Can You Get Disability Benefits for Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is a type of autoimmune digestive disorder that prevents you from eating foods containing gluten, a protein that can be found in barley, rye, and wheat products. When you have celiac disease, your body responds to gluten by destroying villi, tiny protrusions in your small intestine that help absorb nutrients from food into your bloodstream.

Common symptoms of celiac disease—such as abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea—can make many job tasks very uncomfortable (and in some cases, impossible). Gastrointestinal disorders such as celiac disease may be considered disabling if they significantly interfere with your ability to work regularly for at least one year. If you’re thinking about applying for Social Security benefits (SSDI or SSI) due to celiac disease, it’s important to learn a few basics about the disability determination process and what medical evidence you’ll need to win your claim.

When Is Celiac Disease a Disability?

Celiac disease is usually effectively treated by switching to a gluten-free diet, so it can be difficult to get benefits based only on the disorder. That’s because in order to qualify for disability benefits, Social Security’s rules require that you be unable to engage in substantial gainful activity for at least a year as a result of a medical impairment. Once you’ve received a diagnosis and stopped eating foods with gluten, you should no longer experience disabling symptoms.

However, there are cases where it takes years to be diagnosed with celiac disease. In those cases, if your disability lasted at least one year before you were diagnosed with celiac disease, you can apply for disability for that length of time as a "closed period" of benefits. But in order to get SSDI or SSI for a closed period, you’ll still need to show that symptoms of your celiac disease were severe enough to either meet a Blue Book listing for digestive disorders or caused functional limitations that rule out all full-time jobs.

Is Celiac Disease a Listed Impairment?

Celiac disease doesn’t have its own listing in the “Blue Book” of impairments that can be considered automatically disabling. But the agency may evaluate your celiac disease under Section 5.00 for digestive disorders to see if your symptoms are severe enough to meet (or equal) listing 5.06 for inflammatory bowel disease or listing 5.08 for weight loss due to any digestive disorder.

Meeting Listing 5.06 for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

To meet listing 5.06, you’ll first need to have objective medical documentation—meaning an endoscopy, biopsy, imaging, or operative findings—of inflammatory bowel disease. You’ll also need to have evidence of at least one of three “groups” of medical findings. (These are called the “A,” “B,” and “C” criteria.)

The “A” criteria require evidence of obstruction of stenotic areas (not adhesions) in the small intestine or colon with proximal dilatation, confirmed by imaging or in surgery, requiring two hospitalizations for intestinal decompression or for surgery, within a consecutive 12-month period and at least 60 days apart.

The “B” criteria can be satisfied with evidence of two or more of the following medical events occurring within a consecutive 12-month period and at least 60 days apart:

• anemia, as demonstrated by tests showing a level of hemoglobin (a protein in your red blood cells) that is less than 10 grams per deciliter (g/DL), and occurring during two evaluations at least 60 days apart
• levels of serum albumin, a blood protein, at or below 3.0 g/DL on two evaluations at least 60 days apart
• presence of a tender abdominal mass that your doctor can feel on physical examination, along with cramping or abdominal pain, that occurs for two evaluations at least 60 days apart
• perianal disease with a draining abscess or fistula in the perineum, or
• the need for supplemental daily nutrition through either a gastrostomy, duodenostomy, jejunostomy, or a central venous catheter.

The “C” criteria can be met if you have repeated complications (such as colitis) of inflammatory bowel disease that occur three times a year on average (or once every four months), and each complication lasts two weeks or longer during a 12-month period. These complications must cause a marked limitation in your ability to complete your activities of daily living, maintain social functioning, or concentrate long enough to finish tasks on time.

If you think you may meet the A, B, or C criteria of the above listing, make sure that your medical record contains the tests “spread out” over the required period of time. Social Security needs to see that your abnormal test results are chronic (not a one-time outlier) in order to find you disabled under Listing 5.06.

Meeting Listing 5.08 for Weight Loss Due to Any Digestive Disorder

Celiac disease can sometimes cause dramatic weight loss and even malnutrition. While this usually improves with a gluten-free diet, some people may continue to experience unwanted weight loss. You may be able to meet Listing 5.08 if, despite complying with your doctor’s prescribed treatment, you have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 17.50 calculated on at least two evaluations at least 60 days apart within a consecutive 12-month period.

Equaling Listing 5.06 or 5.08 With a Doctor’s Statement

You may be able to meet these listings exactly with the correct medical tests and results, or you can equal them if your doctor submits a medical source statement to Social Security stating that the symptoms of your celiac disease are equivalent in severity to the requirements of one of these disability listings. The agency will review your medical history and clinical testing to see if your doctor’s opinion is consistent with the record as a whole.

Getting Disability for Celiac Disease With a Reduced Ability to Work

Few people with celiac disease (who don’t also have additional gastrointestinal complications) are likely to meet the strict requirements of a digestive disorder listing. But you may still qualify for disability without meeting or equaling a listing if your celiac symptoms result in a residual functional capacity (RFC) that rules out all full-time jobs. Your RFC is a set of limitations, both mental and physical, that describes the most you can do in a work environment.

What Does an RFC for Celiac Disease Look Like?

To determine your RFC, Social Security will review your medical records and daily activities to evaluate how well you can perform basic job tasks like sitting, standing, walking, lifting objects, and maintaining regular attendance. If you have to go to the bathroom for 15 minutes every hour outside of normal work breaks, for example, the agency may find that your celiac disease causes you to be “off-task” beyond employer tolerances. You may also have restrictions that prevent you from working at jobs where you’d have to handle products with wheat in them.

If you have a physician, gastroenterologist, or dietician who you see regularly to treat your celiac disease, consider asking your doctor to write an opinion stating any limitations that you have as a result of your celiac disease. Social Security values medical source statements from treating doctors and will typically incorporate their limitations into your RFC. (You can find a sample blank RFC to print out in our article on residual functional capacity forms for doctors.)

How Does Social Security Use Your RFC?

Social Security will eliminate the types of jobs you can do based on the restrictions in your RFC. Somebody with celiac disease is unlikely to be able to work in a general bakery, for example, so if your work history includes working in a bakery, restaurant, or similar environment, the agency is likely going to find that you can’t perform those past jobs.

If you can’t do your past work, then Social Security will see whether any other jobs exist that you can do despite the restrictions in your RFC. If no jobs exist that somebody with your RFC can perform, you’ll be awarded disability benefits. For most people under the age of 50, this means that you’ll need to show that you can’t perform even the easiest sit-down jobs. (Applicants 50 years of age or older may be able to qualify for disability even if other jobs exist that they could perform using a special set of rules called the “medical-vocational grid.”)

Establishing a Closed Period of Benefits for Celiac Disease

It can take a while for somebody to recognize the symptoms of celiac disease, get a diagnosis, and have the dietary changes take effect. You may still qualify for disability benefits if you met a listing or if your RFC prevented you from working any job for at least one year, even if you later felt better enough to return to work. Social Security calls this a “closed period” of benefits.

The process for getting disability benefits for a closed period is the same as getting ongoing benefits. The only difference is that your benefits will have an “end date” where you’re no longer considered disabled according to Social Security. If you win disability benefits for a closed period, you’ll receive a lump sum payment for the time that you were disabled. You won’t receive monthly benefits past the end date of your disability.

How to File for Disability Benefits

Applying for SSDI or SSI is a fairly straightforward process. You can choose from one of the methods below to begin your claim.

• One easy way is to file your claim online. You don’t have to complete the application in one sitting, and you’ll get a tracking number so you can check the status of your claim.
• You can also apply over the phone by calling Social Security at 800-772-1213 (TTY 800-325-0778) 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.
• If you prefer to file in person, you can schedule an appointment with a representative at your local Social Security field office.

If you’re filing for benefits based on a closed period of disability, you must file your application within 14 months of when your disability ended, unless you can show that you missed the deadline due to a mental or physical impairment.

What If My Celiac Disability Claim Was Denied?

Getting approved for disability benefits based solely on celiac disease can be an uphill battle. Increased awareness of the disease (and the expanded meal options as a result) means that many people with celiac are able to work full-time with minimal interference from their symptoms. And because celiac disease may be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers must provide reasonable accommodations, such as dedicated gluten-free storage in communal food spaces or improved access to restroom facilities, to help you perform the essential duties of your job. (42 U.S.C. §12112(a)(5) (2026).)

If you disagree with Social Security’s decision that you aren’t disabled (or, in the case of an application for a closed period, that you never were disabled), you have the right to appeal the denial. While it’s not required at any stage of the application process, at this point you may want to contact a disability attorney to help increase your chances of a successful appeal. Disability attorneys work on contingency—meaning they get paid only if you win—and many offer free consultations, so it doesn’t hurt to ask around to find a lawyer you like.