When you hear about Social Security benefits, you're usually hearing about the retired worker benefits available to seniors age 62 and older. But that's only one type of benefit available through the program. Social Security also provides benefits to the spouses of qualifying workers, even if those spouses were never employed themselves.
These spousal benefits are less common, though. The Social Security Administration (SSA) pays retirement benefits to more than 53 million Americans, but only 2 million receive spousal benefits.
To learn if you qualify for spousal benefits, here are the four boxes you need to check in order to receive them.
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1. Your partner must qualify for retired worker benefits
Social Security spousal benefits are claimed based on another person's work record. This is only possible if one spouse is eligible for the more common retired worker benefits.
The qualifying worker must earn 40 credits over their career, where one credit is defined as a certain amount of earnings, you can only earn a maximum of four credits yearly. In 2025, a credit can be earned with $1,810 in earnings.
Put simply, the qualifying worker must have a decade of employment and earnings history to qualify for retired worker benefits through Social Security. In order for their partner to claim a spousal benefit, the spouse must also meet the following three requirements.
2. You must meet the marriage length requirement
You typically don't become eligible for spousal benefits the second you are wed; you must be married for at least one year. But this doesn't apply if you're the parent of your spouse's child or if you were eligible for Social Security or railroad retirement benefits in the month before you got married.
The length-of-marriage rule for divorced couples is different. You must have been married to your ex-spouse for at least 10 years if you hope to claim benefits based on their work record. You also cannot remarry and collect divorced-spouse benefits, though your ex-spouse can do so without affecting your eligibility.
3. Your spouse must already be receiving benefits
You cannot claim Social Security spousal benefits if your spouse has not claimed their retired worker benefits yet. That said, if you qualify for retired worker benefits yourself, you can claim that first while waiting for your partner to file. Once they've done so, you can contact the SSA to determine whether the spousal benefit would offer you more money each month (more on this below).
There is an exception to this rule, however, for divorced couples. You may claim spousal benefits based on your ex-partner's work record even if they have yet to apply for retired worker benefits as long as the two of you have been divorced for at least two years.
4. Your spousal benefit must be larger than your own retirement benefit
For those who will eventually qualify for both spousal and retired worker benefits, there are some additional considerations.
Your retired worker benefit depends on how much income you earned during your 35 highest-paid years, adjusted for inflation. However, your spousal benefit is worth up to one-half the retired worker benefit your spouse or ex-spouse qualifies for at full retirement age (FRA).
And in both cases, the timing of your benefits claim will affect how much money you collect from the program. Those born in 1960 or later have a FRA of 67, which applies to most workers today. Consider FRA the milestone when recipients are entitled to receive their full benefit from the program.
So if you claim before FRA, you reduce the size of your monthly checks. This applies to both types of benefits. However, while you qualify for your maximum spousal benefit at FRA, you can further increase your retired worker benefits by delaying your claim beyond FRA. In fact, retired worker benefits increase until they reach the maximum amount at age 70.
To help you understand how the timing of your claim affects each type of benefit, the following table breaks down the differences for someone with a FRA of 67:
|
Age Ranges |
Retired Worker Benefits |
Spousal Benefits |
|---|---|---|
|
62 to 64 |
5/12 of 1% per month (5% per year) |
5/12 of 1% per month (5% per year) |
|
64 to 67 |
5/9 of 1% per month (6.67% per year) |
25/36 of 1% per month (8.33% per year) |
|
67 to 70 |
2/3 of 1% per month (8% per year) |
N/A |
Source: Social Security Administration.
Breaking it all down, in order for your spousal benefit to be worth more than your retired worker benefit, your partner would need to have out-earned you by a significant amount over your careers. This is the main reason so few Americans claim spousal benefits compared to retired worker benefits.
Regardless, it never hurts to check both options to see which type of benefit would net you more income each month. If your spouse is already collecting Social Security when you apply, the SSA should give you the higher amount automatically. But if you signed up first, you must request a review once your partner files; only then will the SSA check to see if you should be getting more money based on the spousal benefit.
