Full retirement age – the time when you become eligible to claim 100 percent of your Social Security benefits – is set to increase in 2025.
Recipients can begin claiming Social Security benefits as early as age 62 but are entitled to the full amount only when they reach their “full retirement age.” If you draw benefits before FRA, the amount is reduced by a percentage — sometimes as much as 30% — depending on how far away you are from full retirement.
For example, a person born between 1943 and 1954 who retired at 62, four years before their full retirement age of 66, would see a $1,000 benefit cut to $750. A person born in 1960 or later who retired at age 62, five years before their FRA, would have a $1,000 benefit cut to $700 a month.
If you wait until your FRA, you are eligible for 100% of benefits based on lifetime earnings. That age increases each year, however, based on a law passed by Congress in 1983 that changed the FRA, then 65, by two months for each subsequent birth year.
Here’s how AARP explains the process:
“FRA is 66 years and 8 months for people born in 1958 and 66 and 10 months for those born in 1959; people born May 2, 1958, through Feb. 28, 1959, will reach it in 2025. Under current law, it will settle at 67 for people born in 1960 and afterward.”
In other words, FRA for 2025 will be between 66 years and 8 months and 66 years and 10 months.
You can see a full chart of FRA details here.
The highest Social Security benefit individuals at FRA can claim is $4,018 in 2025, adjusted up for inflation from $3,822 last year. Those who wait until age 70 can claim even more for a maximum of $5,108 a month.
All Social Security recipients are in line for a cost of living adjustment this year. Benefits are set to increase by 2.5% in the coming year. The COLA means the average beneficiary receiving $1,870 per month will see an increase of about $47 starting with their next payment.