If your ex-husband dies, you can collect Social Security on his earnings record as a surviving divorced spouse, provided your marriage lasted at least 10 years and you meet the age and remarriage rules. The benefit can equal up to 100% of what he was entitled to, and it does not reduce what his current spouse or children receive.1Social Security Administration. What You Could Get from Survivor Benefits
Who Qualifies as a Surviving Divorced Spouse
The rule the Social Security Administration enforces most strictly is the length of the marriage. You must have been married to your ex-husband for at least 10 years, measured from the wedding date to the date the divorce was final.2Social Security Administration. Code of Federal Regulations 404.336 – How Do I Become Entitled to Widow’s or Widower’s Benefits as a Surviving Divorced Spouse? Nine years and eleven months is not enough.
Your ex-husband must also have been “fully insured” under Social Security, meaning he earned enough work credits during his lifetime. Most workers reach the 40 credits required after about 10 years of covered employment.3Social Security Administration. Survivors Benefits He does not need to have been collecting Social Security when he died.
How Remarriage Affects Your Claim
Remarriage is where many people accidentally lose eligibility. The pivotal age is 60.
- If you remarried at 60 or later, your eligibility on your ex-husband’s record is fully preserved. You can collect on his record or on your new spouse’s record, whichever pays more.
- If you remarried before 60, you generally lose eligibility for survivor benefits on his record while that marriage lasts.
- If that later marriage ends by divorce, annulment, or death, your eligibility on your ex-husband’s record is restored.
- If you remarried after age 50 while disabled, you remain eligible as a disabled surviving divorced spouse.4Social Security Administration. POMS RS 00207.003 – How Remarriage Affects Widow(er)’s Benefits
If you are close to 60 and thinking about remarrying, the timing has real money attached to it.
When You Can Start and How Much You Get
The age you file determines the size of your monthly check. A full survivor benefit requires reaching your full retirement age for survivors, which sits between 66 and 67 depending on your birth year. For anyone born in 1962 or later, it is 67.5Social Security Administration. See Your Full Retirement Age (FRA) for Survivor Benefits This schedule is separate from the FRA that applies to your own retirement benefit.
You can start collecting a reduced survivor benefit as early as age 60. At 60, the amount is roughly 71.5% of your ex-husband’s benefit, and it rises with each month you wait until it reaches 100% at your survivor FRA.1Social Security Administration. What You Could Get from Survivor Benefits If you are disabled, benefits can start at 50, with a further reduction.
One rule bypasses age entirely. If you are caring for your deceased ex-husband’s child who is under 16 or disabled, and that child is receiving benefits on his record, you can collect at any age.3Social Security Administration. Survivors Benefits
If He Claimed His Own Benefits Early
If your ex-husband started drawing his retirement benefit before his full retirement age, his monthly amount was permanently reduced, and that affects what you can receive. Your survivor benefit is generally capped at either the reduced amount he was actually receiving or 82.5% of his full primary insurance amount, whichever is higher. The SSA calls this the widow’s limit.6Social Security Administration. Research: The Widow(er)’s Limit Provision of Social Security The 82.5% floor keeps your benefit from falling as far as his early-claim reduction otherwise would.
You Are Not Competing with His Current Family
Your claim as a surviving divorced spouse is independent. The money you collect does not reduce what his current spouse, children, or other dependents receive, and it does not count toward the family maximum that limits total payouts on one worker’s record.7Social Security Administration. Understanding the Social Security Family Maximum If several former wives each meet the 10-year rule, each can collect full survivor benefits at the same time.
Choosing Between Your Own Benefit and His
If you have your own Social Security retirement benefit, you don’t collect both stacked together. You get the higher of the two. But survivor benefits are not subject to the “deemed filing” rule, which means you can claim one benefit first and switch to the other later.8Social Security Administration. Filing Rules for Retirement and Spouses Benefits
How you use that depends on which benefit will end up larger. If the survivor benefit is bigger, you can take it and let your own retirement benefit grow through delayed retirement credits (about 8% per year past your FRA) until age 70. If your own retirement benefit will eventually be larger, you can start the survivor benefit as early as 60 for income while your retirement benefit accumulates those credits, then switch to your own benefit at 70. Survivor benefits themselves stop growing at your survivor FRA, since they max out at 100% of his amount.
Working While Collecting
A job does not disqualify you, but earnings above a threshold trigger a temporary withholding if you have not reached full retirement age. For 2026, the annual earnings limit is $24,480 if you are under FRA for the entire year. Above that, the SSA withholds $1 in benefits for every $2 earned over the limit.9Social Security Administration. Receiving Benefits While Working
In the year you reach FRA, the limit is $65,160, the withholding rate drops to $1 for every $3 over, and only earnings from months before your FRA count.10Social Security Administration. How Work Affects Your Benefits Once you reach full retirement age, the earnings limit disappears. Money withheld before FRA isn’t lost; the SSA recalculates your benefit upward once you reach FRA to credit those months back.
If You Have a Government Pension
For decades, the Government Pension Offset reduced Social Security survivor benefits by two-thirds of any pension from government work not covered by Social Security, which wiped out the survivor benefit entirely for many public employees.11Social Security Administration. Government Pension Offset The Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 repealed the offset, and the repeal applies to benefits payable for months after December 2023.12Social Security Administration. President Signs H.R. 82, the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 If you were previously denied a survivor benefit or had one reduced because of a government pension, contact the SSA about recalculation.
How to Apply
You cannot apply for survivor benefits through the SSA’s online retirement application in every case, so plan to call or visit. The main phone line is 1-800-772-1213, and you can also apply in person at a local Social Security office. Online survivor applications are available at ssa.gov/apply.13Social Security Administration. Apply for Social Security Benefits Have your ex-husband’s death certificate, your divorce decree showing at least 10 years of marriage, your birth certificate, and your Social Security number. Don’t hold up the application waiting for a missing document; the SSA can help track records down, and delay costs you months.
If you apply after you were already eligible, some retroactive payment is possible. Survivor claims filed after your full retirement age can receive up to 6 months of back pay. Disabled surviving divorced spouses can receive up to 12 months.14Social Security Administration. POMS: Retroactivity for Title II Benefits Anything outside those windows is gone.
One benefit you likely won’t get: the $255 lump-sum death payment. It goes to a surviving spouse who was living with the deceased, or to a spouse or child eligible for benefits on the record. Surviving divorced spouses generally are not eligible.15Social Security Administration. Lump-Sum Death Payment