Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: The marriage must have lasted ten years immediately before the divorce became final. It is a cliff, not a sliding scale — nine years and eleven months entitles you to nothing. And because the ten years must run continuously up to the divorce, a couple who married, divorced, remarried and divorced again may total ten years without ever qualifying.
Where people fall off the cliff
| Situation | Qualifies? |
|---|---|
| Married 10 years or more, then divorced | Yes |
| Married 9 years 11 months | No. Nothing |
| Two marriages to the same person totalling 10 years | Not necessarily — the period must run immediately before the divorce |
| Divorce finalised just before the tenth anniversary | No — and the timing is often within someone’s control |
If a divorce is in progress near the ten-year mark, the finalisation date is worth understanding before it is set. A difference of weeks can decide whether a lifetime benefit exists at all. This is one of the few places where a purely administrative date carries that much money, and it is rarely raised while there is still time to act on it.
What the rule does not require
It does not require your ex-spouse’s cooperation, agreement, or knowledge. It does not even require that they have filed for their own benefit, provided the other conditions are met. And claiming does not reduce anything they or their current family receive.
Remarriage
Remarriage generally ends entitlement on an ex-spouse’s record — but the rule differs for survivors, where remarriage after a specified age is treated as not having occurred. Those are two different rules and conflating them is a common and expensive error.
No dollar amounts appear on this page, deliberately. The earnings-test exempt amounts are wage-indexed under 42 U.S.C. §403(f)(8)(B), the benefit formula bend points reset every year under §415(i), and full retirement age is a schedule that varies by birth year under §416(l). Any figure printed in an article is wrong within a year. Take current figures from the Social Security Administration directly, and take your own numbers from your Social Security statement.
Sources
42 U.S.C. §402(w) (delayed retirement credits); §402(b) and (c) (spousal); §402(e) and (f) (survivor); §402(k)(3) and §402(r) (deemed filing, as amended by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, Pub. L. 114-74 §831); §403(b) and (f) (the retirement earnings test); §416(l) (full retirement age). 20 C.F.R. part 404 as in force July 2026.
This states what the cited authority says. It is not tax advice, and retirement-plan design turns on facts about your business and your other entities that no page can see. Every dollar limit referenced here is indexed and changes annually.