Under the Campos settlement, the Social Security Administration mailed notices to class members in staggered batches from February 12, 2025 through June 2025, and targeted June 2025 for completing most automatic waivers and issuing refunds to people who had already repaid qualifying overpayments. The bulk of automatic waivers — roughly 250,000 of them — were processed by late 2025. If you fell within the automatic waiver group, your refund should have arrived by direct deposit using the payment information SSA had on file. If you haven’t seen anything, the automatic window has largely closed as of early 2026, and the next step is on you rather than the agency.
The Payout Timeline SSA Followed
SSA began mailing Campos settlement notices on February 12, 2025. The mailings went out in weekly batches over 13 weeks, with the final notices sent in June 2025. Each notice told the recipient whether their overpayment had been waived automatically or whether they needed to file a waiver request to get relief.
June 2025 was also SSA’s internal target for finishing most of the automatic waivers and issuing refunds for amounts already repaid. That work carried into late 2025 for the full group of roughly 250,000 people eligible for automatic relief. By early 2026, the automatic phase of the settlement is essentially complete.
Who Got a Refund Without Doing Anything
Automatic refunds went only to a specific slice of class members: people whose SSI overpayment was incurred between March 2020 and September 2020 and was manually processed by an SSA employee rather than flagged through an automated data-matching system. For that group, SSA canceled the debt and, if the person had already paid some or all of it back, treated the returned money as an underpayment and sent it out through the payment method on file — usually direct deposit. No form, no application.
Certain overpayments were carved out of the automatic waiver even within that window. If the overpayment involved fraud, misuse of benefits by a representative payee, an automated identification process (including VA data matching), or had already been reversed or waived, it did not qualify.
Your Refund Can Be Reduced by Other Debts
One thing worth knowing before you check your bank account: SSA follows its standard underpayment rules when issuing Campos refunds. That means the money can be offset against any other outstanding overpayment debt you owe the agency. The check you receive may be smaller than the amount you originally repaid.
If You Didn’t Get a Notice or a Refund
If you believe your overpayment fell within the automatic waiver period but you never received a Campos notice and never saw a refund, you can still ask SSA to review your case. Reference Emergency Message EM-24005 when you contact the agency. That guidance directs SSA technicians on how to apply Campos relief and remains in effect through October 2026.
SSA maintains a dedicated page at ssa.gov/campos with the full settlement agreement, the waiver request form, and the reconsideration application.
Overpayments Outside March Through September 2020
If your SSI overpayment was incurred between October 2020 and April 2023, or was identified through an automated process during the earlier window, the settlement does not send you a refund on its own. You have to request a waiver.
The form is SSA-632-BK, available on the SSA website. When you fill it out, explain any COVID-19-related circumstances that kept you from reporting a change to the agency at the time: illness, closed field offices, phone lines you couldn’t get through on, government travel restrictions, or caregiving duties tied to stay-at-home orders. SSA’s guidance specifically instructs technicians to weigh these factors in deciding whether you were “at fault” for the overpayment.
SSI recipients currently receiving benefits are generally presumed to face hardship from repayment, so if you’re in that group you only need to show you were not at fault. You can skip the financial disclosure portion of the form.
A Related Option for Smaller Overpayments
Separately from Campos, in May 2024 SSA raised its administrative tolerance waiver threshold from $1,000 to $2,000. Overpayments at or below $2,000 can be waived without completing the full SSA-632 form, and SSI recipients can make the request orally. Recipients are presumed not at fault for overpayments of $2,000 or less unless fraud is involved. If your pandemic-era overpayment is small and you’re navigating the waiver process, this is a shorter route worth asking about.
What the Settlement Does Not Do
Campos is not a cash award to class members for their trouble. The money moving under the settlement is the return of overpayments people already repaid, plus the cancellation of debts SSA was still trying to collect. There is no separate compensation fund, and the settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing by the agency.
The settlement also preserves every class member’s right to pursue individual relief on top of what Campos provides: reconsideration requests, standard waiver applications, and administrative or judicial appeals all remain available if the automatic process didn’t reach your case or didn’t resolve it in your favor.