What to do if Social Security says you were overpaid

Find four things in the letter and write them down: the date printed at the top, the total overpayment amount, the period the overpayment is said to cover, and the reason SSA gives for it. Everything you do afterwards is measured from that date, and every argument you might make depends on the reason. An overpayment caused by a change in your work activity is a different case from one caused by an unreported marriage, a representative payee change, a Medicare premium adjustment, or an SSA keying error that ran for two years before anybody noticed.

The content of the notice is not discretionary. Under 20 CFR 404.502a, an overpayment notice must state the amount and how and when it occurred, ask for a full and immediate refund, set out the proposed adjustment of benefits if no refund arrives within 30 days of the notice date, explain the withholding rate and the availability of installment payments and cross-program recovery, explain your right to request a waiver and the automatic scheduling of a file review, explain your right to challenge the overpayment determination itself, and tell you how to get the forms. If your letter is missing any of that, say so in writing when you respond.

The two clocks in the letter run at different speeds and it is worth being blunt about which one matters. The 30-day clock is about money: it is the point at which SSA proposes to start taking benefits, and it is the reason people who respond in week six find their check already reduced. The 60-day clock is about rights: it is the reconsideration deadline in 20 CFR 404.909, and missing it costs you the ability to argue that the debt is wrong without first showing good cause for filing late.

The 60 days does not start on the date printed on the letter. The regulation runs the period from the date you receive the notice, and SSA presumes receipt five days after the notice date unless you show otherwise. If the letter was misaddressed, forwarded, or sat in a facility mailroom, that is a fact worth stating on the form, because it moves your deadline.

Before you decide anything, you are entitled to know how the figure was built. POMS GN 02201.017 tells field office staff to explain a Title II overpayment immediately when the overpaid person asks, using the agency's own records, and states plainly that recovery efforts must stop until the person has been given that explanation and an opportunity to decide how to respond. Ask for the explanation in writing. A large share of overpayments dissolve, or shrink substantially, once somebody at SSA reconstructs the month-by-month arithmetic on paper.

Do not agree to a repayment plan on that first phone call. Agreeing to pay is not neutral — it settles, in practice, the question of whether the debt is real, and it starts money moving before you have seen the calculation. Ask for the explanation, ask the representative to note on the record that you intend to file, and get the reference number of the call. Nothing you gain by settling quickly outweighs what you lose by conceding a debt you have not yet examined.

There are three distinct requests and people conflate them constantly, usually to their cost. Reconsideration argues that the overpayment is wrong. Waiver argues that the overpayment is right but should not be collected from you. A change in recovery rate accepts both the debt and the obligation to repay it, and argues only that the monthly deduction is too big. They are decided by different people against different standards, and asking for the wrong one wastes the deadline that mattered.

Reconsideration is the appeal. It is filed on Form SSA-561, Request for Reconsideration, and it is the route when you believe you were not overpaid at all, that the amount is miscalculated, that the period is wrong, or that the money was paid to someone else — a representative payee, a former spouse, an institution. It carries the 60-day deadline. If you lose, it feeds into the ordinary Social Security appeal ladder: a hearing before an administrative law judge, then the Appeals Council, then federal district court.

Waiver is not an appeal and has no deadline. It is filed on Form SSA-632-BK, Request for Waiver of Overpayment Recovery, and it concedes that the money was overpaid while asking SSA not to take it back. Section 204(b) of the Social Security Act, at 42 U.S.C. 404, provides that there shall be no adjustment or recovery from a person who is without fault where recovery would defeat the purpose of the title or be against equity and good conscience. You can file a waiver request years after the notice, and you can file one after losing a reconsideration.

The rate change is the narrowest of the three. Form SSA-634, Request for Change in Overpayment Recovery Rate, asks SSA to withhold less each month. It does not challenge the debt and it does not pause collection the way the other two do, so it is the wrong first move if you have any argument on the merits — but it is the right move once the debt is settled and the deduction is unaffordable.

Nothing stops you filing more than one. The forms are free, they can be filed together, and the arguments do not undercut each other in the way people fear: contesting the amount and, in the alternative, asking for waiver of whatever amount survives is a normal posture and one that legal aid offices file routinely. The Legal Aid DC overpayment toolkit sets out the same three options and makes the same point in three words — do something, because if you do nothing the agency starts taking money out of your benefits.

One category sits outside all of this. Where SSA determines that the overpayment involved fraud or similar fault, the protective rules change: POMS GN 02250.350 excludes those cases from the small-balance waiver tolerance, POMS GN 02210.030 denies a lower recovery rate where the overpayment resulted from fraud or similar fault, and 20 CFR 416.571 disapplies the 10 percent SSI cap where there was fraud, willful misrepresentation or concealment of material information. A notice that alleges any of these is a case to take to a representative rather than handle alone.

Use reconsideration when the facts are in dispute. The most productive arguments are arithmetical rather than moral: the earnings SSA used are not the earnings you had, the period of the overpayment overlaps months in which you were paid nothing, the same money has been counted twice across two overpayment records, the offset for a workers' compensation award or a public pension was computed on the wrong figures, or the person who actually received the money was a representative payee and not you.

Say what you disagree with and why, in your own words, and attach the documents rather than describing them. Pay stubs, W-2s, bank statements showing what actually landed, correspondence in which you reported the change SSA says you failed to report, the certified mail receipt for a form you sent, the date-stamped screenshot of an online report — these are what turn a reconsideration. A reconsideration that says only that the amount seems wrong will be affirmed, because the reviewer is looking at the same record that produced the notice.

If you reported the change and SSA acted late, say so and prove it. That fact does two jobs at once. It supports the reconsideration, because a payment SSA continued after being told to stop may be miscalculated. It also builds the waiver case in reserve, because POMS GN 02250.005 makes clear that SSA can only find you at fault on evidence that you made a statement you knew or should have known was wrong, withheld material information you should have known was important, or accepted payments you knew or should have known were incorrect — and reporting on time is the opposite of all three.

File it on time and prove that you did. Sixty days runs from receipt, presumed five days after the notice date, under 20 CFR 404.909. If you are outside that window, the same regulation allows an extension where you show good cause under 20 CFR 404.911, and the reasons that succeed are the ordinary human ones: serious illness, a death in the family, a notice sent to an address you had left, records SSA held that you could not get. Ask for good cause explicitly in the same document rather than hoping the reviewer infers it.

There is a separate ten-day rule that only affects Supplemental Security Income, and it is easy to miss. Under 20 CFR 416.1336, where SSA gives advance notice that it intends to suspend, reduce or terminate SSI payments, an appeal filed within ten days of receipt means the payment continues or is reinstated at the previous level while the appeal is decided, unless you waive that in writing. Filed on day eleven through day sixty, the appeal is still valid but the payments do not continue automatically unless good cause is established.

Keep a copy of everything and get a receipt. Whichever way you file — online, by mail, or at a field office — the record that you filed inside the deadline is the thing you will need if the debt resurfaces in a year with no trace of your response on the system. Legal aid guidance on these cases is consistent on the point: keep your own copies, ask for a receipt, and note the date, time and name of everyone you speak to.

Waiver is the remedy people most often need and least often file, partly because the form is long and partly because the notice presents appeal rights first. The statutory test at 42 U.S.C. 404 has two halves and you must clear both: you must be without fault, and recovery must either defeat the purpose of the title or be against equity and good conscience. The regulation restating this for Title II is 20 CFR 404.506.

Fault is not the same as causation, and this is the most misunderstood point in the whole process. POMS GN 02250.005 states that a determination that a person has been overpaid is not a finding that the person is at fault in causing it, and that unless SSA holds evidence of an incorrect statement the person knew or should have known was incorrect, a failure to furnish material information they should have known was material, or acceptance of a payment they knew or should have known was incorrect, the individual is not at fault. SSA being at fault does not make you at fault, and an agency error that ran for years is not your error.

The same POMS section requires SSA to weigh who you actually are when it assesses fault: comprehension, education and memory, physical and mental conditions, institutionalization, linguistic limitations and English language proficiency, age, and practical barriers to contacting the agency such as transportation problems, hearing impairment or an emergency. The statute itself, at 42 U.S.C. 404, directs the Commissioner to consider physical, mental, educational or linguistic limitations including any lack of facility with the English language. If any of these applied to you at the time, put them in the form in plain terms.

The first of the two financial routes is defeat the purpose, and it has published numbers. POMS GN 02250.100 approves waiver on this ground where recovery would deprive you of income and resources needed for ordinary and necessary living expenses, applying two conditions together: monthly household income does not exceed monthly expenses by more than $250, and countable resources are no more than $6,000 for an individual, $10,000 for an individual plus one household member, and $1,200 more for each additional member. The same section reads living expenses broadly — rent or mortgage, utilities, taxes, food, clothing, transportation, insurance, medical costs, court-ordered payments, tuition and dependent support, and miscellaneous ordinary items consistent with your standard of living.

The second route, against equity and good conscience, has no income or resource limits at all and is badly underused. POMS GN 02250.150 applies it where you relied on the payments and your position changed for the worse, or you gave up a valuable right — moving to a costlier home, taking on debt, entering a long-term contract, cutting your hours or leaving a job, enrolling in a course, or turning down public assistance or other help you would otherwise have qualified for. The same section is candid about what does not count: cancelled gym memberships, online subscriptions and non-refundable holiday deposits.

If the balance is small, the form may not be needed. POMS GN 02250.350 lets SSA waive an overpayment where the person is not at fault and the original overpayment was $2,000 or less, without requiring a completed SSA-632-BK, and states that teleservice center staff can process a waiver request involving that tolerance — which is why the phone route works for smaller balances. The test is the original amount, not the balance left after some has been recovered, and duplicate check negotiation cases still require full development.

Send evidence with the form rather than waiting to be asked. Bank statements, a rent ledger or mortgage statement, utility bills, medical bills and insurance letters, proof of any means-tested benefit you receive, and a short signed statement of what happened and what you did when you found out. On the defeat-the-purpose route, GN 02250.100 records that SSA does not require proof of expenses and accepts expenses consistent with your own standard of living — but a decision made on a complete file is faster and harder to reverse than one made on assertions.

Filing is what stops the withholding, and this is the practical reason to act inside the first 30 days. 20 CFR 404.506 provides that where a waiver is requested within 30 days of receiving the overpayment notice, SSA stops recovery action pending the initial determination, and that requests made after 30 days also stop recovery action. Emergency Message EM-25029 REV says the same thing from the operational side: collection activity stops while a reconsideration or waiver is under review.

The default withholding rate for Title II benefits changed in 2025 and much of what circulates online is out of date. EM-25029 REV set the default at 50 percent of the monthly benefit for new overpayment notices issued on or after 25 April 2025, and applies the same rate to outstanding overpayments when a new overpayment occurs. It expressly excludes Title XVI — SSI — which stays at 10 percent, and excludes fraud cases from the rate policy. The message also sets recovery start dates at the month of the notice plus three months, so that everyone has at least 60 days to appeal before withholding begins.

SSI recovery works on a different formula and is capped by regulation rather than by policy. Under 20 CFR 416.571 the monthly adjustment for a recipient in current payment status is limited to the lesser of the monthly benefit payment or 10 percent of total income, and POMS SI 02220.016 applies the same rule operationally, counting countable income plus the federal and state SSI payments due for the month. Where 10 percent of income exceeds the SSI payment itself, the payment becomes the rate. Recipients can ask for a higher or lower rate.

For Title II, the negotiation has a shape worth knowing before you start. POMS GN 02210.030 sets a minimum monthly withholding of $10 and describes a ladder: SSA first tries to agree a rate that clears the debt within 12 months without documentation, then a rate that clears it within 60 months, and only where repayment would run beyond 60 months does it require Form SSA-634 with your resources, income and expenses. The manual approves a lower rate where resources are below $3,000 and monthly income does not exceed adjusted expenses, or where any excess is small enough to leave an affordable payment of at least $10.

That ladder is why the arithmetic matters. A $9,000 overpayment repaid over 60 months is $150 a month and needs no financial disclosure; the same debt at the 50 percent default could be several times that. If you can identify a monthly figure that clears the balance inside five years and you can live on what is left, proposing that number is usually a shorter conversation than the full SSA-634.

One exception in the same POMS section is worth knowing if it applies to you: a person receiving a 100 percent Medicare Part D subsidy may pay any amount of at least $10 a month without submitting an SSA-634 at all.

If you have already agreed a rate and your circumstances change — a rent increase, a new medical cost, a household member leaving — the rate is not fixed for the life of the debt. File a fresh SSA-634 with the new figures. Legal aid guidance on these cases makes the same point: contact SSA as soon as the plan stops being affordable rather than defaulting on it, because a missed installment can push the debt back into the collection track described below.

A waiver request cannot be quietly denied on the papers. POMS GN 02270.003 provides that where SSA cannot approve a waiver on initial review, it must offer you the opportunity to review your file and appear at a personal conference with an independent decisionmaker — someone who was not involved in recommending the denial — and that recovery cannot begin until you have had that opportunity. The only exception is where the independent decisionmaker can approve the waiver on the evidence already in the file, in which case there is nothing to confer about.

The conference is a right with substance to it, not a formality. 20 CFR 404.506 gives you a file review at least five days before the conference; the right to appear in person, by telephone or by video; the right to testify, to present documents, and to bring and question witnesses; and the right to be represented by an attorney or other representative. The decisionmaker must confirm their independence and must decide on the evidence presented at the conference.

The file review is the part people skip and should not. It is your only guaranteed look at the record SSA built before it decided you owed money — the payment history, the internal notes, the date the agency logged whatever report you say you made. Cases turn on what is missing from that file more often than on what is in it, and five days is enough to write a short supplementary statement addressing whatever you find.

Prepare for the conference the way you would prepare for a short hearing. Bring the documents that answer the specific ground on which the waiver was provisionally refused. If the sticking point is fault, bring the evidence of what you reported and when. If it is defeat the purpose, bring the current bills and statements rather than the ones you sent months earlier. If it is equity and good conscience, bring the lease, the loan agreement or the letter refusing you other assistance, because those are the documents that show reliance.

Take somebody with you if you can. The regulation permits representation, and this is the point in the process where a legal aid caseworker or an accredited representative adds the most value for the least cost — they know which of the two financial tests is easier to win on your facts, and they can put the fault argument in the terms the manual uses.

The conference is followed by an initial waiver determination, and a denial is not the end of the road. A waiver denial carries its own appeal rights through the standard Social Security appeals sequence, and the underlying overpayment question — if you also filed a reconsideration — travels on its own track. Read the denial letter with the same care as the original notice, because it will name a new deadline.

Doing nothing does not make the debt go away, and the collection powers attached to a federal overpayment are considerably broader than those of an ordinary creditor. 42 U.S.C. 404 directs the Commissioner to recover overpayments by decreasing future payments, requiring a refund, offsetting other benefits, reducing tax refunds, or a combination of these — with no court judgment required at any point.

If you are still receiving benefits, the first thing that happens is straightforward: withholding starts, at the rate printed on your notice, and continues until the debt is cleared. If you are no longer receiving benefits, the debt moves into a different system. POMS GN 02201.031 describes administrative offset under the Debt Collection Improvement Act, in which SSA refers delinquent overpayment debts to the Treasury for collection out of other federal payments — including reduction of an Office of Personnel Management pension by up to 25 percent, and vendor and contractor payments by up to 100 percent.

The selection rules are automated and specific. The same POMS section applies administrative offset where the debtor was 18 or older when the debt arose, the debt is classified as unrecoverable under the Commissioner's regulations, the person is no longer receiving Social Security benefits, the debtor is living, the debt is at least $25, and the account is delinquent. That combination catches a large number of people who left the benefit rolls years ago and assumed the matter had lapsed.

Before any of it happens you get one more notice and one more chance. GN 02201.031 requires SSA to mail a pre-offset notice telling the debtor that it will refer the debt to Treasury for the Treasury Offset Program, conduct administrative wage garnishment where applicable, and send information about the debt to credit bureaus after 60 days — unless within those 60 days the debtor pays in full, agrees an installment arrangement, requests a waiver, or produces evidence disputing the debt. A waiver request filed in that window is still a live remedy; the absence of a deadline on waiver is what makes it one.

Treat that pre-offset notice as seriously as the original. It is the point at which a benefit overpayment becomes a federal debt with consequences outside the Social Security system entirely — a tax refund taken, a credit file marked, wages garnished administratively by a federal agency rather than through a state court. The 60 days is the same length as a reconsideration period but it is a different clock, running from a different letter.

Two things are worth saying about what this process is not. It is not a criminal matter, and an overpayment notice is not an accusation of benefit fraud unless the letter says in terms that SSA has made a finding of fraud or similar fault. And it is not conducted by phone by people who ask for gift cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency: the SSA Office of the Inspector General maintains a reporting route specifically for calls, letters, texts and emails impersonating SSA or OIG officials, including those threatening immediate action. A real overpayment is dealt with in writing, on numbered forms, with appeal rights attached.

Nobody should pay a fee to file an SSA-561, an SSA-632-BK or an SSA-634. The forms are free from SSA, they can be filed at a field office, by mail or online, and the agency charges nothing for any stage of the appeal or waiver process. Any service charging to prepare a Social Security overpayment appeal is reselling a free government process.

Free representation exists and this is a good case to use it on. The Legal Services Corporation funds 129 independent nonprofit legal aid organizations across every state, the District of Columbia and the US territories, and its Get Legal Help finder returns the LSC-funded office serving your address with its phone number and website. LSC also points to LawHelp.org for state-specific information and free legal forms. Local legal aid offices handle Social Security overpayments routinely, and many will take a waiver case that a private firm would decline because there is no back-pay award to be paid out of.

For representation before SSA specifically, the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives maintains a directory of attorneys and non-attorney representatives who practice in Social Security matters. Representatives' fees in Social Security cases must be approved by SSA, which is a meaningful protection: the fee is not something the representative sets unilaterally between the two of you.

Some people have a third route that costs nothing and is often overlooked. If you receive SSDI or SSI and are working or trying to return to work, a Work Incentives Planning and Assistance project or a protection and advocacy organization may already be funded to help you with exactly this problem, because work-activity overpayments are one of the largest single categories. Ask the local office serving your state whether they cover overpayment casework.

Age matters too. Older beneficiaries can often reach a legal services program aimed specifically at people over 60, and elder-law training materials — including the National Center on Law and Elder Rights briefing on SSA overpayments prepared for the Administration for Community Living — set out the appeal-versus-waiver distinction, the effect of filing within 30 days, and the practice points advocates use: document every filing date, ask SSA to acknowledge timely submission, and gather medical, financial and circumstantial evidence for the waiver rather than relying on narrative alone.

Finally, keep the paperwork after it is over. Overpayment records resurface — on a later claim, on a survivor's claim, on a Medicare premium reconciliation years afterwards. The waiver approval, the reconsideration decision, the receipt showing the date you filed, and the final letter confirming a zero balance are the documents that end the argument the second time it appears.