Full retirement age by birth year: the Social Security table explained

If you live in the United States, one of the most important dates in your financial life is the day you reach full retirement age. It decides when you can collect your full Social Security retirement benefit, and it shapes how much you get if you claim earlier or later. Yet many people are unsure what their own full retirement age is, partly because it depends on the year you were born and partly because of a counting rule that catches out anyone born on the first of a month. This guide sets out the official table, explains what claiming at 62 or waiting until 70 does to your benefit, and walks through a full example.

What full retirement age means

Full retirement age, sometimes called normal retirement age, is the age at which you can receive 100 per cent of the Social Security retirement benefit your work record has earned. That full amount is known as your primary insurance amount. You can start benefits as early as 62 or as late as you like, but the monthly payment is permanently reduced if you start before full retirement age and permanently increased, up to age 70, if you start after it.

Full retirement age used to be 65 for everyone. In 1983 Congress passed amendments to the Social Security Act that raised it gradually, because Americans were living longer and the programme’s finances needed shoring up. The increase was phased in two steps, each spread over several birth years, so that nobody faced a sudden jump. The phase-in ended with people born in 1960, and for everyone born since then the age is 67.

Full retirement age by birth year

This is the table published by the Social Security Administration. Find your birth year in the left-hand column. If you were born on 1 January, use the row for the year before, for the reason explained in the next section.

In 2026, people born in 1959 reach their full retirement age of 66 and 10 months, and those born in 1960 begin turning 67 next year. Every younger worker has a full retirement age of 67. Proposals to raise it further appear from time to time, but under current law 67 is where it stays.

The first-of-the-month rule

Social Security follows an old legal convention: you are treated as reaching a given age on the day before your birthday, not on the birthday itself. For most people this makes no difference, but it matters at the edges of months and years. Someone born on 1 January is treated as reaching each age on 31 December of the previous year, so for full retirement age purposes they are counted with the previous birth year. A person born on 1 January 1960 therefore has a full retirement age of 66 and 10 months, the same as someone born in 1959, rather than 67.

The rule also affects when benefits can start. Social Security pays benefits by the month, and generally you must be a given age for the whole month to be paid for it. Because people born on the first or second of a month reach their age on the last day or first day of a month, they can usually start benefits in their birthday month, while everyone else starts the following month. The differences are small, but worth knowing if you are planning to claim on a specific date.

Claiming early at 62

You can start retirement benefits at any time from 62, but each month before your full retirement age reduces the monthly amount. The reduction is five-ninths of one per cent for each of the first 36 months you claim early, and five-twelfths of one per cent for each month beyond that. Those fractions work out to roughly 6.7 per cent a year for the three years closest to full retirement age, and 5 per cent a year for any earlier months.

For someone whose full retirement age is 67, claiming at exactly 62 means 60 months early. The first 36 months cost 20 per cent and the remaining 24 months cost another 10 per cent, a total reduction of 30 per cent. The benefit is 70 per cent of the full amount, and it stays at that lower level for life, apart from cost-of-living increases. For someone whose full retirement age is 66, claiming at 62 is 48 months early, a reduction of 25 per cent.

Waiting until 70

If you wait beyond full retirement age, your benefit grows through delayed retirement credits. For anyone born in 1943 or later, each year of delay adds 8 per cent, credited at two-thirds of one per cent per month. The credits stop at 70, so there is no gain from waiting beyond then. Someone with a full retirement age of 67 who waits until 70 receives 124 per cent of the full amount for life.

Whether waiting pays off depends on how long you go on to receive benefits. A larger cheque that starts later takes time to catch up with a smaller one that started earlier. A rough rule of thumb is that, compared with claiming at full retirement age, waiting until 70 tends to come out ahead in total if you live beyond your early eighties. Health, other savings, a spouse’s benefits, taxes and whether you are still working all affect the choice, so for a real decision the Social Security Administration’s own calculators, or a qualified adviser, are the right next step.

A worked example

Worked example. Take someone born on 12 April 1965. Their full retirement age is 67, which they reach on 12 April 2032 (counted by Social Security as the day before). Suppose their full monthly benefit at 67 is estimated at $2,000. If they claim at 62, in 2027, it is reduced to 70 per cent, or $1,400 a month. If they wait until 70, in 2035, it grows to 124 per cent, or $2,480 a month. The difference between the earliest and latest choices is $1,080 a month, before any cost-of-living adjustments, which apply to all three equally in percentage terms.

Comparing totals helps show the trade-off. Claiming at 62 gives a 96-month head start over claiming at 70. At $1,400 a month that is $134,400 collected before the later choice pays anything. After 70, the later choice pays $1,080 more each month, so it takes about 124 months, a little over ten years, to make up the difference. On these simple numbers, ignoring inflation adjustments, interest and taxes, waiting comes out ahead for someone who lives past about 80 and a half. The benefit figure is only an illustration; a real estimate comes from your own Social Security statement.

Other ages that matter

Several other ages sit around full retirement age and are easy to confuse with it. Medicare, the federal health insurance programme for older Americans, generally begins at 65 for everyone, whatever their full retirement age, and there is a sign-up window around the 65th birthday that it is wise not to miss. Spousal benefits can be worth up to half of a worker’s full benefit when the spouse claims at their own full retirement age, with reductions for claiming earlier. And if you claim retirement benefits before full retirement age while still working, an earnings test may temporarily withhold some benefits, which are then credited back after you reach full retirement age.

Other countries set their own state pension ages in their own ways. In the United Kingdom, for example, the State Pension age is 66 and is rising to 67 between 2026 and 2028, with a further rise to 68 set in law for later decades. Our retirement countdown covers the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and lets you set any age of your own. For a broader sense of the years ahead, try the weekends ahead or the time until an age you choose. This guide is general information about how the rules work, not financial advice.

Questions people ask

Sources. US Social Security Administration: “Retirement benefits: full retirement age”, “Benefit reduction for early retirement”, “Delayed retirement credits” and the rule on attaining an age the day before a birthday; Social Security Amendments of 1983; Medicare.gov, when to sign up; UK Department for Work and Pensions, State Pension age timetable.