What Is the Deadline to Appeal an SSDI Denial?
You have 60 days to appeal a Social Security disability decision, counted from the day you receive the notice. Social Security assumes you received it five days after the date printed on it, so in practice the deadline falls about 65 days after that date. The same 60-day limit applies at every level: reconsideration, a hearing before a judge, Appeals Council review, and a lawsuit in federal court.
Some deadlines are much shorter. If you want benefits to keep coming while you appeal a cutoff, you usually have only 10 days, and an overpayment notice gives you 30 days before repayment starts. If you’ve missed a deadline, you can still file late and explain why; Social Security accepts late appeals when you had good cause.
How to count your 60 days
Start with the date on the notice, add five days for mail, and count 60 days starting the next day. If the last day lands on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday, the deadline moves to the next workday.
For example, a notice dated March 2, 2026 is treated as received on March 7. Day 1 is March 8, and day 60 is Wednesday, May 6, 2026.
If you got the notice later than five days after its date, you can show that, and your 60 days start from when you actually received it. Keep the envelope, and note the date it arrived.
Every deadline in a disability claim
| What you’re doing | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Ask for reconsideration of a denial | 60 days after you receive the notice |
| Ask for a hearing with a judge | 60 days after you receive the reconsideration notice |
| Ask the Appeals Council to review the judge’s decision | 60 days after you receive the hearing decision |
| File a lawsuit in federal court | 60 days after you receive the Appeals Council’s notice |
| Keep SSDI paid while appealing a medical cessation | 10 days after you receive the notice, for both the appeal and the request for continued benefits |
| Keep SSI paid at the old amount while appealing a cut or stop | 10 days after you receive the notice |
| Stop overpayment recovery from starting | Ask for waiver or reconsideration within 30 days of the notice |
| Object to a phone or video hearing, or agree to online video | 30 days after you receive the notice about ways to attend |
| Send written evidence to the hearing office | 5 business days before the hearing |
| Explain why you missed your hearing | 10 days from the notice’s date, plus 5 days for mail |
Swipe sideways to see the full table →
The 10-day rules are the ones people miss most. For SSDI, they apply when Social Security decides after a continuing disability review that you’re no longer disabled; for SSI, they apply to any notice that your payment will be reduced, suspended or stopped. You still have 60 days to appeal after the 10 days pass, but your payments won’t continue during the appeal unless you show good cause for the delay. SSDI benefits continued during an appeal you lose may have to be repaid, though you can ask Social Security to waive that, and Medicare received during the appeal is never repaid.
For overpayments, the 30-day window comes from the notice itself: if you don’t ask for a waiver or appeal within 30 days of its date, Social Security starts withholding or collecting. A waiver can still be requested later, and Social Security then stops collection until it decides.
When your appeal counts as filed
An appeal is filed on the day a Social Security office receives it. If you mail it and using the receipt date would cost you your rights, Social Security uses the U.S. postmark date instead; if the postmark is missing or unreadable, it considers other proof of when you mailed it. You can file a reconsideration request or a hearing request online, by phone or at an office.
Whatever method you use, keep proof: the confirmation from an online appeal, a dated receipt from the office, or a certified mail receipt.
At the hearing level, most notices go out through a central print process that can take up to three business days to reach the mail. Social Security adds those days when it checks whether your response was on time.
If you missed the deadline
You can always file a late appeal. Social Security staff must accept the request, and they’ll help you write the statement explaining why you’re late. That good cause statement must be in writing.
Under Social Security’s rules, situations that can be good cause include:
- you were seriously ill and couldn’t contact Social Security in person, in writing or through someone else,
- a death or serious illness in your immediate family,
- important records were destroyed or damaged by fire or another accident,
- you were trying hard to get information to support your claim and couldn’t get it in time,
- Social Security gave you wrong or incomplete information about when or how to appeal,
- you never received the notice, for example because it went to an old address,
- you sent the appeal to another government agency on time, in good faith,
- other unusual or unavoidable circumstances kept you from knowing you had to file or from filing.
Social Security also considers any physical, mental, educational or language limitation, including limited English, that kept you from filing or understanding the deadline. Time spent on active military duty doesn’t count against the deadline.
One rule helps people who were confused by a notice. If you asked Social Security to explain its decision before your deadline ran out, and then appealed within 60 days of getting the explanation, that counts as good cause. For Appeals Council review or a court case, the window after the explanation is 30 days.
Who decides depends on the level. Your local office decides on a late reconsideration request, the judge decides on a late hearing request, and the Appeals Council decides on its own late requests and on extensions to file in court.
Watch out: Don’t wait to gather records before appealing. Filing on time matters more than filing a complete package; you can send evidence after the appeal is in.
If good cause isn’t accepted
The decision becomes final, and a late hearing request can be dismissed. You still have options:
- Ask Social Security to reopen the decision. It can reopen a decision for any reason within 12 months of the notice of the initial determination, and within four years for good cause, such as new and material evidence, a clerical error, or an error that’s clear from the evidence it used. A change in legal interpretation alone isn’t enough.
- File a new application. You can apply again at any time, but a final decision generally covers the period it decided, so a new claim usually starts after that period, which can mean losing months of back pay.