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

Deciding when to start Social Security comes down to a single trade-off: claim at 62 and take smaller checks for longer, wait until your full retirement age and get 100% of what you earned, or delay to 70 and lock in the largest possible monthly payment. For someone born in 1960 or later, filing at 62 cuts the check by 30%, while waiting until 70 adds 24% on top of the full amount. That’s a swing of more than 75% of your base benefit, for life. The average retiree collected $2,071 per month in early 2026, but your number depends heavily on when you file.¹

Find Your Full Retirement Age First

Every timing decision revolves around one date: your full retirement age (FRA), the age at which you qualify for 100% of your earned benefit with no reductions and no bonuses. Federal law ties FRA to your birth year, and it ranges from 66 to 67.²

Born 1943 through 1954: FRA is 66.
Born 1955: FRA is 66 and 2 months, rising by two months for each subsequent birth year.
Born 1960 or later: FRA is 67.

If you were born in 1957, your FRA is 66 and 6 months. Filing before that date triggers reductions; filing after it earns credits.³

What Filing at 62 Actually Costs

You can start collecting as early as 62, but each month you claim before your FRA shrinks your benefit permanently. The reduction never lifts. For the first 36 months before FRA, the cut is 5/9 of 1% per month; for any months beyond that, the cut steepens to 5/12 of 1% per month.⁴

Filing at 62 works out to these permanent haircuts:

FRA of 66: 25% reduction.
FRA of 66 and 6 months: 27.5% reduction.
FRA of 67: 30% reduction.

Someone with an FRA of 67 and a full benefit of $2,000 per month would collect just $1,400 at 62. That $600 gap compounds across decades of retirement.³

What Waiting Until 70 Gets You

Delaying past FRA earns you 2/3 of 1% for every month you wait, or 8% per year. These delayed retirement credits keep piling up until 70, at which point there’s no further advantage.⁵

For someone with an FRA of 67, waiting until 70 produces a benefit 24% higher than the full amount. That $2,000 example becomes $2,480. In 2026, the maximum possible benefit at 70 is $5,181, compared to $4,152 at FRA and $2,969 at 62.⁶

Delaying also raises the base for every future cost-of-living adjustment. Benefits rose 2.8% for 2026, and that percentage applies to whatever your monthly amount happens to be.⁷ A 2.8% COLA adds about $69 to a $2,480 check but only about $39 to a $1,400 check. The gap widens each year COLAs compound.

Break-Even: When Waiting Pays Off

The core question is how long you expect to live. File early and collect smaller checks for more years, or file late and collect larger checks for fewer years. At some point, the person who waited has received more total money than the person who filed early. That crossover is the break-even age.

The math depends on your specific benefit amount, but the pattern holds across most scenarios. Someone who files at 67 instead of 62 typically breaks even around age 78 or 79. Someone who waits all the way to 70 instead of filing at 62 breaks even around age 80. After that crossover, the late filer pulls further ahead every month.

This calculation has real limits. It doesn’t account for investment returns you might earn by collecting early and investing the money. It doesn’t factor in taxes, inflation beyond COLA adjustments, or the value of having cash in hand during your 60s. And it assumes you live long enough to reach the crossover. For someone in poor health, collecting early almost always makes more financial sense. For someone in good health with other income to bridge the gap, delaying is one of the most reliable ways to boost lifetime retirement income.

If You Plan to Keep Working

If you claim before your FRA and keep earning wages, the retirement earnings test temporarily reduces your payments once your earnings cross a threshold. For 2026, that threshold is $24,480 for anyone who won’t reach FRA during the year. For every $2 you earn above the limit, Social Security withholds $1 in benefits.⁸

In the calendar year you reach FRA, the rules loosen. The limit jumps to $65,160, and the withholding rate drops to $1 for every $3 over. Only earnings from months before you actually hit FRA count. Once you reach FRA, the earnings test disappears entirely.⁸

The withheld money isn’t gone for good. After you reach FRA, Social Security recalculates your benefit to credit the months when payments were partially or fully withheld, and your monthly check goes up. Still, if you’re in your early 60s and earning well above the threshold, the temporary reduction can wipe out most of the monthly benefit, which usually makes early filing a poor fit for people who plan to keep working.⁹

If You’re Married, Divorced, or Widowed

Your filing decision doesn’t just affect your own check. It ripples through benefits available to your spouse and, after your death, your surviving spouse.

Spousal Benefits

A spouse can collect up to 50% of the worker’s full retirement benefit, provided the spouse has reached their own FRA. Filing before FRA reduces that 50% using the same type of early-filing formula.¹⁰

For anyone who turned 62 on or after January 2, 2016, “deemed filing” applies. When you file for either your own retirement benefit or a spousal benefit, Social Security automatically files you for both, and you receive whichever is higher. The old strategy of filing only for spousal while letting your own benefit grow is no longer available to most people.¹¹

Deemed filing does not apply to survivor benefits. A widow or widower can claim survivor benefits on the deceased spouse’s record while letting their own retirement benefit grow until 70, or the reverse. This remains one of the few genuine optimization strategies left.

Survivor Benefits

When a worker dies, the surviving spouse can collect up to 100% of the deceased worker’s benefit amount. That makes the higher earner’s filing decision especially consequential. If the higher earner delays to 70 and locks in a benefit 24% above FRA, the surviving spouse inherits that larger amount. If the higher earner files at 62, the maximum available survivor benefit drops significantly.⁴

When a deceased worker claimed early, a cap known as the widow’s limit applies. The survivor benefit cannot exceed the greater of 82.5% of the worker’s full retirement amount or whatever the worker was actually receiving at death. Either way, the survivor benefit is lower than it would have been had the worker waited.¹²

Divorced Spouses

If your marriage lasted at least 10 years, you may be eligible for benefits based on your ex-spouse’s work record. You must have been divorced for at least two years and remain unmarried. You don’t need your ex-spouse’s permission, and claiming on their record doesn’t reduce their benefit or their current spouse’s benefit.¹³

How Taxes Interact With Timing

Social Security benefits can be subject to federal income tax depending on your “combined income,” which is your adjusted gross income plus nontaxable interest plus half of your Social Security benefits. The thresholds haven’t changed since 1993 and aren’t adjusted for inflation, so more retirees cross them every year.¹⁴

Single filers with combined income between $25,000 and $34,000 (or joint filers between $32,000 and $44,000): up to 50% of benefits may be taxable.
Single filers above $34,000 (or joint filers above $44,000): up to 85% of benefits may be taxable.
Married filing separately while living together: up to 85% is taxable regardless of income level.

Timing feeds directly into these numbers. Delaying benefits can push you into a higher combined-income bracket later if you have a pension, retirement account withdrawals, or investment earnings during your 60s. Collecting early while still working can push combined income above the thresholds too. Nine states also impose their own tax on Social Security benefits, though most offer exemptions for lower-income retirees.¹⁴

If You Change Your Mind

Filing isn’t quite as irreversible as it first appears. Two escape hatches exist, each with different rules.

Withdrawing Your Application

Within 12 months of your benefit approval, you can withdraw your application entirely using Form SSA-521. The catch is steep: you must repay every dollar you and your family received, including any money withheld for Medicare premiums, taxes, and garnishments. If Medicare Part A covered any medical expenses during that period, those costs must be repaid to Medicare as well. You can only use this option once.¹⁵

Suspending Your Benefits

If you’ve already passed FRA but haven’t yet turned 70, you can ask Social Security to suspend your payments. You don’t repay anything. You simply stop collecting and start earning delayed retirement credits of 8% per year on whatever benefit amount you had. Payments restart automatically at 70, or earlier if you request it.¹⁶

Suspension has side effects. Benefits paid to a spouse or dependent on your record also stop during the suspension period, though a divorced spouse can continue collecting. Medicare Part B premiums will no longer be deducted from your check, and CMS will bill you directly instead.¹⁶

A Warning for Government Pension Workers

If you worked for a state or local government, or any employer that didn’t withhold Social Security taxes, two provisions can significantly change the numbers above.

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) affects your own retirement benefit. It changes the formula Social Security uses to calculate your payment, reducing the percentage applied to your first bracket of career earnings from the normal 90% down to as low as 40%, depending on how many years you spent in Social Security-covered employment. Workers with 30 or more years of covered earnings are exempt. The reduction cannot exceed half of your non-covered pension amount.¹⁷

The Government Pension Offset (GPO) affects spousal and survivor benefits. If you receive a pension from non-covered government work, your Social Security spousal or survivor benefit is reduced by two-thirds of that pension amount. For many government retirees, this eliminates the spousal benefit entirely.¹⁸

If either provision applies to you, run your specific numbers before assuming the general early-versus-late framework fits your situation.

1
Social Security Administration. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 416 – Additional Definitions
3
Social Security Administration. Full Retirement and Age 62 Benefit By Year Of Birth
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 402 – Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Benefit Payments
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 402 – Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Benefit Payments – Section: Increase in Old-Age Insurance Benefit Amounts on Account of Delayed Retirement
6
Social Security Administration. What Is the Maximum Social Security Retirement Benefit Payable?
7
Social Security Administration. Social Security Announces 2.8 Percent Benefit Increase for 2026
8
Social Security Administration. Exempt Amounts Under the Earnings Test
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 403 – Reduction of Insurance Benefits
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 402 – Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Benefit Payments
11
Social Security Administration. Filing Rules for Retirement and Spouses Benefits
12
Social Security Administration. The Widow(er)’s Limit Provision of Social Security
13
Social Security Administration. 404.331 Who Is Entitled to Wife’s or Husband’s Benefits as a Divorced Spouse
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 86 – Social Security and Tier 1 Railroad Retirement Benefits
15
Social Security Administration. Cancel Your Benefits Application
16
Social Security Administration. Suspending Your Retirement Benefit Payments
17
Social Security Administration. Program Explainer: Windfall Elimination Provision
18
Social Security Administration. Program Explainer: Government Pension Offset