Social Security gives people 60 days after they receive a decision letter to ask for a second look, a step the agency calls reconsideration. Miss that window and the original decision usually stands, whether it denied a disability claim, cut a payment or set an overpayment.
The Social Security Administration says the request has to be submitted within 60 days once a decision is received. The key detail is how the agency decides when a letter was “received.”
What reconsideration is, and who needs it
Reconsideration is the first level of appeal for most Social Security decisions. For disability claims, an examiner from the state’s Disability Determination Services office reviews the request and the original application. For decisions not tied to a disability, an SSA employee does the review.
Anyone on retirement, survivor, disability or Supplemental Security Income benefits can get a notice that calls for this step. That includes a denied claim, a lowered check, a stopped payment or a letter saying money was overpaid. The SSA’s SSI appeals guide lists four levels of appeal: reconsideration, a hearing before an administrative law judge, the Appeals Council and federal court. Reconsideration is the one that comes first.
The reader question is simple: a letter arrived from Social Security, and it says the agency disagrees with what the beneficiary expected. The clock is already running, and the date that matters is not always the date on the envelope.
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Reconsideration does not end the process. If the answer is still no, the next step is a hearing in front of an administrative law judge, and the SSA’s SSI guide says the agency sends notice of that hearing at least 75 days ahead. Each later step has its own deadline, so the reconsideration notice deserves the same close read as the first letter.
Which date starts the 60 days
The federal rule, 20 CFR 404.909, says a request must be made within 60 days after the date the person receives notice of the decision. The count starts at receipt, not at the date printed on the letter.
Social Security does not use the day the letter reached the mailbox. Under 20 CFR 404.901, the date of receipt is treated as five days after the date on the notice, unless the person can show it arrived later. The SSA’s SSI guide repeats the same assumption of receipt five days after the notice date.
In practice, a notice dated Oct. 1 is treated as received Oct. 6, and the 60 days run from there. A beneficiary who opens the letter two weeks late has not gained two weeks. Anyone who got the letter late would need to show when it really arrived.
What happens when the window is missed
A late request is not automatically dead. The same federal rules let the agency extend the time when a person shows good cause. Under 20 CFR 404.911, the agency looks at what kept the person from filing on time, including physical, mental, educational or language limits.
The regulation’s examples of good cause include a serious illness that prevented contacting the agency, a death or serious illness in the immediate family, destroyed records and incorrect or incomplete guidance from Social Security about how to appeal. A person who never received the decision can also qualify.
The regulation also covers one more common slip: a request sent in good faith to the wrong government agency within the deadline that reached Social Security late. Someone who mailed the form to a local office or another agency, and has proof of the date, should say so in the request.
Good cause is a judgment call, though, and it works as a safety net, not a plan. Filing inside the 60 days avoids the argument altogether.
How to file and what happens to payments
The SSA says a reconsideration can be requested online, by phone at 1-800-772-1213 or with Form SSA-561-U2, the Request for Reconsideration. Callers who are deaf or hard of hearing can use TTY 1-800-325-0778. The phone lines run Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., in most U.S. time zones.
The SSA says the request itself costs nothing, and its site has a page for checking the status of an appeal after it is filed. Disability requests and non-medical requests start from different links, so a beneficiary should pick the one that matches the decision in hand: a denied disability claim, or a change in payment, an overpayment or another non-medical ruling.
For SSI recipients, timing affects the monthly check. The SSI appeals guide says that a written request made within 10 days of the notice keeps current payments going until the reconsideration decision, while a request made later inside the 60 days may cause a temporary drop in payment until the request is entered.
That 10-day rule is the part most often missed. It sits inside the 60-day rule, not in place of it, and it applies to the notice date, which is a shorter and harder clock.
Holding a Social Security notice and unsure which date counts?
The cost of getting the date wrong is a decision that becomes final, and with an overpayment notice it can mean repayment demands that keep running. The 60 days start earlier than most people expect, and the 10-day payment rule starts earlier still.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit puts the 2026 payment calendar in one place and includes a worksheet for answering an overpayment notice. It also covers the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection, SSA-561, SSA-632 and SSA-634, with a first-24-hours plan for a late or missing payment.
More Financial Reading
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- 15 Ways Retirees Are Tapping a Record $14.9 Trillion in Home Equity
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
