Social Security earnings limit 2027: not yet announced
The figures do not exist yet. Here is what sets them, when they arrive, and what will and will not change.
Figures verified · next scheduled change mid-October 2026
mid-October 2026
SSA sets the COLA and the next year’s earnings-test limits from third-quarter CPI-W and announces in mid-October. Source: SSA — cost-of-living adjustment summary, verified 2026-09-06. Review date 2026-10-15.
What sets the 2027 limits
Two mechanical steps, neither of which has happened yet:
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for July, August and September. The September figure is the last piece and arrives in October.
- Social Security averages those three months, compares the average with the same quarter of the last year in which a cost-of-living adjustment was determined, and announces the adjustment together with the next year’s taxable maximum and the next year’s earnings-test exempt amounts.
That announcement is what this page is waiting for: mid-October 2026.
What will change on the day, and what will not
| Item | Status for 2027 |
|---|---|
| Annual exempt amount, under full retirement age all year | Changes — not yet published |
| Annual exempt amount, the year you reach full retirement age | Changes — not yet published |
| The two monthly amounts (grace year) | Change — one twelfth of the annual figures |
| Withholding rate below full retirement age | $1 withheld for every $2 over the limit — statutory, unchanged |
| Withholding rate in the year you reach full retirement age | $1 withheld for every $3 over the limit — statutory, unchanged |
| The test after full retirement age | No earnings test from the month you reach full retirement age — statutory, unchanged |
Why there is no number on this page
The adjustment is mechanical, so estimates published before the announcement are usually close. They are still estimates, and a figure that is nearly right is the most expensive kind of wrong when someone plans a year of earnings around it. This site publishes a figure when the agency that sets it has published it, and not before. How that rule is enforced.
In the meantime the 2026 figures are the ones in force: the 2026 earnings limits, and the earnings-test calculator runs on them.
Questions
When will the 2027 Social Security earnings limits be announced?
mid-October 2026. SSA sets the COLA and the next year’s earnings-test limits from third-quarter CPI-W and announces in mid-October. Until that announcement there is no 2027 figure, and any dollar amount circulating before it is a projection rather than a Social Security number.
How are the 2027 limits worked out?
Social Security compares the average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for July, August and September against the same average in the last year a cost-of-living adjustment was set. The result is the cost-of-living adjustment; the exempt amounts are indexed alongside it to the national average wage index, then rounded.
What changes on the day the 2027 figures land?
The two annual exempt amounts and the two monthly amounts change. What does not change is the structure: $1 withheld for every $2 over the limit below full retirement age, $1 withheld for every $3 over the limit in the year you reach it, and no earnings test from the month you reach full retirement age.
Sources
- SSA — cost-of-living adjustment summary — how and when the next year’s figures are set. Verified 2026-09-06.
- SSA — receiving benefits while working — the test stops at full retirement age. Verified 2026-09-06.
- SSA — program explainer: retirement earnings test — the recomputation at full retirement age. Verified 2026-09-06.
Information, not advice. Confirm your figures with Social Security at ssa.gov or your local office.