Once you turn 62, you can file for Social Security at any point. There is a reason 62 is such a popular filing age: it is the soonest you can receive benefits. But waiting has a real financial upside. Holding off results in more generous monthly payments, which matters most to retirees who are not confident in their savings and expect Social Security to carry a heavy share of their retirement income.
You are entitled to your complete monthly Social Security benefit once you reach full retirement age (FRA). FRA is 66 and 10 months for people born in 1959 and 67 for people born in 1960 or later.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) also rewards you for delaying your claim beyond FRA. For every month from your FRA until age 70 that you postpone filing, Social Security increases your eventual benefit by two-thirds of 1%, a total of 8% for each full year you wait. To put that in concrete terms: wage earners who reach FRA at 67 but delay claiming until 70 receive an extra 24% added to their monthly payment. For those born in 1960 or later, starting benefits at age 70 yields 124% of the monthly benefit because of the 36-month delay.
Those delayed retirement credits cannot be accumulated indefinitely, so knowing when to file is essential to avoid leaving money on the table.
When waiting no longer pays off
If you are still working when you turn 70, you may feel inclined to keep postponing Social Security. Resist that impulse. The benefit increase stops when you reach age 70. The credits stop accruing at 70, and filing later than that will not increase your monthly benefit.
The SSA will not force you to claim at 70 if you prefer not to, but since no additional growth accrues after that birthday, collecting the money at 70 is the rational move for virtually every worker.
Working at any level, including full-time, does not disqualify you from receiving Social Security. You can get Social Security retirement benefits and work at the same time, though there is a limit to how much you can earn and still receive full benefits if you are younger than FRA. Social Security withholds $1 from benefits for every $2 earned above the annual limit, which was $23,400 in 2025. That withholding is not a permanent loss: if any of your benefits are withheld because of your earnings, Social Security will recalculate your benefits once you reach FRA to give you credit for the months your excess earnings caused benefits to be reduced.
At 70, however, none of that applies. Starting with the month you reach FRA, there is no limit on how much you can earn and still receive your benefits. At 70 you are well past FRA, so even a six-figure paycheck will not reduce a single dollar of your monthly benefit.
One additional note worth knowing: if you decide to delay benefits until after age 65, you should still apply for Medicare benefits within three months of your 65th birthday. If you wait longer, your Medicare Part B and prescription drug coverage may cost you more money. Delaying Social Security and delaying Medicare enrollment are two separate decisions.
It’s important to know the rules
Social Security’s rulebook is thick, and some provisions interact in ways that are easy to miss. Understanding them before you file can make a meaningful difference in lifetime income.
Delaying your claim indefinitely past age 70 is one of the costlier mistakes you can make, because it means forgoing benefits you have already earned. That said, if you have passed your 70th birthday without yet signing up, all is not lost. If you have already reached FRA, you can choose to start receiving benefits before the month you apply, though the SSA cannot pay retroactive benefits for any month before you reached FRA or more than six months in the past. So if you are 70 and a half years old and sign up immediately, you can collect up to six months of back pay covering what you should have started receiving at 70.
Waiting beyond that window, though, means permanently forfeiting benefits. There is no mechanism to recover them.
It is also worth keeping one eye on Social Security’s long-term finances. The surplus in the Social Security trust funds is projected to be depleted in 2034 unless Congress passes legislation to shore up the system, according to the 2026 annual trustees report. Without congressional action, annual revenue flowing into the program will cover only about 83% of benefits once the trust funds are depleted. The retirement-only OASI fund faces a sharper timeline: considered alone, the retiree and survivors trust fund is projected to exhaust its reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032, at which point Social Security will be able to pay out 78% of those benefits. These projections underscore why locking in your maximum possible benefit before any legislative changes take effect is worth serious consideration.
Social Security planning involves more variables than most people expect, including your health, other income sources, spousal benefits, and life expectancy. Consulting a financial advisor who specializes in retirement income can help you chart the filing strategy that best fits your specific situation.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect current earnings-test thresholds ($23,400 for 2025), the SSA’s confirmation that workers born in 1960 or later receive 124% of their FRA benefit by waiting until 70, the Medicare enrollment reminder for those delaying Social Security past age 65, and the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projection that the combined trust funds are expected to be depleted in 2034 with 83% of benefits payable, while the retirement-only OASI fund faces depletion as early as late 2032.
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