With just a few months left in 2025, you may be wondering if now is the time to claim Social Security benefits so you can start collecting income from a benefits program you’ve paid into throughout your life. 

This can be a tougher decision than you’d think, so here are a few key factors to consider as you decide whether to claim Social Security now or wait until next year — or beyond.

Have you reached your full retirement age?

The first thing to think about when deciding whether to claim Social Security now or later is whether you have reached your full retirement age yet.

Your FRA is based on your birth year. Here’s when yours is based on when you were born:

• 1960: Age 67
• 1959: 66 and 10 months
• 1958: 66 and 8 months
• 1957: 66 and 6 months
• 1956: 66 and 4 months
• 1955: 66 and 2 months

If you have not yet reached your FRA this year,  you may want to wait at least until 2026 and potentially beyond.

Claiming Social Security benefits before your full retirement age can result in a reduction in your monthly income. The reduction lasts for life. Penalties apply monthly, so the longer you can wait and the closer you can get toward FRA, the less you will reduce your benefit. 

Of course, reaching FRA doesn’t actually mean your benefits stop growing either. You can continue to increase the amount of your monthly check by earning delayed retirement credits. These are available until 70. Maxing out your delayed retirement credits can allow you to earn the largest possible monthly payment and maximize the chances are more lifetime income since the majority of retirees (7 in 10) end up with more lifetime income if they wait. 

So, unless you are turning 70 in 2025, you may want to wait until 2026 or beyond to claim Social Security so you can boost your guaranteed lifetime income and get more security as a senior. 

Are you ready to support yourself as a retiree?

Next, if you are thinking about claiming Social Security this year, you need to ask yourself if you are truly ready to support yourself. Social Security benefits only replace around 40% of pre-retirement income, and that’s not nearly enough to live on without substantial supplemental support from a 401(k), IRA, other retirement plan, or a pension. 

If you are not ready to support yourself and you are planning on working and collecting Social Security at the same time, then you should know the work rules are changing in 2026.  You can always work as much as you want if you have already reached full retirement age. But if you haven’t hit FRA yet, you can lose some of your benefits if you earn too much income. You do eventually get the money back when benefits are recalculated at full retirement age, but you can’t collect both unlimited Social Security and unlimited pay. 

For 2025, you lose $1 in benefits for every $2 earned above $23,400. In 2026, that amount is going up to $24,480. If you will reach FRA at some time during the year but haven’t yet, the 2025 work limit is $62,160, and once you go above that, you lose $1 in benefits for every $3 extra earned. In 2026, that number is also going up to $65,160. 

So, if you are planning on double dipping and getting both benefits and Social Security, you’ll need to look at these work limits to find out if it is worth claiming now based on your earnings, if you’d rather wait until next year when the earnings limit goes up a little, or if it isn’t really worth claiming at all in either year since you’ll lose some or all of the benefits anyway.  

If you aren’t planning on working and collecting benefits, then you need to make sure your benefits combine with other income sources to provide plenty of support. If they don’t, then putting off retirement until at least 2026, or potentially longer, can allow you to save more and get into a better financial position before you stop working, claim your benefits, and start living the life of a retiree.