United States · Social Security

Full retirement age calculator

Your full retirement age — the age at which you are entitled to your full Social Security retirement benefit — depends only on your year of birth: 66 for people born in 1943–1954, then two months later for each birth year from 1955 to 1959, and 67 for everyone born in 1960 or later. Enter your birth year below; add your month and day if you want the exact calendar date on which you reach it.

The full retirement age table

This is the Social Security Administration's published table, including what claiming at 62 does to a benefit in each row: the reduction is permanent, and it grows as full retirement age rises.

Two SSA footnotes that move your date

The calculator applies the two footnotes the SSA prints under its own table. Born on January 1? You should refer to the previous year — someone born on January 1, 1960 uses the 1959 row (66 and 10 months), not the 67 row. Born on the 1st of any month? Social Security figures your benefit — and your full retirement age — as if your birthday was in the previous month. That is why a person born September 1, 1965 (full retirement age 67) reaches it on August 1, 2032, not September 1. The calculator also respects the SSA's related note that you must be at least 62 for the entire month to receive benefits when planning an earliest-claim date.

Claiming early or late: what changes

You can start receiving retirement benefits as early as age 62, but you are entitled to full benefits only at full retirement age. Starting early reduces the benefit by a small percentage for each month before full retirement age — the table shows the cumulative effect at 62, from 25% for the 1943–1954 rows to 30% for those born in 1960 or later. Going the other way, if you delay taking benefits from full retirement age up to age 70, your benefit increases through delayed retirement credits. The SSA also flags one interaction people miss: if you delay benefits past 65, you should still apply for Medicare within 3 months of your 65th birthday, or Medicare Part B and Part D may cost you more. For the formula that turns your earnings record into the dollar amount itself, see how Social Security is calculated; for when the money arrives each month, see the payment schedule.

A worked example

Maria was born on August 5, 1959. The table gives her birth-year row as 66 and 10 months. Adding 66 years and 10 months to August 5, 1959 gives June 5, 2026 — the date she reaches full retirement age. If Maria instead claims at 62, the SSA's example figures say a $1,000 full benefit would be reduced by 29.17% to about $708 a month, for life. Her neighbour, born one year and five months later in January 1961, is on the 67 row — a full year and two months later than Maria's age — which is why a single birth-year boundary is worth checking rather than guessing.

Common questions

What is the full retirement age for someone born in 1960?

67. The 1960 row is the first on the 67 step, and it applies to everyone born in 1960 or later — unless you were born on January 1, 1960, in which case the SSA's footnote sends you to the 1959 row: 66 and 10 months.

Is full retirement age the same as the age I must stop working?

No. Full retirement age is purely the age at which your benefit is unreduced. Nothing in the rule requires you to stop working, retire, or claim at that age.

Does my spouse have the same full retirement age as me?

Only if you share a birth-year row. Each person's full retirement age comes from their own year of birth. (The maximum spouse's benefit is 50% of the worker's full-retirement-age benefit, and a spouse claiming at 62 faces reductions of 30.00% to 35.00% across the same rows.)

Why does the calculator ask only for a birth date?

Because that is all the rule uses. Full retirement age is a lookup table by birth year, plus the SSA's two footnotes — no earnings, no personal identifiers, and nothing to send anywhere.

Image credits

The senior-couple-with-laptop photograph is by Shixart1985, via Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY 2.0. The senior couple photograph is by pasja1000 (via Pixabay), via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (public domain). The elderly hands photograph is by Tony Alter, via Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY 2.0. All three were already in this site's licensed collection; all were converted to WebP and resized. No image on this page was generated by AI.

Sources

• SSA — Retirement Age and Benefit Reduction: full retirement age table and footnotes (ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html)
• Social Security Administration — official site (SSA.gov)

The calculator implements exactly the SSA table and footnotes cited above, read on SSA.gov on October 28, 2026. Percentages are the SSA's own, which it notes are approximate due to rounding.