Social Security Retirement Date Calculator

Social Security retirement date calculator

Enter a birth date and a claiming age to find the full retirement age, age milestones, earliest eligibility month and an educational estimate of the early or delayed benefit adjustment.




Full retirement age
Full retirement date
Selected age date
Estimated benefit factor
Estimated monthly amount
Earliest eligibility month

Compare claiming ages
Claiming ageAge milestoneBenefit factorEstimated monthly amount

This is an educational estimate of age-based adjustments only. It does not calculate your earnings record, primary insurance amount, family or survivor benefits, earnings-test withholding, taxes, Medicare, COLAs, eligibility, or the exact month SSA will approve. Confirm dates and amounts with the Social Security Administration.

What this calculator answers

This tool converts your birth date into the three calendar milestones most often used in Social Security retirement planning: age 62, full retirement age and age 70. It also compares a selected claiming age with full retirement age and estimates the standard age-based percentage adjustment.

It is intentionally separate from the Retirement Calculator, which projects savings, contributions and an income goal. This page answers a different question: when do I reach each Social Security retirement age, and how does claiming age affect the percentage of my full benefit?

Full retirement age by birth year

Under current Social Security rules, full retirement age is 65 for people born in 1937 or earlier, rises by two months per birth year from 1938 through 1942, is 66 for 1943–1954, rises again by two months per birth year from 1955 through 1959, and is 67 for people born in 1960 or later. People born on January 1 are treated under the prior birth year for this rule.

How the benefit factor is estimated

For a selected age before full retirement age, the estimate reduces the full benefit by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 early months and 5/12 of 1% for each additional early month. For a selected age after full retirement age, it applies the delayed-retirement credit for the birth year, calculated monthly, and stops credits at age 70.

For people born in 1943 or later, the delayed-retirement credit is 8% per year, or 2/3 of 1% per month. Earlier birth cohorts use the historical SSA schedule. The estimated monthly amount is:

Full-retirement monthly benefit × age-based benefit factor

Example

A person born June 15, 1960 has a full retirement age of 67. Their age-62 milestone is June 15, 2022, full-retirement milestone is June 15, 2027 and age-70 milestone is June 15, 2030. Selecting exactly age 62 produces an estimated factor of 70%; selecting age 70 produces 124%. With a $2,000 full-retirement monthly amount, those examples are about $1,400 and $2,480 before other rules or adjustments.

Dates, filing and important limits

  • Social Security retirement benefits can generally start at age 62, but the first eligible benefit month depends on the day of birth. This calculator displays that earliest month separately.
  • You may generally apply up to four months before the month you want benefits to start.
  • Stopping work and starting Social Security are separate decisions. Continuing earnings can affect benefits and the earnings record used by SSA.
  • The amount from a Social Security statement is more reliable than an amount guessed here because SSA uses your actual covered earnings.
  • Rules can change. The result is not financial, legal, tax or retirement advice.

Official sources

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