Social Security Payments Abroad: Citizenship and Residency Conditions

This guide presents selected U.S. government consumer education from Social Security Administration. References to “we” or “us” in the source material refer to the issuing agency. Source dates and links appear below.

Introduction

This booklet explains how being outside the United States may affect your Social Security benefits. It also lists information you need to report to us, and how to report it. Reporting changes timely helps to avoid overpayments and helps you receive the benefits to which you are entitled.

We calculate Social Security benefits in U.S. dollars. We do not increase or decrease your benefits because of changes in international exchange rates.

Payment restrictions

Treasury Department sanctions

The U.S. Department of the Treasury prohibits making payments to persons residing in Cuba or North Korea. If you are a U.S. citizen residing in Cuba or North Korea, you can get all the payments we withheld once you move to a country where we can send payments. Under the Social Security Act, if you are not a U.S. citizen, you cannot receive payments for the months you lived in Cuba or North Korea. This applies even if you go to another country and satisfy all other requirements.

Other Treasury Department sanctions could affect payments to persons in other countries. For information about U.S. Treasury sanctions, please visit ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information.

Social Security restrictions

Generally, we cannot send Social Security payments to persons in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan. However, we can make exceptions for certain eligible persons in these countries.

To qualify for an exception, you must meet and agree to restricted payment conditions. For more information about these conditions and the qualifications for an exception, contact Social Security or your Federal Benefits Unit (FBU). Contact information is in the last section of this publication.

If you do not qualify for an exception, we will withhold your payments until you leave the country with Social Security restrictions and go to a country where we can send payments.

Your right to Social Security payments when you are outside the United States

If you are a United States citizen, you may continue to receive payments while outside the U.S. You must be eligible for payments and you must be in a country where we can send payments. If you are not a U.S. citizen, you must meet one of the conditions for payment described in the next section.

When we say you are “outside the U.S.,” we mean you are not in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, or American Samoa for at least 30 days in a row. We consider you to be “outside the U.S.” until you return and stay in the U.S. for at least 30 days in a row. If you are not a U.S. citizen, you also may have to prove you were lawfully present in the U.S. for that 30-day period.

If you are not a U.S. citizen or you do not meet one of the conditions for continued payments, we will stop your payments after you have been outside the U.S. for 6 full calendar months. Once this happens, we cannot start your payments again until you come back and stay in the U.S. for a full calendar month. You must be in the U.S. on the first minute of the first day of any month and stay through the last minute of the last day of that month. In addition, we may ask you to prove you have been lawfully present in the U.S. for the full calendar month. For more information, contact Social Security or your FBU. Contact information is in the last section of this publication.

Conditions for payments to continue while you are outside the United States

If you are not a United States citizen, you must meet the conditions described in this section to continue receiving benefits outside the U.S. You must also remain eligible for benefits and live in a country where we can send payments. You can use the Payments Abroad Screening Tool to determine whether you meet the conditions for payments to continue while you are outside the U.S. The Payments Abroad Screening Tool is on our website at: www.ssa.gov/international/ payments_outsideUS.html.

• 1. We will continue to pay your benefits if:
• You were eligible for monthly Social Security benefits for December 1956
• The worker on whose record your benefits are based died while in the U.S. military service or as a result of a service-connected disability, and was not dishonorably discharged
• 2. If you are receiving benefits based on your own earnings and you meet one of the conditions below, we will continue your U.S. Social Security payments.
• The worker on whose record your benefits are based had railroad work that the Social Security program treated as covered employment
• You are in the active military or naval service of the U.S.

If you are receiving your payments as a dependent or survivor, you must also meet the conditions listed in this publication under the section “Additional residency requirements for dependents and survivors.”

• 3. We will continue your U.S. Social Security payments if you are a citizen of one of the countries listed below:

Austria Japan Belgium Korea (South) Brazil Luxembourg Canada Netherlands Chile Norway Czech Republic Poland Finland Portugal France Slovak Republic Germany Slovenia Greece Spain Hungary Sweden Iceland Switzerland Ireland United Kingdom Israel Uruguay Italy

(This list of countries is subject to change. For the latest information, visit www.ssa.gov/international/ countrylist1.htm.)

• 4. If you are a citizen of one of the countries listed below and you are receiving benefits based on your own earnings, we will continue your U.S. Social Security payments. If you are receiving benefits as a dependent or survivor, you must also meet the conditions listed in this publication. For more information see the section titled “Additional residency requirements for dependents and survivors.”

Albania Latvia Antigua and Liechtenstein Barbuda Lithuania Argentina Malta Australia Marshall Bahamas, The Islands Barbados Mexico Belize Micronesia, Bolivia Fed. States of Bosnia- Monaco Herzegovina Montenegro Bulgaria Nicaragua Burkina Faso North Colombia Macedonia Costa Rica Palau Côte d’Ivoire Philippines Croatia Romania Cyprus St. Kitts and Denmark Nevis Dominica St. Lucia Dominican St. Vincent and Republic the Grenadines Ecuador Samoa El Salvador (formerly Estonia Western Samoa) Gabon San Marino Grenada Serbia Guatemala Trinidad-Tobago Guyana Turkey Jamaica Venezuela Jordan

(This list of countries is subject to change. For the latest information, visit www.ssa.gov/international/ countrylist2.htm.)

• 5. If you are a citizen of one of the countries listed in the chart below, we will continue to pay your benefits outside the U.S. if:

a) You are receiving benefits based on your own earnings, and you earned at least 40 credits under the U.S. Social Security system or lived at least 10 years in the U.S.

b) You are receiving benefits as a dependent or survivor of a worker who earned at least 40 credits under the U.S. Social Security system or lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years. You must also meet the conditions under the section “Additional residency requirements for dependents and survivors” in this publication. Afghanistan Fiji Bangladesh Gambia Bhutan Ghana Botswana Haiti Burundi Honduras Cabo Verde India Cameroon Indonesia Central Kenya African Laos Republic Lebanon Chad Lesotho China Liberia Congo, Madagascar Rep. of Malawi Eritrea Malaysia Eswatini Mali Ethiopia Mauritania

Mauritius South Africa Morocco South Sudan Myanmar Sri Lanka (formerly Sudan Burma) Taiwan Nepal Tanzania Nigeria Thailand Pakistan Timor-Leste Senegal Togo Sierra Leone Tonga Singapore Tunisia Solomon Uganda Islands Yemen Somalia

(This list of countries is subject to change. For the latest information, visit www.ssa.gov/international/ countrylist4.htm.)

• 6. If you are a resident of a country that has a U.S. social security agreement, (other than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, or Switzerland), we will continue your U.S. Social Security payments. You can view a list of these countries in this publication under the section “Countries that have social security agreements with the United States.”

If you are a resident (but not citizen) of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, or Switzerland, the social security agreements allow you to continue to receive your benefits only if you are:

• A refugee or stateless person
• Receiving dependent or survivors benefits on the record of a worker who is (or was at the time of death) a U.S. citizen, a citizen of the country where you reside, a refugee, or stateless person

Additional residency requirements for dependents and survivors

If you are a citizen of a country for which we require dependents and survivors to meet additional residency requirements, you will have to show that you lived in the United States for at least 5 years. During those 5 years, you must have been in the family relationship on which we based your benefits.

However, the U.S. residency requirement does not apply if you meet any of the following conditions:

• You were initially eligible for monthly benefits before January 1, 1985
• Your entitlement is based on the record of a worker who died during U.S. military service or as a result of a service-connected disease or injury
• You are a citizen of a country listed under number 3 in the section titled “Conditions for payments to continue while you are outside the United States” in this publication
• You are a resident of a country (other than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, or Switzerland) listed in the section titled

“Countries that have social security agreements with the United States” For more information about residency in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, or Switzerland, see the section titled, “Conditions for payments to continue while you are outside the United States”

A child who has not lived in the U.S. for 5 years can meet the 5-year residency requirement. Their parent who is the worker, and the other parent, must have both lived in the U.S. for 5 years. However, we will not pay children adopted outside the U.S. while they reside outside the U.S., even if they meet the residency requirement.

Countries that have social security agreements with the United States

Currently, these countries have a social security agreement with the United States:

Australia Iceland Austria Ireland Belgium Italy Brazil Japan Canada Korea (South) Chile Luxembourg Czech Republic Netherlands Denmark Norway Finland Poland France Portugal Germany Slovak Republic Greece Slovenia Hungary Spain

Sweden United Kingdom Switzerland Uruguay

(This list of countries is subject to change. For the latest information, visit www.ssa.gov/international/ countrylist3.htm.)

For more information about international social security agreements, visit www.ssa.gov/international/.

Sources and publication details

• Your Payments While You Are Outside The United States — Social Security Administration; source date: July 2025; selected sections: Introduction; Payment restrictions; Your right to Social Security payments when you are outside the United States; Conditions for payments to continue while you are outside the United States; Additional residency requirements for dependents and survivors; Countries that have social security agreements with the United States.

The federal agency source text is U.S. government work in the public domain. Fynoptic selected, adapted, and formatted it for this guide. No agency endorsement is implied. Follow the linked sources for current program details and the rules applicable to your circumstances.