Q & A
Can you get your Social Security benefits while living in another country?
Complete Question: I saw an article online about retiring abroad and it mentioned people getting their Social Security benefits while living in another country. Is it really that easy? Can my wife and I just pick up and move to another country and still get our Social Security payments? That just seems too simple. There must be a catch.
Answer: It is true that you can move away, retire abroad, and still collect Social Security! However, you are right about there being a catch – you cannot just move anywhere and do this. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has different rules for different countries and the lists of countries for these rules are too long to list here. You can find the lists on SSA’s website, or contact me (cmiles@amacfoundation.com) for information on one country in particular. The rules vary, such as who can collect (anyone in the family or just the insured), current citizenship status, whether or not direct deposit is available in that country, etc. It should be noted that living in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, or American Samoa is considered living in the U.S.
Regardless of the details of your situation, the U.S. will not send Social Security payments to you if you live in Cuba or North Korea. However, if you are a United States citizen while living there, the SSA will hold those payments and give them to you once you go to another country that the U.S. is allowed to send payments to.
The U.S. will also not send Social Security payments if you move to other countries unless you qualify for a special exception. These countries include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. If you do not qualify for the exception for one of these countries, your payments will be withheld until you go to another country that is not in this list.
So yes, you can retire abroad and receive Social Security benefits. But before packing your bags and selling your home here in the U.S., you may want to do a little checking and find out if there are any restrictions to those benefits for the country you are wanting to move to.