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Amy Fontinelle has more than 15 years of experience covering personal finance, corporate finance and investing.
Updated September 18, 2024 Fact checked by Fact checked by Suzanne KvilhaugSuzanne is a content marketer, writer, and fact-checker. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance degree from Bridgewater State University and helps develop content strategies for financial brands.
Part of the Series Understanding Social SecurityHow Social Security Is Organized
Benefits and Your Income
Benefits for Spouses
Benefits for Dependents, Survivors, After Divoce
Immigrants, Non-Citizens, Americans Abroad
Smart Benefits Strategies
Legal immigrants who meet the Social Security Administration (SSA)'s requirements for work credits—or who earned the equivalent of Social Security credits through their work history in certain other nations—can receive benefits in the U.S.
Social Security benefits include payments to qualified retirees, those with disabilities, and survivor benefits for the spouse and children of a deceased worker.
Here's how immigrants to the United States can qualify for Social Security benefits.
To qualify for Social Security benefits as a legal immigrant, you must have a Social Security number (SSN). Many people apply for one during the immigration process or visit a Social Security office in person to complete this process. This will require Social Security Form SS-5.
Once you have an SSN, your next step is to accumulate 40 Social Security work credits, which is the equivalent of 10 years' worth of work. You earn one credit for every quarter in which you earn at least $1,730 in 2024 to a maximum of four credits per year.
Your employer will report your wage earnings to the federal government under your name and your SSN. That way, you can make sure you receive the work credits and benefits you have earned.
Earning enough work credits means you are entitled to Social Security benefits once you reach retirement age. The size of your benefit will depend on your average earnings over your 35 highest-earning years as well as how old you are when you start to collect benefits.
The Social Security Administration will adjust your earnings history for inflation and determine your average indexed monthly earnings. Using that figure, they will then calculate your benefit amount.
Note that if you start claiming retirement benefits as early as you are eligible—age 62—you will receive about 25% less each month than if wait until your full or normal retirement age (between 66 and 67, depending on your year of birth). If you delay claiming benefits past your full retirement age, your monthly benefit will increase as much as 32% by age 70. After age 70, your benefit maxes out and there is no further reason to delay collecting.
The Social Security Administration estimates that the average monthly Social Security benefit for retirees will be $1,907 in 2024. The average monthly payment was $1,848 in 2023.
You’ll get an extra 8% per year if you wait past your full retirement age to collect benefits. After age 70, however, your benefits don't grow any further.
To be eligible for Social Security benefits, you’ll pay a 6.2% Social Security tax on your earnings as an employee up to the annual maximum, which is $168,600 in 2024. (It was $160,200 in 2023.) Your employer kicks in another 6.2% to cover the full amount, which is 12.4%.
If you’re self-employed—for example, you're a freelance worker—the calculation is different. In the eyes of the government, you are both the employee and the employer, so you must pay both halves. This 12.4%, when added to Medicare taxes (2.9%), is called the self-employment tax: 15.3%.
Legal immigrants who have not earned enough work credits in the U.S. might still qualify for benefits if they’ve earned enough work credits from one of the 30 countries with which the U.S. has what is known as a "totalization agreement."
Those countries are:
The details of these agreements vary by country and are too complex to cover here, but you can find them on the Social Security Administration’s Status of Totalization Agreements page.
If you lack enough work credits to qualify for Social Security in the U.S. but have credits from one of the countries listed above, you can combine credits from both countries and receive prorated Social Security benefits. That can be helpful if you immigrated to the U.S. later in life and are unlikely to put in 10 years of work in the U.S. before you are ready to retire.
However, “the agreements allow SSA to combine the U.S. and foreign country credits only if the worker has obtained at least six credits of U.S. coverage,” notes Z.M. Ishmurzina, a CPA and partner with Artio Partners, a Chicago tax firm specializing in services for U.S. expats and foreign nationals.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides a monthly benefit to adults with limited to no financial resources who are disabled and at least 65 years old, as well as to qualified disabled children. To claim SSI benefits, you must be a legal U.S. resident who has not been out of the country for a month or longer. If you or your child meet the criteria, you may qualify for SSI in addition to the Social Security benefits you earn through working and paying Social Security taxes.
To be eligible for SSI as a non-U.S. citizen, you must be a qualified alien. Qualifying categories include being "Lawfully Admitted for Permanent Residence (LAPR)," having been given conditional entry before April 1, 1980, being a refugee admitted under certain circumstances, and other designations. The SSA website has a full list of the seven categories of non-U.S. citizens who are considered qualified aliens.
If you are in one of those categories, meet residency requirements, and do not have a disqualifying criminal history, you may be eligible to receive SSI.
Also, your spouse's or your parent’s work can count toward the necessary credits you need to get SSI (but not retirement benefits). You may also qualify under a number of other SSI-qualified-alien guidelines.
The Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) program pays benefits to workers who become disabled, including to legal immigrants. Even if you are not a U.S. citizen, you may qualify for these benefits based on your work history or other criteria. Paying into the Social Security system through payroll taxes typically means you are eligible, as long as you also meet the SSA's definition of disability.
If you have a deceased spouse who qualified for Social Security benefits, you may be eligible for Social Security survivor benefits. Typically, you need to be at least 60 years old, and your deceased spouse must have accumulated 40 work credits. The rules are more lenient if minor children are also survivors, or if you or your children are disabled. Surviving divorced spouses may also qualify.
The benefit amount depends on your age and your spouse’s work history. Your survivor benefits may be reduced if you’re working or if you remarry.
You don’t have to qualify for Social Security benefits on your own to be eligible for survivor benefits. The basic rules that apply to U.S. citizens for survivor benefits are generally the same for legal immigrants.
Legal immigrants to the U.S. should know how leaving the country affects benefits (in addition to the one-month rule, mentioned above, that applies to SSI). Your Social Security record is permanent, so even if you don’t work for a period of time, you move abroad, or you were not required to pay Social Security taxes at some point, the credits you earned previously will still be intact, Ishmurzina says.
If you leave the U.S. after you start receiving any type of Social Security benefits, your benefits might be affected. If you’re alternating between living in the United States and in another country, you may or may not be able to collect SSDI benefits, depending on your immigration status, how long you leave the U.S. for, and the country you move to.
Legal immigrants can get Social Security benefits information online in several languages. They also can request an interpreter when calling the Social Security Administration or visiting one of its offices.
If your claim for benefits is denied, the SSA will provide a reason for it, Ishmurzina says. If you disagree with the decision, you can resubmit your claim and provide any additional information required by the SSA. To appeal a retirement benefits decision, call the SSA at 800-772-1213 (TTY 800-325-0778) or contact your local Social Security office.
If you find yourself in a complicated situation, you may want to seek legal help from an attorney with expertise in Social Security benefits for immigrants.
Immigrants to the U.S. are eligible to receive Social Security, provided that they are legally qualified to work and have contributed into the system with 40 quarters (10 years) of qualifying earnings. If an immigrant comes from a country that has a totalization agreement with the U.S., they can use their combined work history to receive retirement benefits in either country.
Certain categories of noncitizen immigrants are qualified to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), such as lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylum seekers, and humanitarian parolees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and certain other countries.
Undocumented immigrants are generally not eligible for Social Security benefits. However, an undocumented immigrant who entered the U.S. as a victim of human trafficking may be eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to qualify for Social Security benefits. If you're a legal immigrant, you are eligible as long as you've earned 10 years' worth of work credits. (In 2024, each credit is $1,730.) If your home country has a totalization agreement with the U.S., you may be able to combine work credits from both countries in order to qualify.
