Disability Appeals Council: Do I Still Have a Chance to Win?

If you’ve received an unfavorable decision after your disability hearing with an administrative law judge (ALJ), you’re probably wondering what your next steps should be. Fortunately, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has an additional level of review called the Appeals Council that gives you a chance to explain why you think the ALJ didn’t decide your case correctly.

To appeal an ALJ denial to the Appeals Council, you’ll need to file a formal request for review asking the council to take a look at the ALJ’s decision. The council can grant, deny, or dismiss your request for review. If your request is granted, you’ll have the opportunity for another hearing. Statistically, your chances of success at the Appeals Council are low, but you can increase your odds by learning how to present your strongest case to the council.

What Are My Chances of Winning at the Appeals Council Level?

Winning your case at the Appeals Council is difficult, but not impossible. If, after reading your unfavorable decision, you discover that the ALJ didn’t address one of your medical conditions or missed an important piece of evidence. In that case, you could try to convince the Appeals Council to accept your request and remand (send back) your case for a new hearing.

Social Security reports that, as of 2025, the Appeals Council reviews cases only about 17% of the time, and the council remands cases for a new hearing only 15% of the time. Keep in mind that, even if the Appeals Council does send your case back to the ALJ for a closer look, you’ll still have to get approval from an ALJ before the SSA can award you benefits.

While the Appeals Council statistics aren’t especially encouraging, if your case is remanded, you have a good chance of eventually getting awarded partial or full benefits. About the same percentage (50%) of remanded disability cases are approved as cases that are at the hearing level for the first time. You can improve your odds by reviewing your decision to see if the ALJ made a mistake significant enough for the Appeals Council to send your case back for correction.

Top 6 Reasons Why the Appeals Council Remands a Case

When the Appeals Council decides to remand your unfavorable decision, the council will let you know in writing why it’s doing so. Social Security publishes statistics on the top reasons why the Appeals Council sends a case back to the hearing level:

• The ALJ didn’t take mental restrictions into consideration. Any limitations you have due to a mental condition—including side effects from medication or dealing with pain—must be mentioned in the residual functional capacity (RFC) report that Social Security creates.
• The ALJ didn’t address evidence in the record. ALJs are legally required to explain the reasoning behind their decision, with reference to evidence in your medical records. If the ALJ didn’t mention important evidence about your condition, such as an X-ray, the Appeals Council will likely remand your case.
• The ALJ didn’t discuss one of your medical source statements.The SSA takes doctors' opinions seriously when deciding whether you’re disabled. ALJs aren’t allowed to ignore or disregard a medical source opinion.
• The ALJ didn’t have a good reason to find that your symptoms weren’t limiting. ALJs need to base the restrictions in your RFC on symptoms that are tied to objective evidence. If you have severe degeneration in your neck but the ALJ thinks you can lift 100 pounds, the council will want to see that the ALJ’s reasoning makes sense.
• The ALJ didn’t discuss why a medical opinion wasn’t given much weight. ALJs don’t have to agree with every doctor’s opinion, but they must explain why they prefer one opinion over another. This is called giving an opinion “more weight.”
• The ALJ didn’t take all of your physical limitations into account. The RFC your ALJ created needs to reflect all exertional and nonexertional limitations in your medical records, including postural restrictions (bending, stooping, kneeling) and manipulative restrictions (using your hands and arms to reach, grasp, and move objects).

Additional reasons for an Appeals Council remand can include:

• not fully developing the record (the ALJ wrote the decision without having all the available evidence)
• incomplete testimony from a vocational expert, or
• not taking into consideration that you need to use an assistive device such as a cane or walker.

Review your disability file and the unfavorable decision to see if one (or more) of the above errors were made. If you find any, send a short statement along with your request for review that outlines why the ALJ was wrong. Then, if the Appeals Council agrees, they will remand your case and give the ALJ instructions on how to correct them (for example, to pay more attention to specific medical opinions).

How Do I Get the Appeals Council to Remand My Case?

The Appeals Council will only remand cases where the ALJ has made a “reversible error,” meaning one that affects the outcome of your case. Not all mistakes that ALJs make are reversible errors, so you’ll need to make a persuasive argument that the ALJ erred on something significant enough that it could change your decision from unfavorable to favorable.

Most of the reasons why the Appeals Council remands cases have to do with your medical record, so it helps to start there. If the ALJ said that you could return to your past work as a software engineer, for example, but neglected to discuss a nerve conduction study showing significant latency in the ulnar nerve (a sign that you’ll have a lot of trouble using a computer keyboard), mention that in your statement to the Appeals Council.

You can also submit new and material evidence to the Appeals Council (for example, doctors’ notes documenting that your condition is getting worse or an MRI showing previously undiagnosed degenerative disc disease). Evidence is new and material when it wasn’t part of your disability case file before the judge’s decision, but could have changed the outcome of your case if the ALJ had known about it.

If the new evidence relates to the period before the ALJ made their decision, the Appeals Council will consider it. But if the new evidence relates to the period starting after the ALJ decision, the Appeals Council won’t consider the additional evidence and will return it to you with a notice about why it was rejected. You’ll then need to wait for the Appeals Council to finish reviewing your case before you can start a new disability application.

Can I File a New Disability Application During Appeals Council Review?

It’s tempting to just start another disability application while you request review by the Appeals Council and potentially cover your bases at both ends of the lengthy application process. Previously, the SSA did allow applicants who were denied benefits at the hearing level to file a new initial application and submit an appeal for the old application to the Appeals Council at the same time.

But because having somebody with multiple applications at different stages of the disability determination process causes unnecessary confusion—such as submitting new evidence for an SSDI reconsideration and an Appeals Council review simultaneously—the SSA has disallowed the practice under policy ruling SSR 11-1p. Now, you’ll have to choose between filing a new claim or Appeals Council review. If you do file a new application, the SSA will automatically forward the application to the Appeals Council to be combined with your existing case.

While you probably won’t be allowed to have an open claim at both the Appeals Council and initial levels, if you file a new application within six months of receiving a denial from the Appeals Council, the date of your request for review to the Appeals Council will be used as your filing date for the new application. Your filing date can affect how much back pay you’ll get if you’re ultimately approved, so it can be essential to have this early protective filing date.

Help From an Attorney Can Improve Your Chances

Knowing which mistakes to look for can be difficult. If you haven’t done so already, consider getting help from a disability attorney or advocate. Your representative can untangle the often complicated legal language used by the Appeals Council and in the unfavorable decision to discover which errors the ALJ might have made.

An experienced lawyer can also help you decide whether you should appeal your disability denial to the Appeals Council or whether it makes more sense to start your claim over. If you’re interested in hiring a lawyer to help with your appeal, check out our article on finding a legal professional to help you with your disability claim for more information.