced from the same worker, and that earlier marriage lasted at least nine months.⁸

Watch this limit: the accidental death, line-of-duty, and prior-marriage exceptions do not apply if the worker could not reasonably have been expected to live nine months at the time of the marriage.⁸ The SSA looks closely at cases where someone married a person already in very poor health.

How Remarriage Changes the Answer

Because marriage duration is only part of the picture, a later marriage can quietly undo eligibility you thought you had.

If you remarry, you generally lose eligibility on a former spouse’s record. If that new marriage ends by divorce, annulment, or death, eligibility on the original ex’s record can be restored.
For survivor benefits, remarriage before age 60 ends your eligibility on the deceased spouse’s record. Remarry at 60 or later and you can still collect, and you get to choose whichever benefit is higher — the survivor benefit from the late spouse or a spousal benefit from the new one.⁹
For disabled surviving spouses, the cutoff drops to age 50. A disabled widow or widower who remarries between 50 and 59 can still qualify for survivor benefits.¹⁰

Common-Law Marriage

The duration rules apply to common-law marriages too, but only if the marriage is valid under the laws of the state where the couple lives or lived. Not every state allows common-law marriage, though some states that don’t will still recognize one established in a state that does. To confirm the marriage, the SSA looks for evidence that the couple held themselves out as married: joint bank accounts, shared mortgage or lease documents, insurance policies naming each other, and statements from blood relatives of both partners.¹¹ Once the marriage is established, the one-year, ten-year, or nine-month clock is measured the same way.

When Age Doesn’t Apply

The one-year marriage rule stands on its own, but the usual age-62 floor for spousal benefits does not. If you are caring for your spouse’s child who is under 16, or a child of any age who has a qualifying disability, you can collect spousal benefits at any age.² You still need to have been married for at least a year, but you don’t have to wait until 62 to file. This matters most for younger spouses raising a family when the working spouse becomes disabled or retires early.

1
Social Security Administration. Code of Federal Regulations 404.330 – Who Is Entitled to Wife’s or Husband’s Benefits
2
Social Security Administration. Who Can Get Family Benefits
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 416 – Additional Definitions
4
Social Security Administration. More Info: If You Had a Prior Marriage
5
Social Security Administration. 5 Things Every Woman Should Know About Social Security
6
Social Security Administration. Who Can Get Survivor Benefits
7
Social Security Administration. SSR 85-13c – Relationship, Stepchildren, Duration Requirement, Accidental Death of Worker
8
Social Security Administration. SSA Handbook 404 – Exception to the Nine-Month Duration of Marriage Requirement
9
Social Security Administration. Will Remarrying Affect My Social Security Benefits
10
Social Security Administration. How Remarriage Affects Widow(er)’s Benefits
11
Social Security Administration. Development of Common-Law (Non-Ceremonial) Marriages