A person who was married for at least 10 years and later divorced can collect Social Security on a former spouse’s earnings record, and the former spouse’s own monthly check does not go down because of it. Social Security spells out both points in its publication for divorced spouses. The rule matters most to people in their 60s and 70s whose own work history was short or low-paid.
How long did the marriage have to last?
The agency’s wording is plain: a divorced spouse can receive benefits on the worker’s record “if the marriage lasted at least 10 years.” The person claiming must also be 62 or older and unmarried. A marriage of nine years and eleven months does not count, so the exact wedding and divorce dates matter more than most people expect.
Social Security’s eligibility page says the same thing from the other direction: ex-spouses who were married for at least 10 years may be eligible. A second rule applies when the ex has not yet started retirement benefits. In that case the agency says both people must be at least 62 and the couple must have been divorced for at least two continuous years.
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Can I collect on my ex’s record, and how much?
Anyone divorced after a long marriage and now close to 62 is the person this rule is written for. The first step is to find out whether the ex-spouse’s record would pay more than the claimant’s own, since Social Security pays only one amount and does not stack the two. The agency does not require the ex-spouse to have retired first, which means the claim can be opened even if the ex is still working.
What is the “up to half” figure?
Social Security’s family-benefits page says a person “could get up to half of the benefit amount your family member would get at their Full Retirement Age.” The half is a ceiling measured against the ex’s full-retirement-age amount, not a promise of that sum. The same page says the payment is higher the longer the person waits to apply, up until full retirement age, so claiming at 62 pays less than claiming at the full age.
People who are 62 or older when they apply also have their own retirement record checked. The agency says they “get whichever payment amount is higher.” Those born on or after January 2, 1954 who qualify for both their own benefit and a divorced-spouse benefit must apply for both, a rule the publication calls deemed filing.
Does the ex-spouse’s check shrink?
No. The agency’s publication says the benefits a divorced spouse gets “don’t affect the amount you or your current spouse can get.” That sentence is addressed to the worker, and it covers a new husband or wife as well. The family-benefits page adds that payments to ex-spouses do not count toward the family maximum, the cap on what one worker’s record can pay out to everyone drawing on it.
What the numbers can look like
Consider a worker whose full-retirement-age benefit is $2,000 a month. A divorced spouse with a 10-year marriage could be paid up to $1,000 on that record at full retirement age, and the worker keeps the full $2,000. If the divorced spouse’s own record would pay $1,200, Social Security’s rule is to give the higher amount, not $1,200 plus $1,000. The $2,000 figure is an illustration, not an SSA number.
The open question for most divorced readers is not whether the rule exists but which claiming age leaves the most income over a retirement that may run 25 years. Social Security’s family-benefits page is the free place to start with amounts for a specific record.
Thinking of claiming on an ex’s record?
A divorced spouse who claims at 62 without comparing the ex-spouse amount to their own record can lock in a smaller check for life. Once the choice is made, waiting longer to raise it is usually off the table.
The Social Security Claiming & Family Benefits Kit includes a claiming calculator (Excel) for claiming age, break-even and survivor benefits. Part 5 of the kit is devoted to spousal and divorced-spouse benefits, so the numbers for a marriage of 10 years or more sit in one place.
Run the divorced-spouse numbers in the claiming calculator →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 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.
