If My Ex-Husband Dies, Do I Still Get His Pension?

If your ex-husband dies, you still get his pension only if the right court order was filed with the plan while he was alive and that order names you as a survivor beneficiary. A divorce decree by itself is not enough. Most private pensions require a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO); federal civilian pensions require a Court Order Acceptable for Processing (COAP); military retired pay requires Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) coverage. Social Security survivor benefits run on a separate track and may be available to you even if no pension order was ever filed.

The Document That Decides It

Pension plans pay whoever their records say to pay. Your divorce decree may promise you half of your ex-husband’s pension, but the plan administrator cannot act on the decree alone. A separate court order, drafted to the plan’s requirements and delivered to the administrator, is what creates your legal right to collect.¹

For payments to continue after your ex-husband’s death, that order has to do one specific thing: designate you as the survivor annuitant. A QDRO that only divides current benefits, without addressing survivor rights, may leave you with nothing once he passes.² The survivor annuity designation is the piece that keeps money flowing to you after he’s gone.

This matters even more if your ex-husband remarried. Under federal law, a new spouse ordinarily has a legal claim to a survivor annuity. When the QDRO explicitly assigns those survivor benefits to you, they belong to you regardless of a later marriage. The Department of Labor recommends stating clearly in both the decree and the QDRO that survivor benefits go to the alternate payee and not to a new spouse.¹

How It Works by Pension Type

Private Employer Pensions

Private pensions fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which shields plan benefits from outside claims with one carve-out: the QDRO. A properly drafted QDRO specifies the dollar amount or percentage of the benefit assigned to you, the time period involved, and whether you’re entitled to a survivor annuity.² If your QDRO is on file and designates you as survivor annuitant, payments continue to you after his death.

Federal Civilian Pensions (CSRS and FERS)

The Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System don’t use QDROs. Instead, the Office of Personnel Management requires a Court Order Acceptable for Processing (COAP). Under CSRS, a former spouse is entitled to a survivor annuity if the court order or divorce decree expressly provides for it.³ FERS has a parallel provision at 5 U.S.C. § 8445. The maximum former spouse survivor annuity is 55% of the employee’s annuity under CSRS and 50% under FERS.⁴

Military Retired Pay

Military retired pay can be divided under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act, 10 U.S.C. § 1408. A court order tells the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) to send you a portion of your ex-husband’s retired pay directly.⁵ But those payments stop at his death. Continuing income requires Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) coverage. A former spouse can be named as the SBP beneficiary through a court order, or, if the service member never followed through, through a “deemed election” request to DFAS.

Watch the deadline. A deemed election request must reach DFAS within one year of the date of the court order. Miss that window and it cannot be honored.

State and Local Government Pensions

Pensions for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other state or municipal employees generally aren’t governed by ERISA, so federal QDRO rules don’t apply. Each state has its own process. Some use a domestic-relations-order form similar to a QDRO; others require plan-specific paperwork. Contact the specific pension system to learn what it accepts. The principle holds across all of them: no qualifying order on file, no recognition of your claim.

Social Security Survivor Benefits

Social Security is a separate system with its own rules, and it doesn’t require a QDRO or any court order dividing the pension. As a surviving divorced spouse, you can collect survivor benefits on your ex-husband’s earnings record if your marriage lasted at least 10 years, you’re at least 60 (or 50 with a qualifying disability), and you’re generally unmarried. Remarrying after age 60 does not disqualify you.⁶

At full retirement age for survivor benefits, which falls between 66 and 67 depending on your birth year, you can receive up to 100% of what he was entitled to. Claiming as early as age 60 pays 71.5% of his benefit, with the amount rising the longer you wait. If you already receive your own Social Security, you’ll get whichever benefit is higher, not both.

To apply, call the Social Security Administration at 1-800-772-1213 or visit a local office. Bring the death certificate, your final divorce decree, your birth certificate, and your marriage certificate. If a document is missing, SSA will help you obtain it rather than turn you away.⁷

If No Court Order Was Ever Filed

This is the scenario that hurts former spouses the most. If the decree granted you a share of the pension but no QDRO or equivalent order reached the plan, the administrator has no basis to pay you. Once your ex-husband dies, you may be shut out entirely.

There is a narrow path if a valid domestic relations order was obtained while he was alive but simply wasn’t delivered to the plan before his death. At least one federal court has held that a plan must honor such an order even when it arrived post-death. That result is not guaranteed across courts or plans, and pursuing it means legal fees and uncertainty.

If you divorced years ago and never obtained a QDRO or its equivalent, act now, before your ex-husband retires or dies. An attorney who handles pension division can draft the order and get it filed with the plan. Waiting is the single most damaging mistake in this area.

How Remarriage Changes Your Eligibility

Whether remarriage costs you survivor benefits depends on your age when you remarry and which type of benefit is involved.

Social Security: remarrying before age 60 generally ends your eligibility on your ex-husband’s record. Remarrying at 60 or older has no effect.⁶
Federal civilian pensions (FERS and CSRS): remarrying before age 55 terminates your former spouse survivor annuity permanently. An annulment of that later marriage does not restore it.⁸
Military SBP: remarrying before 55 suspends your SBP annuity. If that later marriage ends by divorce, annulment, or death, SBP eligibility is reinstated the first day of the month the marriage ends. Former spouses under 55 must verify their marital status annually.⁹
Private ERISA pensions: the QDRO itself controls, and most plans won’t cut off benefits assigned through a valid QDRO based on your marital status. Check your plan terms.

The 55 and 60 thresholds are worth remembering. If survivor benefits are meaningful income, timing a remarriage around these ages can be the difference between keeping and losing thousands of dollars a year.

Taxes on What You Receive

Pension survivor benefits are generally taxable income. Payments from a federal retirement plan are fully or partly taxable depending on whether the employee’s after-tax contributions have been fully recovered; once the tax-free portion is used up, the rest is fully taxable.¹⁰ You’ll get a Form 1099-R by January 31 each year.

For private pensions, a former spouse receiving payments through a QDRO reports the income on her own tax return, as if she were the plan participant.² A QDRO distribution can also be rolled over into your own IRA, deferring tax until you take withdrawals later.

How to File the Claim

Regardless of pension type, the first step is identifying who administers the plan and contacting them directly.

Private employer pensions: contact the employer’s HR department or the plan administrator listed on any Summary Plan Description from the divorce file.
Federal civilian pensions: contact the Office of Personnel Management and submit a death certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificates of eligible children, and a certified copy of the divorce decree. For CSRS coverage, include any property settlement agreements dated on or after May 7, 1985.¹¹
Military pensions: contact DFAS with your court order, death certificate, and divorce decree.
Social Security: apply online, by phone at 1-800-772-1213, or at a local office.⁷

Keep certified copies of your divorce decree and any QDRO or court order dividing benefits. Those documents are your proof of entitlement. Administrator reviews can take weeks to several months, and additional documentation may be requested along the way. Payments typically start according to the terms of the court order once the claim is approved, and some plans allow retroactive payments back to the date of death.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Qualified Domestic Relations Orders under ERISA: A Practical Guide to Dividing Retirement Benefits
2
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – QDRO: Qualified Domestic Relations Order
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8341 – Survivor Annuities
4
eCFR. Appendix A to Subpart I of Part 838, Title 5 – Recommended Language for Court Orders Awarding Former Spouse Survivor Annuities
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 1408 – Payment of Retired or Retainer Pay in Compliance With Court Orders
6
Social Security Administration. Survivors Benefits
7
Social Security Administration. Information You Need to Apply for Spouse’s or Surviving Spouse’s Benefits
8
eCFR. Subpart C – Current and Former Spouse Benefits
9
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Fall 2025 SBP Newsletter – How Remarriage Before Age 55 Affects SBP Eligibility
10
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Guide to U.S. Civil Service Retirement Benefits
11
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. How Do My Survivors Apply for Benefits