Social Security pays a divorced spouse who is 62 or older up to half of the ex-spouse’s full retirement age benefit, as long as the marriage lasted at least 10 years and the divorced spouse has not remarried. The agency’s family benefits page sets the ceiling at up to half of the benefit amount the family member would get at full retirement age.
Whether the rule applies to a particular person comes down to five conditions in Social Security’s May 2026 retirement and survivors booklet. The marriage lasted 10 years or longer. The person is unmarried. The person is 62 or older. The benefit based on the person’s own work is less than the benefit based on the ex-spouse’s work. And the ex-spouse is entitled to retirement or disability benefits.
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What does “up to half” mean for a divorced spouse?
The family benefits page, last updated May 4, 2025, sets that ceiling at half of what the family member would get at full retirement age, and the booklet is Publication No. 05-10127, dated May 2026. Half is the most a divorced spouse can receive on the ex-spouse’s record, and only when the person claims at full retirement age or later. Social Security says a payment is higher the longer a person waits to apply, up until full retirement age, so a divorced spouse who applies at 62 receives less than half.
The fourth condition works as a comparison. A divorced spouse who earned a strong benefit on their own work may find that benefit already exceeds what the ex-spouse’s record would pay, and then there is nothing extra to collect.
How long must the marriage have lasted?
Social Security’s family eligibility page says ex-spouses who were married for at least 10 years, as well as some valid non-marital legal relationships, may be eligible, and it lists age 62 and older as the starting point. A marriage of nine years and eleven months does not meet the 10-year test, so the dates on the marriage license and the divorce decree matter. Those two tests, 10 years and age 62, are the starting point for every ex-spouse.
What if the ex-spouse has not applied yet?
An ex-spouse does not have to be collecting for a divorced spouse to be paid. The booklet says that if the ex-spouse is eligible for benefits and is 62 or older but has not applied, a divorced spouse can still receive benefits on that record once the two have been divorced for at least 2 continuous years.
The agency also says payments to ex-spouses do not count toward the family maximum, the limit on how much a family can receive on one worker’s record. A divorced spouse’s check does not squeeze the amounts paid to the ex-spouse’s current spouse or children under that limit.
Does remarriage end divorced-spouse benefits?
The booklet lists “You’re unmarried” among the conditions, so a divorced person who is currently remarried does not meet the test. The more forgiving remarriage rules in the same booklet belong to surviving spouses: a widow or widower who remarries after age 60, or age 50 with a disability, continues to receive benefits on the late spouse’s record. Divorced spouses and surviving spouses are separate categories with separate rules.
The open question for most people in this group is the order of claims. Someone who is 62 or older, divorced after at least 10 years, and unmarried can compare their own benefit with the ex-spouse’s before filing anything, because the fourth condition turns on which of the two records would pay more.
Divorced after 10 years of marriage?
A divorced person who is 62 or older and files on their own record without comparing it to an ex-spouse’s record can miss the larger of the two amounts. The age at which a person applies sets how close to half of the ex-spouse’s benefit the check gets.
The Social Security Claiming & Family Benefits Kit includes spousal and survivor sequencing worksheets and a claiming calculator (Excel) for claiming age and break-even. Part 5 of the kit covers spousal and divorced-spouse benefits, with a large-print quick start for the claiming steps.
More Financial Reading
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
