Social Security Spousal Benefits 2026: 50% Rule, Divorced Spouse

Who qualifies: spouse, divorced spouse, and the ex who has not filed

The statute and the regulation split the benefit into three entitlements. They differ in four ways that matter to a couple planning the claim: how long the marriage lasted, whether the worker has to have filed, whether the person can be remarried, and what the worker's own earnings do to the check.

Source: 20 CFR 404.330 to 404.333, 404.403 and 404.415 (eCFR, current to October 19, 2026); 42 USC 402(b)(1) and (b)(4); SSA POMS RS 00202.005 and RS 00202.020. “Spouse” here is the regulation's “wife or husband”; the rules are the same for a husband.

Three details that readers miss. First, the 10 years are counted to the date “your divorce became final”, and POMS RS 00202.005 says the marriage can count across a remarriage to the same person only if the second marriage began no later than the calendar year after the divorce year. Second, the 2-year wait is counted in continuous months: SSA's example is a divorce on August 13, 2010 with benefits payable from September 2012. Third, a divorced spouse who remarries generally loses the benefit; 20 CFR 404.332(b)(3) makes an exception when the new spouse is “entitled to benefits as a wife, husband, widow, widower, father, mother, parent or disabled child.”

How much: the reduction table by full retirement age

Full retirement age (FRA) for spouse benefits depends on the claimant's own birth date (20 CFR 404.409(a)): 66 for births from January 2, 1943 through January 1, 1955, then two months more for each later year up to 67 for births on or after January 2, 1960. The reduction is on the spouse's schedule, not the worker's: 25/36 of 1 percent a month for 36 months, then 5/12 of 1 percent. The table shows the spouse benefit as a percentage of the worker's PIA when there is no record of the spouse's own and no child in care.

Source: our arithmetic on 20 CFR 404.410(b) and 404.409(a): 50% of the PIA times one minus the reduction, with entitlement beginning in the month of the age shown. SSA rounds each reduction up to the next 10 cents (the regulation's example turns $80.18 into $80.20); we do not round. Months in which the spouse has a child under 16 or disabled in care are not counted (404.410; 404.412(a)(2)).

For the birth cohort with an FRA of 67 the monthly steps are exact: 60 months early is 25% for the first 36 months plus 10% for the next 24 months, 35% in total; 48 months early is 30%; 36 months is 25%; 24 months is 16.67%; 12 months is 8.33%. On a worker PIA of $4,000 the spouse gets $1,300 at 62, $1,500 at 64, $1,667 at 65 and $2,000 at 67.

Note the two schedules differ: at 62 a worker with FRA 67 loses 30% of the PIA, a spouse 35% (20 CFR 404.410(a) and (b)). And the worker's own claiming age does not enter the spouse's formula, because the benefit is built from the PIA and not from the amount paid: a worker who files at 62 for 70% of the PIA leaves the spouse's 50% of the PIA untouched (20 CFR 404.333).

When the spouse has a record of their own

Most couples with $250,000 of investable assets are not in the case above: both worked. The spouse then gets the larger of the two entitlements, built in a fixed way. Under 42 USC 402(q)(3)(B) and 20 CFR 404.411(d) the spousal benefit for a person who is also entitled to a reduced retirement benefit is reduced by the sum of (1) the reduction of the own retirement benefit and (2) the reduction that would apply to the “excess”: the unreduced spousal benefit minus the person's own PIA. SSA's manual puts it as the reduced retirement benefit plus the reduced excess (RS 00615.010, RS 00615.500). A spouse whose own PIA is half the worker's PIA or more gets no spousal benefit at all (20 CFR 404.330(d)).

Our example: worker PIA $4,000, spouse PIA $800, both with FRA 67, both the same age, no COLA, no tax. The spousal benefit before reduction is $2,000, so the excess is $1,200 on top of the spouse's own $800.

Source: our arithmetic on 42 USC 402(q)(3)(B), 20 CFR 404.410(a) and (b) and 404.411(d). Own benefit = $800 reduced 5/9 of 1 percent a month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1 percent after; excess = $1,200 reduced 25/36 of 1 percent and then 5/12 of 1 percent. Before SSA's 10-cent rounding.

The spouse who files at 62 gets 67% of the full $2,000 for life, plus later COLAs. The deemed-filing rule makes the choice joint: for a spouse born January 2, 1954 or later, filing for the $560 own benefit at 62 is also an application for the spousal excess, in the first month it exists (POMS GN 00204.035B.1.a and C.1). A spouse cannot take the $560 and hold the excess for 67.

If the worker has not filed when the spouse does, the excess waits, and the reduction on it is counted from the month it starts. A spouse who files at 62 while the worker waits until 67 gets $560 until then and then $560 plus the unreduced $1,200 (the reduction only counts months of spousal entitlement before FRA, POMS RS 00615.010, “Reduced Spouse's Benefit Simultaneously With or after RIB”). That is the case for the 67/62 row in the next table.

The household table: when each partner files

Nine combinations for the same couple, same age, worker PIA $4,000 and spouse PIA $800, both FRA 67. The worker's own benefit uses 5/9 of 1 percent a month before FRA (30% off at 62) and the delayed retirement credit of 2/3 of 1 percent a month after (24% on at 70; 20 CFR 404.410(a), 404.313(b)). Totals ignore COLAs, taxes and Medicare premiums and assume both live to the age shown. “Monthly total” is the amount once both are being paid.

Source: our arithmetic on 20 CFR 404.313, 404.409, 404.410 and 404.411(d); 42 USC 402(q)(3). Where the worker files after the spouse, the spouse receives only the own retirement benefit ($560 at 62, $640 at 64) until the worker files, and the table counts those months. The “spouse's total” is the figure once the worker has filed: it includes the excess. No case includes widowhood: when one spouse dies the survivor keeps the larger benefit, which is why the worker's claim age matters beyond the table (see our widow's tax penalty page for the tax side).

What the table says, in our arithmetic: (1) The worker's delay from 67 to 70 adds $960 a month to the household and nothing to the spouse. The spouse's excess is fixed at half the PIA minus the spouse's own PIA. (2) The spouse's filing age moves only the spouse's rows: 62 against 67 is $660 a month ($1,340 against $2,000) when the worker has already filed. (3) The worker who files at 62 pulls the household total down by $1,200 a month against filing at 67, but the spouse's side does not fall, because it is built on the PIA. Which pair is best depends on how long both live, on whether one is much older, and on the survivor benefit; the combinations are not ranked here because none is best for every couple.

Deemed filing: what changed for people born in 1954 or later

Under the older rule a person at full retirement age was not deemed to have filed for the other benefit, so could take one and leave the other to grow. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, section 831, changed that. SSA's manual says it “changed the policy for deemed filing for claimants who have a date of birth (DOB) of January 2, 1954 or later” (GN 00204.035A).

Source: SSA POMS GN 00204.035 (effective January 4, 2017; text current to the 06-26 transmittal) and 42 USC 402(r) as amended by Pub. L. 114-74 section 831. Survivor benefits are covered by a separate page of ours and are not repeated here.

For a couple in their 60s today everyone is under the new rule (anyone born in 1954 reached 62 in 2016). The practical effect is on the person with a modest record: filing for their own benefit at 62 also files for the excess, so the spousal piece is reduced from the same month. The remaining way to separate the two is timing: the spouse's excess cannot start before the worker has filed.

POMS adds a trap: “The law does not define a time limit as to when the deemed filing provision may be invoked”, so if SSA later learns a person was eligible for the other benefit in the first month, it applies the deemed application back to that month (GN 00204.035B.4).

Divorced spouses: a worked case

Our arithmetic, not an SSA calculation. A couple married 12 years, divorced in 2018. The ex has a PIA of $3,000; the claimant, born in 1962 (FRA 67), has not remarried and has a small record with a PIA of $500, the ex filed for retirement benefits.

• Unreduced spousal benefit: half of $3,000 is $1,500; the excess over the claimant's own PIA is $1,000.
• Claiming at 63 (48 months early): the own benefit is $500 less 5/9 of 1 percent for 36 months and 5/12 of 1 percent for 12 months, 25%, $375; the excess is $1,000 less 30%, $700; total $1,075.
• Claiming at 67: $500 plus $1,000, $1,500.

The ex-spouse does not pay anything and the ex's other family members are not reduced, because the regulation computes the family maximum “as if no such divorced spouse or surviving divorced spouse were entitled to benefits” (20 CFR 404.403(a)(3)). The claimant's own remarriage ends the benefit (20 CFR 404.332(b)(3)).

If the ex has not filed, the claimant must be at least 62 and divorced 2 years, and the ex must be 62 and fully insured. SSA computes the PIA “as if he or she became entitled to old-age benefits” in the first month of the claimant's entitlement (20 CFR 404.333), and a later recomputation can add the ex's additional earnings (POMS RS 00202.020A.3).

What a reader can do with this

• Find your own full retirement age and PIA first. The reduction table above needs your birth date and the worker's PIA from the worker's my Social Security statement. A spouse's number is a share of the PIA, not of the benefit amount the worker will draw.
• Run both ends of the spouse's choice. The difference between filing at 62 and at full retirement age was $660 a month in our $4,000 / $800 case and is permanent. For a spouse with no record of their own it is 32.5% against 50% of the PIA.
• Check whether the worker's claim sets the spouse's start. The spouse's excess cannot begin until the worker files (unless the independently entitled divorced spouse rule applies), and a worker's voluntary suspension stops it.
• Divorced readers: count the 10 years from the marriage date to the final divorce date, and the 2 years from the divorce. Keep the marriage certificate and the final decree; SSA asks for proof.
• Put the number into the tax picture. Social Security benefits are taxed on provisional income; our page on taxable Social Security with rental and K-1 income shows how the 50% and 85% bands work. A spouse who claims at 62 while still working also faces the earnings test described above.
• Plan for the first death. The survivor keeps the larger benefit and files single; the tax and Medicare consequences are on our widow's tax penalty page and the Medicare income surcharge is on our IRMAA brackets page.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 22, 2026: 42 USC 402 (Cornell LII), subsections (b), (c), (q), (r), (z); 20 CFR part 404 sections 404.313, 404.330 to 404.333, 404.403, 404.409 to 404.412, 404.415, 404.421 (eCFR, current to October 19, 2026); SSA Program Operations Manual RS 00202.001, RS 00202.005, RS 00202.020, RS 00202.040, RS 00615.010, RS 00615.020, RS 00615.500 and GN 00204.035; SSA press release of October 14, 2026 and the 2027 COLA fact sheet. All dollar amounts for the couple and the divorced-spouse case are our arithmetic from these rules.