Full Retirement Age (FRA)

Full retirement age is the age at which the Social Security Administration pays your primary insurance amount — the unreduced benefit your lifetime earnings record produces — with no reduction for claiming early and no credits for waiting. For anyone born in 1960 or later it is 67. It functions as the pivot point of the whole claiming decision: benefits claimed before it are permanently smaller, benefits claimed after it are permanently larger, and several other rules (notably the retirement earnings test) switch off the month you reach it.

Two names describe the same age. Social Security's regulations and actuarial publications use normal retirement age (20 CFR 404.409), while the agency's consumer-facing material says "full retirement age." Neither is wrong; the regulatory term is older and appears in the benefit formulas, and the plain term is what appears on your Social Security statement.

The birth-year schedule. Full retirement age for retirement benefits was 66 for people born from 1943 through 1954, then rises by two months per birth year: 66 and 2 months for 1955, 66 and 4 months for 1956, 66 and 6 months for 1957, 66 and 8 months for 1958, and 66 and 10 months for 1959. From birth year 1960 onward it is a flat 67. The staircase is the residue of the 1983 Social Security amendments, which raised the age gradually rather than at once.

The reduction formula, which almost no summary states. Claiming before full retirement age reduces the benefit by 5/9 of one percent for each of the first 36 months early, and by 5/12 of one percent for each additional month beyond 36. For someone with a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 is 60 months early: 36 months at 5/9 of one percent is a 20% cut, and the remaining 24 months at 5/12 of one percent is another 10%, for the familiar 30% total. That 30% is an output of the formula, not a rule — it is specific to a five-year gap. It also means the penalty is steepest in the months nearest full retirement age, at five-ninths of one percent per month, and gentler further out, at five-twelfths of one percent — the opposite of what most people assume.

There are two full retirement ages, and this is the highest-value distinction on the page. The full retirement age for a survivor benefit follows its own birth-year schedule, and reaches 67 only for survivors born in 1962 or later, where the retirement schedule reaches 67 at birth year 1960. Social Security maintains separate tables for each on SSA.gov, and a widow or widower using the retirement table to work out when their survivor benefit becomes unreduced can land on the wrong month. The two ages also interact usefully: because a survivor benefit and a retirement benefit can be claimed at different times, knowing both dates is what makes a switching strategy possible.

What changes at full retirement age besides the benefit amount. The retirement earnings test stops applying. Before full retirement age, Social Security withholds $1 of benefits for every $2 of earnings above an annual limit ($24,480 for 2026); in the year you reach it the test is gentler, withholding $1 for every $3 above a higher limit ($65,160) and counting only the months before your birthday; from that month on there is no earnings limit at all. Withheld benefits are not forfeited — the benefit is recomputed upward at full retirement age to account for them. Reaching full retirement age is also what makes voluntary suspension available, which is the mechanism for earning delayed credits after having already claimed.

Social Security first computes your primary insurance amount from your highest 35 years of indexed earnings. That figure is what you receive at full retirement age. The agency then applies the reduction or credit formula to the number of months between your claiming month and your full retirement age month, and the result is locked in for life, growing thereafter only with cost-of-living adjustments.

A hypothetical example. Omar's primary insurance amount is $2,000 per month and his full retirement age is 67. If he claims at exactly 64 — 36 months early — the reduction is 36 × 5/9 of one percent, or 20%, leaving $1,600. If he claims at 62, the first 36 months still cost 20% and the additional 24 months cost 24 × 5/12 of one percent, or 10%, for a 30% total reduction and $1,400. If he waits to 70, delayed retirement credits of two-thirds of one percent per month for 36 months add 24%, producing $2,480.

Notice the asymmetry inside those numbers. The three years from 64 to 67 are worth $400 a month to Omar; the three years from 67 to 70 are worth $480. The months adjacent to full retirement age are simply worth more per month than the earliest ones, which is why "claim at 62 or wait to 70" is a false binary — every month in between has its own price.

Pros

• Gives the claiming decision a fixed, knowable reference point: one age, one formula, no estimates required.
• Your unreduced benefit at this age is the number every other Social Security calculation is built from, including spousal and survivor amounts.
• Once you reach it, the earnings test disappears, so you can work without having benefits withheld.

Cons

• The two-month birth-year steps for people born 1955 through 1959 are easy to get wrong, and a wrong month means a wrong benefit estimate.
• The existence of a separate, later full retirement age for survivor benefits is poorly publicized and routinely missed.
• Treating it as the "right" age to claim is a mistake — it is a formula pivot, not a recommendation, and the best claiming age depends on health, marital status, other income and how much longevity risk you want covered.