Social Security for Divorced Spouses: What You Can Collect on Your Ex's Record

You qualify as a divorced spouse if all five of these are true (20 CFR 404.331; SSA POMS RS 00202.005):

• •You were married at least 10 years immediately before the divorce became final. The date on the final decree is what counts, not the date you separated or filed. Social Security counts the requirement met if the divorce became final on or after the tenth anniversary of the wedding.
• •You are unmarried now. For the month of a divorce you are treated as unmarried throughout the month.
• •You are at least 62 for the whole of the month you start.
• •Your own full benefit is smaller than 50% of your ex's full benefit. If your own primary insurance amount is equal or larger, there is nothing to add.
• •Your ex is receiving retirement or disability benefits, or could. If your ex is at least 62 and has enough work credits but has not filed, you can still be paid, provided you have been divorced for at least 2 continuous years. Social Security calls this being an "independently entitled divorced spouse".

The 2-year wait has an exception. It does not apply if your ex was already entitled to retirement benefits in the month before the divorce, and once you qualify, your ex's continued earnings do not cause any of your benefit to be withheld (SSA POMS RS 00202.035). If your ex is still working at 64 and earning well, that is their business, not a reduction in your check. Your ex does not have to cooperate with your claim, and Social Security will develop it without them if it must (SSA POMS RS 00202.100).

At your own full retirement age, the divorced-spouse benefit is 50% of your ex's primary insurance amount, the benefit they would get at their full retirement age (SSA POMS RS 00202.020). It is not 50% of whatever check your ex actually receives. If your ex claimed at 62, your benefit is still figured from their full amount; if your ex waited to 70, their delayed retirement credits do not raise yours (SSA). And there is no reward for your waiting beyond your full retirement age: the spousal benefit stops growing there.

Start earlier and the benefit is reduced, by 25/36 of 1% for each of the first 36 months before your full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that (20 CFR 404.410). With a full retirement age of 67, which applies to anyone born in 1960 or later, starting at 62 is 60 months early: a 35% cut, leaving 32.5% of your ex's full amount (SSA Office of the Chief Actuary). The spousal reduction is steeper per month than the 5/9 of 1% applied to your own retirement benefit, which is one reason the order of claiming matters.

If you have a benefit of your own, Social Security pays it first and adds the difference. The difference is figured from the full amounts: 50% of your ex's primary insurance amount minus your own. Then each piece is reduced for your age separately, your own by the retirement schedule and the add-on by the spousal one (SSA POMS RS 00615.020). A reader whose own full benefit is $1,200 and whose ex's is $3,400 has $1,700 of full spousal benefit, of which $500 is the add-on. At 67 she receives $1,200 plus $500; at 62 she receives $840 plus $325. The worked example below carries this through every age.

Two smaller points. A divorced spouse's benefit is not cut to fit the family maximum on the ex's record, so it is paid in full however many people draw on that record (SSA POMS RS 00202.020). And if you are under full retirement age and working, your own earnings above $24,480 in 2026 cause $1 of every $2 to be withheld (SSA).

No, and this is the question that stops many people from claiming. Payments to a divorced spouse do not reduce the worker's own benefit, and a qualifying divorced spouse does not affect what the worker's family, including a current spouse, can receive (SSA). When Social Security contacts a worker about an ex's claim, its staff are told to say exactly that: the divorced spouse's entitlement "will not adversely affect their benefit amount or the benefits of any future auxiliaries" (SSA POMS RS 00202.100). The same instructions forbid disclosing either person's whereabouts to the other.

Nor can a worker block it. The divorced-spouse benefit is set by the Social Security Act, not by the divorce decree, and the Act bars assigning benefits to anyone else (42 U.S.C. 407), so a settlement that purports to waive it does not bind Social Security. Equally, a court cannot award you more than the statute provides, or divide your ex's Social Security the way it divides a pension. If your divorce is still being negotiated, that matters: your future spousal and survivor benefits are protected whatever the settlement says, so they need not be traded for.

If you were born on or after January 2, 1954, you cannot choose to take only the divorced-spouse benefit and let your own grow. When you apply for either your own retirement benefit or a divorced-spouse benefit, you are deemed to have applied for both, at any age (SSA POMS GN 00204.035). An independently entitled divorced spouse is not exempt (SSA POMS RS 00202.100). The practical effect: you choose one starting month, and your own benefit and any spousal add-on start together, each reduced for that month.

The old strategy, filing a "restricted application" for the spousal benefit at full retirement age while your own benefit earned delayed credits to 70, survives only for people born before January 2, 1954. They are 72 or older in 2026, so anyone in that group who has not yet claimed their own benefit is past the age where waiting adds anything, and should claim now. For everyone younger, the question is simply which month to start.

Survivor benefits are different. Deemed filing does not apply to them, so a divorced surviving spouse can take the survivor benefit and let their own retirement benefit grow, or the reverse (SSA POMS GN 00204.035). That flexibility is the main planning lever left for divorced readers.

Your benefit becomes a survivor benefit, and it can double. A surviving divorced spouse qualifies at 60 (50 if disabled) if the marriage lasted at least 10 years, and is figured exactly like a widow's: up to 100% of what the ex was receiving, including any delayed retirement credits, at your survivor full retirement age, and 71.5% at 60 (20 CFR 404.336; SSA). If the ex claimed early, the widow's limit caps it at the larger of the ex's reduced benefit or 82.5% of their full amount. The survivor full retirement age runs up to two years ahead of the retirement one: 66 and 8 months for someone born in 1960, 67 only for those born in 1962 or later.

Three rules make the divorced survivor's position better than many expect. The benefit is not counted against the family maximum, so it does not reduce what the ex's widow or children receive. Remarriage at 60 or later does not bar it. And if you were caring for the ex's child who is under 16 or disabled, you can receive a survivor benefit at any age, even if the marriage was shorter than 10 years (SSA Publication 05-10127). If you were already on a divorced-spouse benefit when the ex died, Social Security may convert it without a new application in some cases; otherwise you must apply, and survivor benefits cannot be applied for online. Our guide to Social Security survivor benefitscovers the survivor age table, the widow's limit and the first-weeks checklist in full.

Your remarriage generally ends a divorced-spouse benefit, with the month before the marriage the last one paid (SSA POMS RS 00202.040). There is one exception: marrying someone who is receiving widow's or widower's, divorced spouse's, parent's or childhood disability benefits does not end it (SSA POMS RS 00202.045). If the later marriage ends, by divorce or death, you can become entitled on the first ex's record again (SSA POMS RS 00202.046). Your ex's remarriage has no effect on you at all.

More than one former spouse. Each marriage must separately have lasted 10 years. If you qualify on two records, applying for a spousal benefit on one deems you to have applied on all of them, and you are paid the highest single amount you are entitled to, never a sum (SSA POMS GN 00204.035; POMS RS 00615.020). A marriage that ended in divorce, then resumed with the same person, counts as continuous if you remarried by the end of the calendar year after the divorce (SSA POMS RS 00202.005).

A wedding date worth checking. For a reader in a second or third marriage, the 10-year rule is sometimes a matter of weeks. A divorce that becomes final one month before the tenth anniversary leaves the lower earner with no spousal and no survivor benefit on that record for life. If you are divorcing near that line, the date the decree becomes final is worth raising with your attorney.

Carol was born in March 1964, so she turns 62 in 2026 and her full retirement age is 67. She was married to Don for 31 years; the divorce became final in 2019 and she has not remarried. Don, born in 1962, is still working and has not claimed. His full retirement age benefit is $3,400. Carol's own is $1,200.

Does she qualify? Yes. Don is over 62 and fully insured, and they have been divorced for more than 2 years, so Carol is an independently entitled divorced spouse. Don does not need to file, and his wages will not reduce her check. Her full spousal benefit is $1,700, 50% of $3,400. Because her own full benefit is $1,200, the add-on is $500.

Waiting from 62 to 67 raises Carol's check by $535 a month, 45.9% more, for life. Waiting past 67 helps only her own part: at 70 her own benefit would be $1,488, still below the $1,700 she can have at 67, so for her there is no reason to wait past full retirement age. A reader whose own benefit at 70 would exceed half the ex's full amount faces a different decision, which our guide on when to claim Social Security works through.

If Don dies first. Carol's survivor full retirement age is 67. From then she would receive 100% of Don's benefit. If Don claims at 70, that is $4,216 a month, two and a half times what she can get while he is alive. If he claims at 62, the widow's limit holds her survivor benefit to about $2,805. The difference, $1,411 a month for what could be many years of widowhood, is decided by Don. Because survivor benefits are outside deemed filing, Carol can switch from her own-plus-spousal check to the survivor benefit whenever it becomes available and larger.

If Carol remarries. Marrying at 63 would end the $500 add-on from Don's record, though her own benefit would continue and, after a year of marriage, she could look to her new husband's record (SSA). Her survivor rights on Don's record would be untouched, because she would be past 60. Marrying at 59 would put them on hold for the length of the marriage.

You can apply online if you are within three months of 62 or older, or by calling 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), or at a local office (SSA, Form SSA-2). Survivor benefits, by contrast, must be claimed by phone or in person.

Have ready: your birth certificate, your marriage certificate and the final divorce decree (Social Security wants originals or certified copies, which it returns), and your W-2 or self-employment return for last year (SSA). You will need your ex's Social Security number; if you do not have it, their date and place of birth and their parents' names will do (SSA Publication 05-10127). Do not delay applying because a document is missing. Ask for your figures at several starting months before you pick one, and ask the representative to confirm whether you are being paid as an independently entitled divorced spouse if your ex has not claimed.

At 65 you can also qualify for premium-free Medicare Part A on a former spouse's record if your own record does not provide it (SSA Publication 05-10043). Our Medicare enrollment guide covers the dates that apply.

• •Assuming you get half of your ex's check. It is half of their full retirement age amount, not what they receive, and your own full benefit is subtracted before anything is added.
• •Not claiming because it might hurt the ex or their new spouse. It does not reduce either one.
• •Waiting for the ex to file. After 2 years of divorce, with the ex at 62 or older, you do not need them to.
• •Delaying the spousal benefit past full retirement age. It earns no delayed credits. Only your own benefit grows after that.
• •Planning a restricted application. It is gone for anyone born on or after January 2, 1954.
• •Remarrying at 59. A year's wait preserves survivor rights on the ex's record, which can be the largest benefit you will ever be offered.
• •Signing away Social Security in the settlement. A decree cannot waive or divide it, so do not trade other assets for it.
• •Finalizing a divorce just short of ten years. The date on the final decree decides it.
• •Not telling Social Security the ex has died. The divorced-spouse benefit ends at the ex's death and a survivor benefit, usually larger, replaces it only once it is claimed or converted.