How do survivor benefits work?

You need not claim survivor benefits as soon as your spouse dies or at your earliest eligibility age. Spouses have no time limit to file, and the payments get bigger the longer you delay claiming them, up to your full retirement age.

For survivor benefits, full retirement age is 66 and 4 months for someone born in 1958 and rises by two months each birth year until it settles at 67 for people born in 1962 or later.

However, depending on your financial situation, filing as soon as possible after the death is reported to Social Security might make sense. Survivor benefits are dated from the time you apply and are not retroactive to the time of death.

Also potentially eligible for survivor benefits are:

• Children. More than 2 million offspring of deceased workers were receiving survivor benefits as of February 2025. Qualifying children can collect 75 percent of a late parent’s benefit. To be eligible for survivor benefits, the child must be younger than 18, can be as old as 19 and 2 months if the surviving teen is still in high school full time or have a disability dating from before age 22. Stepchildren and grandchildren also may qualify. In all cases, children must be unmarried to collect survivor benefits. 

• Parents. Survivor benefits can go to parents age 62 or older who were financially dependent on a son or daughter who died. The amount is 82.5 percent of the deceased’s benefit for one parent, 75 percent each for two. 

• Ex-husbands and -wives. Divorced spouses of deceased workers can collect survivor benefits if the marriage lasted 10 years or longer. The rules regarding eligibility age are largely the same as for widows and widowers. 

One note on how much of a late worker's benefit amount survivors can receive: Survivor benefits paid to multiple members of one family are subject to the maximum family benefit. That's a cap on how much Social Security will pay out on a single deceased worker’s earnings record.

If family members’ collective survivor benefits exceed the maximum, their individual payments will be reduced proportionally to meet the cap.

Keep in mind

• If you are already drawing Social Security on your work record, you will receive survivor benefits only if they exceed your own payment. Social Security will pay the higher of the two benefit amounts.
• Widowed spouses and former spouses who remarry before age 60 — 50 if they have a disability — cannot collect survivor benefits. Eligibility resumes if the later marriage ends. If you remarry past those ages,  your eligibility is not affected. 
• Other than the remarriage issue and the age parameters for children, survivor benefits have no time limit. They are payable for life. 
• Survivor benefits are distinct from Social Security's lump-sum death benefit, a one-time payment of $255 to a deceased beneficiary's family. To receive this payment, you must file the application by calling Social Security at 800-772-1213 or visiting your local office within two years of the person's death.