Social Security Full Retirement Age by Birth Year
Your Social Security full retirement age depends on your birth year — 66 to 67 — and the SSA counts you as reaching it the day before your birthday. The complete table, the edge cases, and your three key dates.
The birth-year table
| Birth year | Full retirement age |
|---|---|
| 1937 or earlier | 65 years |
| 1938 | 65 years 2 months |
| 1939 | 65 years 4 months |
| 1940 | 65 years 6 months |
| 1941 | 65 years 8 months |
| 1942 | 65 years 10 months |
| 1943–1954 | 66 years |
| 1955 | 66 years 2 months |
| 1956 | 66 years 4 months |
| 1957 | 66 years 6 months |
| 1958 | 66 years 8 months |
| 1959 | 66 years 10 months |
| 1960–2100 | 67 years |
Find your birth year, read your full retirement age, and use the Social Security calculator to get your exact date.
The day-before-birthday rule
Social Security's attainment rule: you're legally considered to reach an age the day before your birthday. So if your full retirement age is 67 and you were born 15 March 1960, your full retirement date is 14 March 2027 — not the 15th. This isn't an off-by-one error; it's the law, and the calculator applies it.
Born on 1 January? Read the previous row
The SSA treats 1-January births as belonging to the previous birth year for this schedule. Born 1 January 1960? You use the 1959 row (66 and 10 months), not the 1960 row. The calculator handles this automatically.
Early and delayed claiming dates
- Earliest: 62 (minus one day, per the attainment rule) — reduced benefits.
- Full: your table age — full benefits.
- Delayed: up to 70 (minus one day) — delayed credits stop at 70, so there's no gain in waiting longer.
How much the amount changes is a benefits question — but the normal vs early vs full guide explains what the three milestones mean.
Related
Source: Social Security Administration — full retirement age schedule
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't full retirement age just 65 anymore?
Congress raised it in 1983, phasing in by birth year — 66 for the 1943–1954 cohorts, then monthly steps to 67 for everyone born from 1960. The table above is the current law.
Does the day-before rule apply to the age-62 and age-70 dates too?
Yes — the attainment rule applies to every Social Security age. All three dates the calculator shows are one day before the birthday anniversary.
Will the table change?
Only Congress can change it. Proposals surface regularly, but the table above is current law as verified — check the SSA source link for the latest.