When can I get my maximum benefit? When does the benefit boost kick in? What’s the maximum benefit anyone can get?

Early or Late Retirement? Social Security Administration Delayed Retirement Credits , Social Security Administration “What are delayed retirement credits and how do they increase my old-age benefit amount?” Code of Federal Regulations, Social Security Administration Suspending Your Retirement Benefit Payments , Social Security Administration “What is the maximum Social Security retirement benefit payable?” Frequently Asked Questions, Social Security Administration Contribution and Benefit Base , Social Security Administration Taxable Maximum Earners , Research, Statistics & Policy Analysis, Social Security Administration

What Is the Maximum Social Security Benefit?

You get your maximum payment by claiming at age 70, but how big that will be depends on your earnings history

3-minute read

Part of Series: Retirement Benefits

Andy Markowitz,

AARP

Expert reviewed by

Stephen Richardson

Published October 12, 2026

Andy Markowitz is an AARP senior writer and editor covering Social Security and retirement. He is a former editor of the Prague Post and Baltimore City Paper.

Stephen Richardson is a retired New England regional communications director for the Social Security Administration and an AARP consultant on Social Security benefit issues. He began his career with the agency in 1982 as a claims representative.

Key takeaways

You lock in your maximum retirement benefit by waiting until age 70 to file for Social Security.
If you wait past full retirement age, your future benefit goes up by two-thirds of 1 percent per month until you claim or turn 70.
In 2026, the biggest possible monthly benefit for someone who claims at age 70 is $5,181, but reaching that requires at least 35 years of high earnings.

What is the maximum Social Security retirement benefit? It depends on why you’re asking. Do you want to know the most you can receive from Social Security, or the most it’s possible to receive?

When can I get my maximum benefit?
When does the benefit boost kick in?
What’s the maximum benefit anyone can get?

To answer either question, you need to understand Social Security claiming ages and something the Social Security Administration (SSA) calls “delayed retirement credits.” Here’s what to know.

When can I get my maximum benefit?

You get your largest Social Security payment by waiting until at least age 70 to start collecting.

You can file for retirement benefits as early as age 62, but if you do, Social Security knocks as much as 30 percent off your “full” benefit — 100 percent of the payment amount calculated from your lifetime earnings history. You only get that if you wait until full retirement age (FRA), which is 66 and 10 months for people born in 1959 and 67 for people born in 1960 and later.

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If you wait past FRA, Social Security rewards you with delayed retirement credits. For each month beyond full retirement age that you delay claiming benefits, Social Security ups your eventual monthly payment by two-thirds of 1 percent, which adds up to 8 percent for a full year. So, someone who reaches FRA at 67 but waits until 70 to claim benefits gets 124 percent of their full benefit.

The credits stop accruing when you reach 70. You can file for Social Security later than that, but it won’t increase your monthly benefit.

When does the benefit boost kick in?

It depends on your age when you claim Social Security:

If you wait until you turn 70, you get all your credits right from your first payment.
If you file after FRA but before age 70, some of your delayed retirement credits are applied to your payment right away, but some will not be added until the start of the following calendar year.

Here’s an example: Say you reached full retirement age in June 2024 and claimed retirement benefits in June 2026. You’ll get the credits accrued from your FRA through the end of 2025 with your first benefit payment. Your remaining credits, for the first six months of 2026, will be added in January 2027.

If you are already drawing retirement benefits but want to up your future payments (and can afford to temporarily go without your current ones), you can direct Social Security to suspend your benefits. During the suspension period, you will collect the credits just as if you’d never filed.

This option is only available between FRA and age 70. You can restart your payments at any time during this period. If you have not done so by your 70th birthday, the SSA will restart them at that time. But keep in mind that while your benefits are voluntarily suspended, any family benefits paid to your spouse or children based on your earnings record will be suspended too.

What’s the maximum benefit anyone can get?

According to SSA data, the most an individual who claims retirement benefits in 2026 can receive per month is:

$2,969 if they are starting at age 62.
$4,152 if they file at full retirement age.
$5,181 if they start at 70.

For context, the average monthly benefit for retired workers of all ages was about $2,088 in August 2026.

How do you get the maximum benefit? Social Security bases your payment on your 35 highest-earning years, adjusted for historical wage growth. But there’s an annual limit on how much of your income they’ll factor into the equation. This cap, also adjusted annually, is equal to the amount of income subject to Social Security taxes. (In 2026, the maximum taxable income, as it’s known, is $184,500.)

So, to receive the maximum Social Security benefit, your earnings, adjusted for historical wage growth, must have equaled or exceeded the maximum taxable income threshold for at least 35 years of your working life — and you must have filed for benefits at age 70 or later.

Social Security does not report how many of the nearly 55 million people collecting retirement benefits are receiving the maximum payment, but the number is almost certainly very small. SSA analysts estimate that in a given year, about 6 percent of U.S. workers paying Social Security taxes earn above the taxable maximum, and only about 20 percent will do so even once in their careers, let alone 35 times.

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

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