You have 30 days (plus 5 mail days) to take action when you receive a notice of overpayment. If you don’t do anything, Social Security will start collecting the overpayment.
If you are on SSI, Social Security will automatically withhold 10% of your check.
If you are on SSDI, Social Security will automatically withhold 50% of your check.
If you’re not sure what benefit you are on, check our video on SSI & SSDI to help you figure it out. You can also find that information in your MySSA account.
If you take action by submitting a Request for Reconsideration or Request for Waiver (we’ll talk about those in detail next!), Social Security should not start collecting until they have made a decision on your request. You may need to remind Social Security not to collect the overpayment during this process.
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Tip: Take action within 30 days of the date on your overpayment notice. Keep working through the toolkit to decide what action to take.
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Tip: If it’s been more than 30 days since you got your notice, you can still take action - but the collection of the overpayment may happen while they process your request.
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