Social Security Earnings Test Calculator: What Working Before Full Retirement Age Costs

If you get retirement benefits and are under full retirement age all year, SSA withholds $1 of benefits for every $2 you earn above an annual limit ($24,480 in 2026, $25,560 in 2027). In the year you reach full retirement age, it withholds $1 for every $3 above a higher limit ($65,160 in 2026, $67,920 in 2027), and counts only the months before the month you reach it. From the month you reach full retirement age, earnings no longer matter (SSA; 20 CFR 404.430 and 404.434). Only wages and net self-employment profit count; pensions, annuities, investment income, interest and veterans benefits do not (SSA; 20 CFR 404.429). The limits come from SSA's tables and change each year.

SSA's own first example, which the calculator reproduces: $800 a month, $33,400 earned in 2026, so $8,920 over the limit and $4,460 withheld, $5,140 paid out of $9,600. Its second: full retirement age in August 2026, $66,000 earned in January to July, $840 over $65,160, so $280 is withheld from the seven months.

The excess is charged to your full benefit each month from the beginning of the year until it is used up (20 CFR 404.434(a)), skipping months you are not entitled to benefits. A month is withheld whole until the last one, which is withheld in part and the rest is paid (404.439). In SSA's first example the first five months are withheld whole ($4,000) and the sixth is cut by $460. All of the year's earnings count, including earnings from before your benefits started (404.428).

Not exactly. When you reach full retirement age SSA recalculates your benefit so that the months in which benefits were withheld no longer count as months you took benefits early: months subject to deductions are left out of the months of reduction (20 CFR 404.412; Social Security Act s. 202(q)(7)(A)). Someone with a $1,300 benefit at full retirement age who starts at 62 receives $910. With 12 months withheld, the benefit from full retirement age is $975, $65 a month more, which is what the calculator gives.

The catch is how slowly it comes back: $10,920 withheld repays at $65 a month in about 14 years, so around age 81 with no cost-of-living increases or taxes. A month with only part of the benefit withheld is counted as a month of deduction here, because the statute leaves out any month in which the benefit was subject to deductions. That is our reading of the statute for a partly withheld month, so confirm it with SSA if the count matters to you.

In the first year you have a “non-service month” while entitled to benefits, SSA also applies a monthly test: a month in which you do not work in self-employment and your wages are at or below the monthly limit ($2,040 in 2026, $2,130 in 2027) is paid in full whatever your earnings for the year (20 CFR 404.435; SSA says the special rule applies to earnings for one year). The regulation's example is Don, who stops working in April: January to April can be charged and May to December are paid. With 2026 numbers, $40,000 of earnings and an $800 benefit, the four chargeable months take $3,200 instead of the $7,760 the annual test alone would take. The tool's grace-year option assumes you work until the month you give and then stay under the monthly limit. In later years only the annual test is applied.

SSA works from your primary insurance amount (PIA). Starting early cuts it by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months before full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond (20 CFR 404.410), rounded down to the dollar, and the earnings test withholds from that reduced amount. Enter the figure from your my Social Security statement for full retirement age (the same input as the Social Security calculator). If you have already started benefits, your monthly amount divided by the early-claiming percentage for your age at the start gives the PIA.

Spouse and child benefits on your record (they are reduced by your excess earnings too), the family maximum, survivors and disability benefits, work abroad, self-employment income that does not come from work after your benefits began, and any rise in your PIA because the extra earnings enter your record. It does not apply cost-of-living increases or taxes, and it takes birth dates by month only. To compare claiming ages, use the claiming-age calculator; for how much of the benefit is taxable once you have it, the taxable Social Security calculator.