Your Social Security Payments Outside the US

Your Social Security Payments Outside the US
You can get your Social Security benefits almost anywhere in the world. phM2019/Shutterstock
Tom Margenau
Updated:

As I write this, my wife and I are about to leave on a one-month trip to England. This has been one of our “bucket list” plans for a long time now. We’ve been back and forth to Europe about a half dozen times over the years. But most of those trips were of the “if it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium, and if it’s Wednesday, it must be Paris” variety. This time, we just wanted to go to one country and relax for a month, and we picked England because we are Anglophiles from way back.

But if my emails are any indication, some of you want to go a big step further: You actually plan to move to another country. Many of you are just going back to your ancestral homeland, while maybe others see some of the same websites I do that entice you with headlines similar to this one I recently read: “Live like royalty on your Social Security check in Costa Rica!”

Tom Margenau
Tom Margenau
Author
Tom Margenau worked for 32 years in a variety of positions for the Social Security Administration before retiring in 2005. He has served as the director of SSA’s public information office, the chief editor of more than 100 SSA publications, a deputy press officer and spokesman, and a speechwriter for the commissioner of Social Security. For 12 years, he also wrote Social Security columns for local newspapers, and recently published the book “Social Security: Simple and Smart.” If you have a Social Security question, contact him at [email protected]
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