At what age do you receive full social security benefits

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What is the Social Security Retirement Age?

Social Security’s full-benefit retirement age is increasing gradually because of legislation passed by Congress in 1983. Traditionally, the full benefit age was 65, and early retirement benefits were first available at age 62, with a permanent reduction to 80 percent of the full benefit amount. Currently, the full benefit age is 66 years and 2 months for people born in 1955, and it will gradually rise to 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Early retirement benefits will continue to be available at age 62, but they will be reduced more. When the full-benefit age reaches 67, benefits taken at age 62 will be reduced to 70 percent of the full benefit and benefits first taken at age 65 will be reduced to 86.7 percent of the full benefit.

There is a financial bonus for delayed retirement. An individual reaching the full-benefit age in 2017 (66 years and 2 months old) receives a monthly benefit that is 8 percent higher for each year he or she delays collecting benefits until the latest claiming age of 70, at which point benefits are 132% of what they would have been at the normal retirement age. (When the full benefit age reaches 67, benefits claimed at age 70 will be 24 percent higher because of that delay.) The maximum retirement benefit in 2017 for someone who waits until age 70 to collect benefits is $3,538 a month.

For more information, see:

• Social Security Benefits, Finances, and Policy Options: A Primer
• Toolkit: When to Take Social Security: It Pays to Wait
• INFOGRAPHIC: Can You Wait to Receive Social Security Benefits?
• When to Take Social Security: Questions to Consider, Social Security Brief No. 31
• Economic Status of the Elderly in the United States
• Strengthening Social Security for Workers in Physically Demanding Occupations
• Social Security and Retirement Income Adequacy, Social Security Brief No. 25
• Increasing the Early Retirement Age under Social Security: Health, Work, and Financial Resources, Health and Income Security for an Aging Workforce Brief No. 7

Read what some Academy members think:*

• Tatsuko Go Hollo: Delaying Retirement: Should Average Life Expectancy Determine Retirement Age?” (2013)
• Thomas N. Bethell: “World’s best investment? Delaying Social Security” (2012)
• Anna Rappaport: “Understanding Mortality Improvement” (2011)
• Eric Kingson:  “Social Security and the Vanishing 401(k)” (2008)

* The views of Academy members are their own and not an official position of the National Academy of Social Insurance or its funders.

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You receive the highest benefit payable on your own record if you start collecting Social Security at age 70. 

Once you reach your full retirement age, or FRA, you can claim 100 percent of the benefit calculated from your lifetime earnings. (Full retirement age is 66 and 2 months for people born in 1955 and 66 and 4 months for those born in 1956. It will incrementally increase to 67 over the next few years.) But if you hold off a few years, you can earn delayed retirement credits that increase your eventual benefit — by two-thirds of 1 percent for each month you wait.

For example, if you were born in 1956, you reach full retirement age in 2022 (or in the first four months of 2023). If you put off filing for Social Security until you turn 70, you’ll get 44 months of delayed requirement credits, good for a bump of more than 29 percent over your full retirement benefit. If the benefit you’re entitled to at FRA is $1,500 a month, at 70 it would be about $1,940.

Here’s how that $1,500 full benefit could grow for the next wave of patient retirees: 

Year of birth            Full retirement age             Benefit at 70

1952-1954                  66                                              $1,980 (132% of full retirement benefit)

1955                            66 and 2 months                    $1,960 (130.67%)

1956                            66 and 4 months                    $1,940 (129.33%)

1957                            66 and 6 months                    $1,920 (128%)

1958                            66 and 8 months                    $1,900 (126.67%)

1959                            66 and 10 months                  $1,880 (125.33%)

1960 or later              67                                              $1,860 (124%)

Keep in mind

You can claim benefits later than 70, but there’s no financial reason to do so. Delayed retirement credits stop, and your payment tops out, at that age.

Updated December 22, 2021

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