---
kind: "range"
citation: "20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1572–404.1575"
title: "20"
from: "404.1572"
to: "404.1575"
count: 5
url: "https://uscodex.org/cfr/20/404.1572..404.1575"
---

# §404.1572. What we mean by substantial gainful activity.


Substantial gainful activity is work activity that is both substantial and gainful:

- (a) **Substantial work activity.** Substantial work activity is work activity that involves doing significant physical or mental activities. Your work may be substantial even if it is done on a part-time basis or if you do less, get paid less, or have less responsibility than when you worked before.
- (b) **Gainful work activity.** Gainful work activity is work activity that you do for pay or profit. Work activity is gainful if it is the kind of work usually done for pay or profit, whether or not a profit is realized.
- (c) **Some other activities.** Generally, we do not consider activities like taking care of yourself, household tasks, hobbies, therapy, school attendance, club activities, or social programs to be substantial gainful activity.

# §404.1573. General information about work activity.

- (a) **The nature of your work.** If your duties require use of your experience, skills, supervision and responsibilities, or contribute substantially to the operation of a business, this tends to show that you have the ability to work at the substantial gainful activity level.
- (b) **How well you perform.** We consider how well you do your work when we determine whether or not you are doing substantial gainful activity. If you do your work satisfactorily, this may show that you are working at the substantial gainful activity level. If you are unable, because of your impairments, to do ordinary or simple tasks satisfactorily without more supervision or assistance than is usually given other people doing similar work, this may show that you are not working at the substantial gainful activity level. If you are doing work that involves minimal duties that make little or no demands on you and that are of little or no use to your employer, or to the operation of a business if you are self-employed, this does not show that you are working at the substantial gainful activity level.
- (c) **If your work is done under special conditions.** The work you are doing may be done under special conditions that take into account your impairment, such as work done in a sheltered workshop or as a patient in a hospital. If your work is done under special conditions, we may find that it does not show that you have the ability to do substantial gainful activity. Also, if you are forced to stop or reduce your work because of the removal of special conditions that were related to your impairment and essential to your work, we may find that your work does not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. However, work done under special conditions may show that you have the necessary skills and ability to work at the substantial gainful activity level. Examples of the special conditions that may relate to your impairment include, but are not limited to, situations in which—
  - (1) You required and received special assistance from other employees in performing your work;
  - (2) You were allowed to work irregular hours or take frequent rest periods;
  - (3) You were provided with special equipment or were assigned work especially suited to your impairment;
  - (4) You were able to work only because of specially arranged circumstances, for example, other persons helped you prepare for or get to and from your work;
  - (5) You were permitted to work at a lower standard of productivity or efficiency than other employees; or
  - (6) You were given the opportunity to work despite your impairment because of family relationship, past association with your employer, or your employer's concern for your welfare.
- (d) **If you are self-employed.** Supervisory, managerial, advisory or other significant personal services that you perform as a self-employed individual may show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity.
- (e) **Time spent in work.** While the time you spend in work is important, we will not decide whether or not you are doing substantial gainful activity only on that basis. We will still evaluate the work to decide whether it is substantial and gainful regardless of whether you spend more time or less time at the job than workers who are not impaired and who are doing similar work as a regular means of their livelihood.

# §404.1574. Evaluation guides if you are an employee.

- (a) We use several guides to decide whether the work you have done shows that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. If you are working or have worked as an employee, we will use the provisions in [paragraphs (a) through (d)](#a..d) of this section that are relevant to your work activity. We will use these provisions whenever they are appropriate, whether in connection with your application for disability benefits (when we make an initial determination on your application and throughout any appeals you may request), after you have become entitled to a period of disability or to disability benefits, or both.
  - (1) **Your earnings may show you have done substantial gainful activity.** Generally, in evaluating your work activity for substantial gainful activity purposes, our primary consideration will be the earnings you derive from the work activity. We will use your earnings to determine whether you have done substantial gainful activity unless we have information from you, your employer, or others that shows that we should not count all of your earnings. The amount of your earnings from work you have done (regardless of whether it is unsheltered or sheltered work) may show that you have engaged in substantial gainful activity. Generally, if you worked for substantial earnings, we will find that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. However, the fact that your earnings were not substantial will not necessarily show that you are not able to do substantial gainful activity. We generally consider work that you are forced to stop or to reduce below the substantial gainful activity level after a short time because of your impairment to be an unsuccessful work attempt. Your earnings from an unsuccessful work attempt will not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity. We will use the criteria in [paragraph (c)](#c) of this section to determine if the work you did was an unsuccessful work attempt.
  - (2) **We consider only the amounts you earn.** When we decide whether your earnings show that you have done substantial gainful activity, we do not consider any income that is not directly related to your productivity. When your earnings exceed the reasonable value of the work you perform, we consider only that part of your pay which you actually earn. If your earnings are being subsidized, we do not consider the amount of the subsidy when we determine if your earnings show that you have done substantial gainful activity. We consider your work to be subsidized if the true value of your work, when compared with the same or similar work done by unimpaired persons, is less than the actual amount of earnings paid to you for your work. For example, when a person with a serious impairment does simple tasks under close and continuous supervision, our determination of whether that person has done substantial gainful activity will not be based only on the amount of the wages paid. We will first determine whether the person received a subsidy; that is, we will determine whether the person was being paid more than the reasonable value of the actual services performed. We will then subtract the value of the subsidy from the person's gross earnings to determine the earnings we will use to determine if he or she has done substantial gainful activity.
  - (3) **If you are working in a sheltered or special environment.** If you are working in a sheltered workshop, you may or may not be earning the amounts you are being paid. The fact that the sheltered workshop or similar facility is operating at a loss or is receiving some charitable contributions or governmental aid does not establish that you are not earning all you are being paid. Since persons in military service being treated for severe impairments usually continue to receive full pay, we evaluate work activity in a therapy program or while on limited duty by comparing it with similar work in the civilian work force or on the basis of reasonable worth of the work, rather than on the actual amount of the earnings.
- (b) **Earnings guidelines—**
  - (1) **General.** If you are an employee, we first consider the criteria in [paragraph (a)](#a) of this section and [§ 404.1576](/cfr/20/404.1576.md), and then the guides in paragraphs [(b)(2)](#b-2) and [(3)](#b-3) of this section. When we review your earnings to determine if you have been performing substantial gainful activity, we will subtract the value of any subsidized earnings (see [paragraph (a)(2)](#a-2) of this section) and the reasonable cost of any impairment-related work expenses from your gross earnings (see [§ 404.1576](/cfr/20/404.1576.md)). The resulting amount is the amount we use to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. We will generally average your earnings for comparison with the earnings guidelines in paragraphs [(b)(2)](#b-2) and [(3)](#b-3) of this section. See [§ 404.1574a](/cfr/20/404.1574a.md) for our rules on averaging earnings.
  - (2) **Earnings that will ordinarily show that you have engaged in substantial gainful activity.** We will consider that your earnings from your work activity as an employee (including earnings from work in a sheltered workshop or a comparable facility especially set up for severely impaired persons) show that you engaged in substantial gainful activity if:
    - (i) **Before January 1, 2001,—** they averaged more than the amount(s) in Table 1 of this section for the time(s) in which you worked.
    - (ii) **Beginning January 1,—** 2001, and each year thereafter, they average more than the larger of:
      - (A) The amount for the previous year, or
      - (B) An amount adjusted for national wage growth, calculated by multiplying $700 by the ratio of the national average wage index for the year 2 calendar years before the year for which the amount is being calculated to the national average wage index for the year 1998. We will then round the resulting amount to the next higher multiple of $10 where such amount is a multiple of $5 but not of $10 and to the nearest multiple of $10 in any other case.
  - (3) **Earnings that will ordinarily show that you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity—**
    - (i) **General.** If your average monthly earnings are equal to or less than the amount(s) determined under [paragraph (b)(2)](#b-2) of this section for the year(s) in which you work, we will generally consider that the earnings from your work as an employee (including earnings from work in a sheltered workshop or comparable facility) will show that you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity. We will generally not consider other information in addition to your earnings except in the circumstances described in [paragraph (b)(3)(ii)](#b-3-ii) of this section.
    - (ii) **When we will consider other information in addition to your earnings.** We will generally consider other information in addition to your earnings if there is evidence indicating that you may be engaging in substantial gainful activity or that you are in a position to control when earnings are paid to you or the amount of wages paid to you (for example, if you are working for a small corporation owned by a relative). (See [paragraph (b)(3)(iii)](#b-3-iii) of this section for when we do not apply this rule.) Examples of other information we may consider include, whether—
      - (A) Your work is comparable to that of unimpaired people in your community who are doing the same or similar occupations as their means of livelihood, taking into account the time, energy, skill, and responsibility involved in the work; and
      - (B) Your work, although significantly less than that done by unimpaired people, is clearly worth the amounts shown in [paragraph (b)(2)](#b-2) of this section, according to pay scales in your community.
    - (iii) **Special rule for considering earnings alone when evaluating the work you do after you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months.** Notwithstanding [paragraph (b)(3)(ii)](#b-3-ii) of this section, we will not consider other information in addition to your earnings to evaluate the work you are doing or have done if—
      - (A) At the time you do the work, you are entitled to social security disability benefits and you have received such benefits for at least 24 months (see [paragraph (b)(3)(iv)](#b-3-iv) of this section); and
      - (B) We are evaluating that work to consider whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity or demonstrated the ability to engage in substantial gainful activity for the purpose of determining whether your disability has ceased because of your work activity (see §§ [404.1592a(a)(1)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-1) and [(3)(ii)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=3-ii) and [404.1594(d)(5)](/cfr/20/404.1594.md?p=d-5) and [(f)(1)](/cfr/20/404.1594.md?p=f-1)).
    - (iv) **When we consider you to have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months.** For purposes of [paragraph (b)(3)(iii)](#b-3-iii) of this section, social security disability benefits means disability insurance benefits for a disabled worker, child's insurance benefits based on disability, or widow's or widower's insurance benefits based on disability. We consider you to have received such benefits for at least 24 months beginning with the first day of the first month following the 24th month for which you actually received social security disability benefits that you were due or constructively received such benefits. The 24 months do not have to be consecutive. We will consider you to have constructively received a benefit for a month for purposes of the 24-month requirement if you were otherwise due a social security disability benefit for that month and your monthly benefit was withheld to recover an overpayment. Any months for which you were entitled to benefits but for which you did not actually or constructively receive a benefit payment will not be counted for the 24-month requirement. If you also receive supplemental security income payments based on disability or blindness under title XVI of the Social Security Act, months for which you received only supplemental security income payments will not be counted for the 24-month requirement.
- (c) **The unsuccessful work attempt—**
  - (1) **General.** Ordinarily, work you have done will not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity if, after you worked for a period of 6 months or less, your impairment forced you to stop working or to reduce the amount of work you do so that your earnings from such work fall below the substantial gainful activity earnings level in [paragraph (b)(2)](#b-2) of this section, and you meet the conditions described in paragraphs [(c)(2)](#c-2), [(3)](#c-3), and [(4)](#c-4) of this section. We will use the provisions of this paragraph when we make an initial determination on your application for disability benefits and throughout any appeal you may request. Except as set forth in [§ 404.1592a(a)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a), we will also apply the provisions of this paragraph if you are already entitled to disability benefits, when you work and we consider whether the work you are doing is substantial gainful activity or demonstrates the ability to do substantial gainful activity.
  - (2) **Event that must precede an unsuccessful work attempt.** There must be a significant break in the continuity of your work before we will consider that you began a work attempt that later proved unsuccessful. You must have stopped working or reduced your work and earnings below the substantial gainful activity earnings level because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions that were essential to the further performance of your work. We explain what we mean by special conditions in [§ 404.1573(c)](/cfr/20/404.1573.md?p=c). We will consider your prior work to be “discontinued” for a significant period if you were out of work at least 30 consecutive days. We will also consider your prior work to be “discontinued” if, because of your impairment, you were forced to change to another type of work or another employer.
  - (3) **If you worked 6 months or less.** We will consider work of 6 months or less to be an unsuccessful work attempt if you stopped working or you reduced your work and earnings below the substantial gainful activity earnings level because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions that took into account your impairment and permitted you to work.
  - (4) **If you worked more than 6 months.** We will not consider work you performed at the substantial gainful activity earnings level for more than 6 months to be an unsuccessful work attempt regardless of why it ended or was reduced below the substantial gainful activity earnings level.
- (d) **Work activity in certain volunteer programs.** If you work as a volunteer in certain programs administered by the Federal government under the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 or the Small Business Act, we will not count any payments you receive from these programs as earnings when we determine whether you are engaging in substantial gainful activity. These payments may include a minimal stipend, payments for supportive services such as housing, supplies and equipment, an expense allowance, or reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses. We will also disregard the services you perform as a volunteer in applying any of the substantial gainful activity tests discussed in paragraph (b)(6) of this section. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will apply only if you are a volunteer in a program explicitly mentioned in the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 or the Small Business Act. Programs explicitly mentioned in those Acts include Volunteers in Service to America, University Year for ACTION, Special Volunteer Programs, Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparent Program, Service Corps of Retired Executives, and Active Corps of Executives. We will not exclude under this paragraph, volunteer work you perform in other programs or any nonvolunteer work you may perform, including nonvolunteer work under one of the specified programs. For civilians in certain government-sponsored job training and employment programs, we evaluate the work activity on a case-by-case basis under the substantial gainful activity earnings test. In programs such as these, subsidies often occur. We will subtract the value of any subsidy and use the remainder to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. See [paragraphs (a)(2)-(3)](#a-2..a-3) of this section.
- (e) **Work activity as a member or consultant of an advisory committee established under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 2.** If you are serving as a member or consultant of an advisory committee, board, commission, council, or similar group established under FACA, we will not count any payments you receive from serving on such committees as earnings when we determine whether you are engaging in substantial gainful activity. These payments may include compensation, travel expenses, and special assistance. We also will exclude the services you perform as a member or consultant of an advisory committee established under FACA in applying any of the substantial gainful activity tests discussed in paragraph (b)(6) of this section. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will apply only if you are a member or consultant of an advisory committee specifically authorized by statute, or by the President, or determined as a matter of formal record by the head of a federal government agency. This exclusion from the substantial gainful activity provisions will not apply if your service as a member or consultant of an advisory committee is part of your duties or is required as an employee of any governmental or non-governmental organization, agency, or business.

# §404.1574a. When and how we will average your earnings.

- (a) If your work as an employee or as a self-employed person was continuous without significant change in work patterns or earnings, and there has been no change in the substantial gainful activity earnings levels, we will average your earnings over the entire period of work requiring evaluation to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. See [§ 404.1592a](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md) for information on the reentitlement period.
- (b) If you work over a period of time during which the substantial gainful activity earnings levels change, we will average your earnings separately for each period in which a different substantial gainful activity earnings level applies.
- (c) If there is a significant change in your work pattern or earnings during the period of work requiring evaluation, we will average your earnings over each separate period of work to determine if any of your work efforts were substantial gainful activity.
- (d) We will not average your earnings in determining whether benefits should be paid for any month(s) during or after the reentitlement period that occurs after the month disability has been determined to have ceased because of the performance of substantial gainful activity. See [§ 404.1592a](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md) for information on the reentitlement period. The following examples illustrate what we mean by a significant change in the work pattern of an employee and when we will average and will not average earnings.

# §404.1575. Evaluation guides if you are self-employed.

- (a) **If you are a self-employed person.** If you are working or have worked as a self-employed person, we will use the provisions in [paragraphs (a) through (e)](#a..e) of this section that are relevant to your work activity. We will use these provisions whenever they are appropriate, whether in connection with your application for disability benefits (when we make an initial determination on your application and throughout any appeals you may request), after you have become entitled to a period of disability or to disability benefits, or both.
  - (1) **How we evaluate the work you do after you have become entitled to disability benefits.** If you are entitled to social security disability benefits and you work as a self-employed person, the way we will evaluate your work activity will depend on whether the work activity occurs before or after you have received such benefits for at least 24 months and on the purpose of the evaluation. For purposes of paragraphs [(a)](#a) and [(e)](#e) of this section, social security disability benefits means disability insurance benefits for a disabled worker, child's insurance benefits based on disability, or widow's or widower's insurance benefits based on disability. We will use the rules in [paragraph (e)(2)](#e-2) of this section to determine if you have received such benefits for at least 24 months.
    - (i) We will use the guides in [paragraph (a)(2)](#a-2) of this section to evaluate any work activity you do before you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months to determine whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity, regardless of the purpose of the evaluation.
    - (ii) We will use the guides in [paragraph (e)](#e) of this section to evaluate any work activity you do after you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months to determine whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity for the purpose of determining whether your disability has ceased because of your work activity.
    - (iii) If we have determined under [§ 404.1592a(a)(1)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-1) that your disability ceased in a month during the reentitlement period because you performed substantial gainful activity, and we need to decide under § [404.1592a(a)(2)(i)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-2-i) or [(a)(3)(i)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-3-i) whether you are doing substantial gainful activity in a subsequent month in or after your reentitlement period, we will use the guides in [paragraph (a)(2)](#a-2) of this section (subject to the limitations described in § [404.1592a(a)(2)(i)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-2-i) and [(a)(3)(i)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-3-i)) to determine whether your work activity in that month is substantial gainful activity. We will use the guides in [paragraph (a)(2)](#a-2) of this section for these purposes, regardless of whether your work activity in that month occurs before or after you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months.
  - (2) **General rules for evaluating your work activity if you are self-employed.** We will consider your activities and their value to your business to decide whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity if you are self-employed. We will not consider your income alone because the amount of income you actually receive may depend on a number of different factors, such as capital investment and profit-sharing agreements. We will generally consider work that you were forced to stop or reduce to below substantial gainful activity after 6 months or less because of your impairment as an unsuccessful work attempt. See [paragraph (d)](#d) of this section. We will evaluate your work activity based on the value of your services to the business regardless of whether you receive an immediate income for your services. We determine whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity by applying three tests. If you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity under test one, then we will consider tests two and three. The tests are as follows:
    - (i) **Test one—** You have engaged in substantial gainful activity if you render services that are significant to the operation of the business and receive a substantial income from the business. Paragraphs [(b)](#b) and [(c)](#c) of this section explain what we mean by significant services and substantial income for purposes of this test.
    - (ii) **Test Two—** You have engaged in substantial gainful activity if your work activity, in terms of factors such as hours, skills, energy output, efficiency, duties, and responsibilities, is comparable to that of unimpaired individuals in your community who are in the same or similar businesses as their means of livelihood.
    - (iii) **Test Three—** You have engaged in substantial gainful activity if your work activity, although not comparable to that of unimpaired individuals, is clearly worth the amount shown in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2) when considered in terms of its value to the business, or when compared to the salary that an owner would pay to an employee to do the work you are doing.
- (b) **What we mean by significant services.**
  - (1) If you are not a farm landlord and you operate a business entirely by yourself, any services that you render are significant to the business. If your business involves the services of more than one person, we will consider you to be rendering significant services if you contribute more than half the total time required for the management of the business, or you render management services for more than 45 hours a month regardless of the total management time required by the business.
  - (2) If you are a farm landlord, that is, you rent farm land to another, we will consider you to be rendering significant services if you materially participate in the production or the management of the production of the things raised on the rented farm. (See [§ 404.1082](/cfr/20/404.1082.md) of this chapter for an explanation of material participation.) If you were given social security earnings credits because you materially participated in the activities of the farm and you continue these same activities, we will consider you to be rendering significant services.
- (c) **What we mean by substantial income—**
  - (1) **Determining countable income.** We deduct your normal business expenses from your gross income to determine net income. Once we determine your net income, we deduct the reasonable value of any significant amount of unpaid help furnished by your spouse, children, or others. Miscellaneous duties that ordinarily would not have commercial value would not be considered significant. We deduct impairment-related work expenses that have not already been deducted in determining your net income. Impairment-related work expenses are explained in [§ 404.1576](/cfr/20/404.1576.md). We deduct unincurred business expenses paid for you by another individual or agency. An unincurred business expense occurs when a sponsoring agency or another person incurs responsibility for the payment of certain business expenses, e.g., rent, utilities, or purchases and repair of equipment, or provides you with equipment, stock, or other material for the operation of your business. We deduct soil bank payments if they were included as farm income. That part of your income remaining after we have made all applicable deductions represents the actual value of work performed. The resulting amount is the amount we use to determine if you have done substantial gainful activity. For purposes of this section, we refer to this amount as your countable income. We will generally average your countable income for comparison with the earnings guidelines in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2). See [§ 404.1574a](/cfr/20/404.1574a.md) for our rules on averaging of earnings.
  - (2) **When countable income is considered substantial.** We will consider your countable income to be substantial if—
    - (i) It averages more than the amounts described in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2); or
    - (ii) It averages less than the amounts described in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2) but it is either comparable to what it was before you became seriously impaired if we had not considered your earnings or is comparable to that of unimpaired self-employed persons in your community who are in the same or a similar business as their means of livelihood.
- (d) **The unsuccessful work attempt—**
  - (1) **General.** Ordinarily, work you have done will not show that you are able to do substantial gainful activity if, after working for a period of 6 months or less, you were forced by your impairment to stop working or to reduce the amount of work you do so that you are no longer performing substantial gainful activity and you meet the conditions described in paragraphs [(d)(2)](#d-2), [(3)](#d-3), and [(4)](#d-4) of this section. We will use the provisions of this paragraph when we make an initial determination on your application for disability benefits and throughout any appeal you may request. Except as set forth in [§ 404.1592a(a)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a), we will also apply the provisions of this paragraph if you are already entitled to disability benefits, when you work and we consider whether the work you are doing is substantial gainful activity or demonstrates the ability to do substantial gainful activity.
  - (2) **Event that must precede an unsuccessful work attempt.** There must be a significant break in the continuity of your work before we will consider you to have begun a work attempt that later proved unsuccessful. You must have stopped working or reduced your work and earnings below substantial gainful activity because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions which took into account your impairment and permitted you to work. Examples of such special conditions may include any significant amount of unpaid help furnished by your spouse, children, or others, or unincurred business expenses, as described in [paragraph (c)](#c) of this section, paid for you by another individual or agency. We will consider your prior work to be “discontinued” for a significant period if you were out of work at least 30 consecutive days. We will also consider your prior work to be “discontinued” if, because of your impairment, you were forced to change to another type of work.
  - (3) **If you worked 6 months or less.** We will consider work of 6 months or less to be an unsuccessful work attempt if you stopped working or you reduced your work and earnings below the substantial gainful activity earnings level because of your impairment or because of the removal of special conditions that took into account your impairment and permitted you to work.
  - (4) **If you worked more than 6 months.** We will not consider work you performed at the substantial gainful activity level for more than 6 months to be an unsuccessful work attempt regardless of why it ended or was reduced below the substantial gainful activity earnings level.
- (e) **Special rules for evaluating the work you do after you have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months—**
  - (1) **General.** We will apply the provisions of this paragraph to evaluate the work you are doing or have done if, at the time you do the work, you are entitled to social security disability benefits and you have received such benefits for at least 24 months. We will apply the provisions of this paragraph only when we are evaluating that work to consider whether you have engaged in substantial gainful activity or demonstrated the ability to engage in substantial gainful activity for the purpose of determining whether your disability has ceased because of your work activity (see §§ [404.1592a(a)(1)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=a-1) and [(3)(ii)](/cfr/20/404.1592a.md?p=3-ii) and [404.1594(d)(5)](/cfr/20/404.1594.md?p=d-5) and [(f)(1)](/cfr/20/404.1594.md?p=f-1)). We will use the countable income test described in [paragraph (e)(3)](#e-3) of this section to determine whether the work you do after you have received such benefits for at least 24 months is substantial gainful activity or demonstrates the ability to do substantial gainful activity. We will not consider the services you perform in that work to determine that the work you are doing shows that you are able to engage in substantial gainful activity and are, therefore, no longer disabled. However, we may consider the services you perform to determine that you are not doing substantial gainful activity. We will generally consider work that you were forced to stop or reduce below substantial gainful activity after 6 months or less because of your impairment as an unsuccessful work attempt. See [paragraph (d)](#d) of this section.
  - (2) **The 24-month requirement.** For purposes of paragraphs [(a)(1)](#a-1) and (e) of this section, we consider you to have received social security disability benefits for at least 24 months beginning with the first day of the first month following the 24th month for which you actually received social security disability benefits that you were due or constructively received such benefits. The 24 months do not have to be consecutive. We will consider you to have constructively received a benefit for a month for purposes of the 24-month requirement if you were otherwise due a social security disability benefit for that month and your monthly benefit was withheld to recover an overpayment. Any months for which you were entitled to benefits but for which you did not actually or constructively receive a benefit payment will not be counted for the 24-month requirement. If you also receive supplemental security income payments based on disability or blindness under title XVI of the Social Security Act, months for which you received only supplemental security income payments will not be counted for the 24-month requirement.
  - (3) **Countable income test.** We will compare your countable income to the earnings guidelines in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2) to determine if you have engaged in substantial gainful activity. See [paragraph (c)(1)](#c-1) of this section for an explanation of countable income. We will consider that you have engaged in substantial gainful activity if your monthly countable income averages more than the amounts described in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2) for the month(s) in which you work, unless the evidence shows that you did not render significant services in the month(s). See [paragraph (b)](#b) of this section for what we mean by significant services. If your average monthly countable income is equal to or less than the amounts in [§ 404.1574(b)(2)](/cfr/20/404.1574.md?p=b-2) for the month(s) in which you work, or if the evidence shows that you did not render significant services in the month(s), we will consider that your work as a self-employed person shows that you have not engaged in substantial gainful activity.