How long does it take for Social Security disability benefits to start?

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments begin after you serve a five-month waiting period, which generally starts with the date you became disabled. Your first benefit payment will be for the sixth full month after that date.

For example, if Social Security decides that your disability began Jan. 15 in a given year, your initial payment will be for July of that year and you'll get it in August, as Social Security pays benefits in the month after the month for which they're due.

The important thing to remember is that the date your disability began, what Social Security calls the onset date, is not the same as the date your claim for SSDI was approved, or when you applied. Your onset date — essentially, the day you became unable to work due to your medical condition — could be days, weeks or even months before you filed for benefits.

In practice, this means that if your application is approved, you might not have to wait that long after that for your benefits. In August 2024, Social Security's average processing time for a disability benefit application was 231 days, or more than 7½ months. (That reflects claims for SSDI and Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, the other Social Security–administered benefit for people with disabilities.) Even if you filed your claim on the day you became disabled, the waiting period could be over by the time the claim is approved.

Let's say you applied for SSDI in January 2024 due to chronic, worsening back pain. In August, Social Security grants your claim, determining from its review of medical and other evidence that Dec. 15, 2023, is when your condition became severe enough to stop you from working. Your first payment would be for June 2024, and you'd have received it in July.

What if Social Security concludes that you became disabled even earlier — say, in September 2023? You would have theoretically been entitled to benefits in March 2024, but you could not have gotten them because your application wasn't approved yet. In this case, Social Security can pay retroactive benefits for the five months between the end of your waiting period and when it approved your claim.

In fact, Social Security can pay retroactive SSDI for up to 12 months prior to the date you filed your application, if it determines that you were qualified to receive benefits well before you applied.