What is the average retirement age in the United States?

Key points

• Gallup’s April 2026 poll reported a mean actual retirement age of 61 among current retirees, compared with an expected age of 66 among nonretirees.
• The 2026 EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey reported a median actual retirement age of 62, compared with a median expected age of 65 among workers. A median is not a mean.
• SSA’s administrative entitlement ages measure something different. They are not ages at which everyone stopped working.
• An age benchmark cannot settle when income, health coverage and savings will cover a particular household’s expenses.

The different figures are not interchangeable answers to the same question. A survey asks people when they retired or expect to retire. A benefit record dates entitlement under a program. A statutory retirement age determines a benefit rule. Each has a different denominator and meaning.

The retirement income guide connects timing with the cash the household needs. Here, the first task is to identify what event each age measures.

What does Gallup’s 2026 retirement-age poll measure?

Gallup’s May 6, 2026 release reports the results of telephone interviews conducted April 1 to 15, 2026. It used a national sample of 1,001 U.S. adults age 18 or older, including 401 retirees and 600 nonretirees. The original Gallup release includes its methods and retirement-age table.

The mean actual retirement age reported by current retirees was 61. The mean expected retirement age among nonretirees was 66. Those are separate groups interviewed at the same time, not the same people followed from their plans through their eventual retirement.

That distinction rules out two tempting interpretations. The poll does not show that everyone retiring during 2026 retired at 61. Current retirees can have retired in earlier years. Nor does the difference prove that today’s nonretirees will retire at precisely the same age as today’s retirees.

It is a self-reported survey average. It is not an administrative record of the last paycheck, a statutory requirement or a retirement deadline. The poll has sampling and nonsampling uncertainty, and the reported ages are rounded. The survey’s percentage-point margins of error should not be relabeled as margins of error in years.

Why does another current survey say 62?

The 2026 EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey reports a median actual retirement age of 62, and a median expected age of 65 for workers. Figure 13 of the original report identifies the statistics and exclusions.

Its general-population sample contained 2,052 Americans age 25 or older, including 1,007 workers and 1,045 retirees. The survey was conducted online January 2 to 28, 2026. A separate caregiver oversample is described in the methodology; it is not the denominator used to label the general worker and retiree comparison here.

The general-population results were weighted by age, sex, household income and race or ethnicity. The age chart excludes responses such as not knowing, never having worked or refusing to answer. Its medians describe the eligible responses under that survey’s definitions.

There are several reasons not to combine the EBRI and Gallup results:

Difference	Gallup	EBRI/Greenwald
Statistic shown here	Mean	Median
Adult age scope	18 or older	25 or older
Field period	April 2026	January 2026
Interview method	Telephone	Online
Forward-looking group	Nonretirees	Workers

A mean adds ages and divides by the number of observations, using survey weights where applicable. A median is the midpoint. Even with an identical sample, those statistics need not agree. Here, the samples and methods differ too.

Calling the EBRI median the average without qualification hides the distinction. Calling one survey wrong because it differs from the other is not supported by these figures.

What age does Social Security report?

SSA’s 2026 Annual Statistical Supplement, Table 6.B5, groups retired-worker awards by the year the award action was posted. For 2025, it reports an average age of 65.3 for men and 65.2 for women. For these recent years, age is measured in the month of entitlement. The original table and notes are essential to interpreting the figures.

These rows include conversions from disability benefits to retired-worker benefits. Such a conversion is not evidence that the person voluntarily left a job or newly chose to claim retirement benefits at that age. Entitlement can also precede the award action because awards may be retroactive.

Table 6.B5.1 instead groups the data by year of entitlement. Those figures can differ from the award-year table. A comparison that takes the age from one table and labels it with the other’s year definition has changed the statistic.

This guide uses Table 6.B5 consistently. It does not average the male and female rounded means into an invented combined figure. It also does not relabel the result as the age at which Americans stopped work.

SSA was releasing the 2026 Supplement in sections at the November 3 check. Its publication page says tables remain subject to revision until the edition is complete. A current table can be available even though the full edition is not yet finished.

Is full retirement age the same as retirement age?

No. Full retirement age is part of Social Security’s benefit rules. For people born in 1960 or later, it is 67. Eligible workers can begin retirement benefits as early as 62, with a reduction for starting before full retirement age. SSA’s age-reduction page gives the birth-year table and important timing details.

These rules do not establish a universal age for leaving work. Nor do they make the average reported retirement age an instruction to claim benefits then.

Medicare adds another timeline. Its usual initial enrollment period around age 65 lasts seven months: three months before the birthday month, the birthday month and three months after. Eligibility and enrollment can differ in special circumstances. Medicare’s enrollment guidance explains those cases.

A retirement worksheet therefore needs separate dates for stopping or reducing work, the end of employer health coverage, Medicare enrollment and each planned income source. One age in a survey cannot stand in for all of them.

How much money bridges the years before benefits start?

Consider a hypothetical person who stops work on the 62nd birthday and plans to begin a selected income source at the 67th birthday. This illustration covers the 60 months between those birthdays; it is not a Social Security payment-date calculation.

Assume monthly expenses of $4,200, including a selected health-coverage allowance, and other monthly income of $1,200 available throughout the interval. The uncovered amount is:

$4,200 minus $1,200 = $3,000 per month.

Hypothetical interval	Months	Cash gap at $3,000 a month
Age 62 to 65	36	$108,000
Age 62 to 67	60	$180,000

The shorter interval is part of the longer one, not an additional amount to add to it. Both figures assume unchanged expenses and income, no investment returns, no inflation and no additional tax from funding the gap. The health-cost assumption is not a Medicare premium estimate.

This is a cash requirement, not a claim that a particular account can be accessed without tax or penalties. Account withdrawal rules need their own check. Nor does the example establish that waiting until 67 is suitable. It makes the cost of the selected timing visible.

A second worksheet can change the dates, expenses or income. The retirement budget guide provides the expense structure. Average retirement income explains why an individual benefit and household income statistic cannot be used as the same input.

Why can actual retirement happen earlier than expected?

The Federal Reserve’s 2025 household well-being survey asked retirees about the reasons for their retirement timing. 46% cited health problems, caring for family or lack of work as contributing factors, taken together. These are overlapping reasons, not percentages to add. The report’s retirement section describes the questions and findings.

The same survey defined retirees by their own answer to a retirement-status question, regardless of employment status. 16% of self-described retirees reported some work for pay or profit in the previous month. That is another reason retirement cannot always be treated as a single, permanent exit from all paid work.

For planning purposes, an earlier-work-exit version of the budget can be examined separately from the preferred retirement date. It can show which expenses remain, which income sources have not started and which funding assumptions become more important. It does not require predicting the probability that a specific person will face a health or employment problem.

The appropriate conclusion from the data is limited but useful: actual retirement ages describe varied experiences, while expected ages describe plans. Neither establishes that a particular person can keep earning until the intended date or needs to retire at the survey’s midpoint.

About this guide

This guide describes U.S. retirement surveys, federal benefit timing and administrative statistics. The worked example is hypothetical and is not personalized tax or investment advice. It does not model state rules, account-access penalties or an individual’s benefit entitlement. Sources were checked November 3, 2026.

Written by the Diversify Guy editorial desk. Diversify Guy is a pen name. It is the byline of our editorial team, not a single individual. We do not publish personal trading records or claim to be your adviser. We tell you where every figure came from so you can check it yourself. How we work and how we get paid.

Sources and check dates

All sources checked November 3, 2026.

• Gallup, Nonretirees’ Worry Remains High, May 6, 2026; April 1 to 15 poll, retirement-age table and survey methods. Gallup is the original survey publisher, not a secondary interpretation.
• EBRI/Greenwald, 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, overview and Figure 13. January 2026 fieldwork; means were not substituted for medians.
• SSA, 2026 Supplement Table 6.B5 and notes and edition status. Data are subject to revision while the edition is incomplete.
• SSA, retirement benefits by age.
• Medicare, initial and other enrollment periods and coverage-start timing.
• Federal Reserve, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, retirement section, pages 19 to 21, published May 2026.