Getting a Social Security overpayment notice can feel surreal. One day, benefits arrive as usual. The next, there is a letter saying the government paid too much and wants money back.
For many people, the first question is simple: Is there any way to ask Social Security not to collect this?
In general terms, yes. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a process that allows some people to ask for a waiver of overpayment recovery. A waiver is different from an appeal. It does not focus on whether the overpayment exists at all. Instead, it asks SSA to excuse repayment under specific rules. The core issues usually involve whether the person was without fault and whether collection would cause hardship or otherwise be unfair under SSA’s standards.
In this post you’ll learn how the waiver process works, when Form SSA-632-BK comes into play, what evidence can help, what SSA tends to look at, and when a lawyer may be useful if the overpayment is large, confusing, or tied to disability, work activity, representative payee issues, or income/resource reporting. If you want a broader overview of how the waiver rules fit together, this breakdown of when repayment may be excused adds helpful background.
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A waiver is a request asking SSA not to recover some or all of an overpayment. SSA’s own materials explain that if you agree you were overpaid, but believe you were not at fault and either cannot afford repayment or believe collection would be unfair for another recognized reason, the waiver process is the path SSA provides through Form SSA-632-BK. SSA also distinguishes that process from a reconsideration, which is used when you believe the overpayment decision itself is wrong or the amount is incorrect (SSA Form SSA-632 page, SSA waiver page, 20 C.F.R. § 404.506).
That distinction matters. If your real position is “I was never overpaid” or “SSA calculated the amount wrong,” that usually points toward reconsideration rather than, or sometimes in addition to, waiver. If your position is “Even if there was an overpayment, I was not at fault and paying it back would create serious problems,” that is the waiver conversation (SSA Form SSA-632 page, 20 C.F.R. § 404.506).
Before filling out anything, it helps to identify which of these situations fits best:
You think SSA made a mistake about the overpayment itself.
This often leads to a Request for Reconsideration using Form SSA-561 (SSA Form SSA-632 page).
You agree there was an overpayment, but you want SSA to excuse repayment.
This is the waiver route using Form SSA-632-BK, unless the amount is low enough for streamlined handling discussed below (SSA Form SSA-632 page, SSA waiver page).
You agree there was an overpayment and expect to repay it, but the payment rate is too high.
SSA uses Form SSA-634 for a request to change the repayment rate (SSA Form SSA-632 page, SSA repayment page).
A lot of confusion starts here. People sometimes ask for a waiver when they actually want to challenge the overpayment amount. Others file only an appeal when the real issue is hardship. In some cases, both issues exist at once.
Timing can affect collections.
Under SSA’s Title II overpayment regulation, if a person requests a waiver within 30 days after receiving the overpayment notice, SSA generally will not begin adjustment or recovery until the initial waiver decision is made. SSA’s public overpayment page similarly states that if you submit a waiver request or appeal before 30 days pass, collection does not begin until a decision is made (20 C.F.R. § 404.506, SSA repayment page).
That can be especially important now because SSA changed its default withholding policy several times in 2024 and 2025. In a March 7, 2025 press release, SSA announced a return to 100% default withholding for certain new Social Security benefit overpayments, while SSI overpayments remained at 10%. Later 2025 agency materials also reflected policy changes around default withholding rates for Title II overpayments, which shows how fluid recovery policy has been recently (SSA press release, Mar. 7, 2025, SSA FY 2025 reporting materials, SSA repayment page).
In plain language: once that letter arrives, early action may affect whether benefits start being withheld while the waiver request is pending.