Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: No. If you have been divorced for at least two years and your ex-spouse is at least 62 and fully insured, you can claim on their record whether or not they have filed for anything. They are not asked, not notified in a way that requires their agreement, and cannot prevent it. Your claim also takes nothing away from them or from their current family.
The conditions, and what is absent from them
| Required | Not required |
|---|---|
| Marriage lasted at least ten years | Your ex-spouse’s consent |
| Divorced at least two years | That they have filed a claim |
| Ex is at least 62 and fully insured | That they have stopped working |
| You are unmarried | That they know or approve |
This is the single most useful thing an unmarried divorced person can learn about their own benefit, and it is widely believed to be false. The idea that an ex-spouse can block a claim, or must retire first, keeps people from filing for something they are entitled to. The two-year rule exists precisely so that a divorced person is not held hostage to when the other files.
It costs them nothing
A divorced-spouse benefit does not reduce your ex-spouse’s benefit and does not reduce what their current spouse or children receive. There is no shared pool being divided. If a fear of taking something from them is what is stopping you, that fear is misplaced.
Where it does end
Remarriage generally ends entitlement on a former spouse’s record. The rule for surviving divorced spouses is different, and the difference turns on the age at which the remarriage occurred — worth checking against your own facts rather than assuming either way.
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.