My Social Security Account

A my Social Security account is the personal online account the Social Security Administration (SSA) provides at ssa.gov/myaccount. The SSA's official name for the service is "my Social Security," written with a lowercase "my," and the account is the main self-service channel for the program. Before receiving benefits, it is where you check your earnings record and personalized benefit estimates. Once you are receiving benefits, it is where you can handle routine tasks such as getting official letters, updating direct deposit, and changing your address, without calling or visiting an office.

What the account can do depends on whether you are already receiving benefits. For workers not yet collecting, the core value is information: the account shows your earnings record as reported to the SSA and estimates of the retirement, disability, and survivor benefits those earnings would produce at different claiming ages. Checking the earnings record matters because it is the input to every benefit figure, and an employer's reporting error or a gap can lower your eventual benefit until it is corrected. For people already receiving benefits, the account adds transactional tasks: downloading a replacement SSA-1099 for taxes, printing a benefit verification letter that proves your income, changing direct deposit information, and updating contact details.

Access is handled through the federal government's shared sign-in system rather than a Social Security-specific password. New users create or link an account through Login.gov or ID.me, which verify identity and provide two-factor security, and then use that credential to sign in to the SSA. Two related things are worth keeping distinct. The account is the online portal; the Social Security Statement is the document, available through the account, that lays out your earnings and estimates, and it has its own page. And because the account controls sensitive information and direct deposit, it is a target for impersonation: the SSA does not ask for your login through unsolicited calls, texts, or emails, and creating your own account early is itself a protection against someone else claiming it in your name.

Getting and using the account follows a short path.

1. Go to ssa.gov/myaccount and create the account through Login.gov or ID.me, which verifies your identity and sets up secure sign-in.

2. Once inside, review your earnings record against your own records and report any discrepancy to the SSA, since the record drives every benefit estimate.

3. Use the benefit estimates to compare what you would receive at different claiming ages.

4. If you already receive benefits, use the account for tasks like a replacement SSA-1099, a benefit verification letter, and direct-deposit or address changes.

A practical example. Someone planning retirement opens the account, notices a year of self-employment income missing from the earnings record, and files to correct it with proof; the corrected record raises the benefit estimates the account then displays. The same person later uses the account each January to download the SSA-1099 needed to file taxes.