What a long wait means for your claim
The wait on this page is the time between asking for a hearing and sitting in front of a judge. It does not include the decision that follows, or the months already spent on the initial application and reconsideration. At the offices with the longest averages, that is 10 months between the request and the hearing, before any decision is written.
A long wait delays money but does not shrink what is owed: approved benefits are paid back, within SSA's limits, to when you became eligible (see the back-pay question below). The harder part is often the wait itself: rent, bills and treatment do not pause for 7 to 10 months.
The judge decides on the record as it stands at the hearing. A long wait means more months of medical history that the file should show: new treatment, test results, hospital stays and changes in what you can do. Records that stop at reconsideration leave the judge looking at an older picture of your health.
Pending cases and judges describe the office, not your case. An office with a large backlog for its number of judges has more cases waiting for each hearing slot, and SSA transfers cases between offices to balance the load.
What you can do while you wait
You cannot pick a faster office, but SSA's own rules describe several ways a case can be heard sooner or decided without a hearing.
- Tell SSA if your case is critical. SSA treats some cases as critical and schedules them in the first open hearing slots: terminal illness, a 100% permanent and total VA disability rating, military casualty or wounded warrior cases, Compassionate Allowances conditions, homelessness, and dire need. Dire need means you lack the income or resources to deal with an immediate threat to your health or safety, such as having no food, no medicine or medical care, or no heat, water or electricity at home. You can call, fax or write to the hearing office, and SSA may ask you to describe the situation on form SSA-795. SSA reviews a critical case for an on-the-record decision first, and if the first open slot is less than 75 days away it asks you to waive the usual notice in writing (SSA critical case procedures).
- Ask for an on-the-record decision. When the evidence already supports approval, a judge can issue a fully favorable decision without holding a hearing (20 CFR 404.948 for SSDI, 416.1448 for SSI). Claimants and their representatives ask for one in writing, pointing the judge to the medical evidence that supports it.
- Keep the file current. SSA asks that you submit evidence, or tell the hearing office about it, at least five business days before the hearing (20 CFR 404.935). Sending records as you get them keeps the file ready for an early review.
- Watch for the hearing notice. SSA mails the notice at least 75 days before the hearing date. Keep your address and phone number current with SSA so it reaches you.
Common questions about hearing wait times
For hearings held in July 2026, the national average was 8.2 months from the hearing request to the hearing itself. Office averages ran from 7 to 10 months. The written decision comes after the hearing, so the full time from request to decision is longer: at the office level it averaged 217 to 352 days for cases closed in fiscal year 2026.
No. SSA sends your hearing request to the office that serves the area where you live. SSA can move cases to another office or to a National Hearing Center to balance workloads, and a judge based elsewhere may hold your hearing by video or phone, but the claimant does not pick the office.
SSA expedites critical cases: terminal illness, a 100% permanent and total VA disability rating, military casualty or wounded warrior cases, Compassionate Allowances conditions, homelessness and dire need. Tell the hearing office by phone, fax or mail. Separately, you or your representative can ask a judge to decide the case on the record, without a hearing, if the evidence already supports approval.
No. If SSDI is approved, past-due benefits generally go back to the month you became entitled, after the five-month waiting period and up to 12 months before the month you applied. SSI can be paid back to the first full month after you applied. A long wait delays the money; it does not reduce what is owed.
They are two SSA measures. The wait time is the average number of months from hearing request to hearing held, for hearings in one month (July 2026). The processing time is the average number of days from request to a decision or dismissal, for every case the office closed in fiscal year 2026 through July 31, 2026. Each office's row shows both.
How this ranking is built
Every figure comes from the Social Security Administration's Office of Hearings Operations public data: the monthly report of average wait until a hearing is held, the hearing office workload report, and the judges' disposition data.
- Average wait: months from hearing request to hearing held, for hearings held in July 2026. Offices are ranked from longest to shortest; ties go to the longer processing time, then the office name.
- Processing time: average days from hearing request to a decision or dismissal, for cases the office closed in fiscal year 2026 through July 31, 2026.
- Approval rate: the share of the office's judge decisions that were fully or partially favorable over the 12 months from July 26, 2025 to July 31, 2026. Dismissals are not decisions and are left out. It is the same figure each office's page shows; how we calculate it.
- Judges: judges whose most recent office on record is this one and who appear in SSA's latest disposition file (July 2026), the same count each office's page gives.
- Pending and closed: cases waiting at the office on July 31, 2026, and cases it decided or dismissed in fiscal year 2026 through that date.
Four offices are not ranked because SSA's latest figures for them are from an earlier period, and ranking them beside July 2026 figures would mix periods:
- Albuquerque National Hearing Center, NM: latest wait figure from June 2026
- Baltimore National Hearing Center, MD: latest wait figure from May 2026
- Chicago National Hearing Center, IL: latest wait figure from June 2026
- St. Louis National Hearing Center, MO: latest wait figure from May 2026
SSA publishes this data for research. The ranking and the conclusions drawn from it are ClaimsBoost's, not SSA's. Your own wait depends on your case and when you asked for a hearing.