Child Tax Credit: Top 8 Requirements for 2025-2026
The Child Tax Credit can reduce your tax bill and may be partially refundable. To qualify, you must meet strict requirements on: 1. age, 2. relationship, 3. support, 4. dependent, 5. citizenship, 6. residence, 7. family income, and 8. Social Security numbers. The credit has increased for 2025 and future years under the "One Big Beautiful Bill." Find out if you qualify for the Child Tax Credit and learn how much you can potentially save.
The One Big Beautiful Bill that passed includes permanently extending tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including increasing the cap on the amount of state and local or sales tax and property tax (SALT) that you can deduct, makes cuts to energy credits passed under the Inflation Reduction Act, makes changes to taxes on tips and overtime for certain workers, reforms Medicaid, increases the Debt ceiling, and reforms Pell Grants and student loans. Updates to this article are in process. Check our One Big Beautiful Bill article for more information.
Key Takeaways
- The Child Tax Credit has 8 qualifying tests to determine eligibility for the credit: age, relationship, support, dependent status, citizenship, length of residency, family income, and Social Security numbers.
- If you aren't able to claim the Child Tax Credit for a dependent, you might be eligible for the Credit for Other Dependents instead.
- The standard Child Tax Credit is non-refundable, but the Additional Child Tax Credit is refundable, allowing for up to a $1,700 refund for the 2025 tax year even if you don't owe any tax.
- To fight against fraud, the IRS can delay the processing of refunds that include the Child Tax Credit. But this shouldn't discourage you from claiming this valuable tax benefit.
What is the Child Tax Credit?
The Child Tax Credit is a federal income tax credit available to parents with qualifying children. For the 2025 tax year, it’s worth up to $2,200 for each qualifying child (the credit amount is adjusted for inflation beginning with the 2026 tax year). However, the credit is reduced – potentially to $0 – if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) for the year is greater than a certain amount.
In addition, part of the Child Tax Credit may be “refundable.” With a refundable credit, you can get a tax refund if the credit amount is greater than the tax you owe before applying the credit. The refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit is known as the Additional Child Tax Credit, but it can’t be more than $1,700 per qualifying child for the 2025 tax year. However, you must have at least $2,500 of earned income for the tax year to claim the Additional Child Tax Credit.
Use Form 8812 to calculate and claim the Child Tax Credit (including the refundable portion).
Note: Before we move on to discuss the Child Tax Credit requirements, it’s helpful to understand what is meant when we talk about a "tax year." According to the IRS, a "tax year" is an annual accounting period for keeping records and reporting income and expenses. For most people, their tax year is the same as a calendar year (as opposed to a fiscal year). So, for example, your "2025 tax year" likely runs from January 1 to December 31, 2025. Unless you get a filing extension, your federal income tax return for the 2025 tax year is due by April 15, 2026.
Child Tax Credit Requirements
To claim the Child Tax Credit, you are required to determine if your child is eligible. All of these eight qualifying tests have to be met:
1) Age test - A child must be 16 years old or younger at the end of the tax year for which you claim the credit.
2) Relationship test - The child must be your own child, a stepchild, or a foster child placed with you by a court or authorized agency. An adopted child is treated as your own child. An adopted child includes a child lawfully placed with you for legal adoption, even if that adoption is not final by the end of the tax year.
You can also claim your brother or sister, stepbrother or stepsister. And you can claim descendants of any of these qualifying people—such as your nieces, nephews and grandchildren—if they meet all the other tests.
3) Support test - To qualify, the child cannot provide more than half of his or her own financial support during the tax year.
4) Dependent test - You must claim the child as a dependent on your tax return. Bear in mind that in order for you to claim a child as a dependent, your child has to:
- be your child (or stepchild, adoptive child, or foster child), sibling, niece, nephew or grandchild
- be under age 19, or under age 24 and a full-time student for at least five months of the year; or be permanently disabled, regardless of age
- live with you for more than half the year
- provide no more than half of their own support for the year
5) Citizenship test - The child must be a U.S. citizen, a U.S. national or a U.S. resident alien. (For tax purposes, the term "U.S. national" refers to individuals who were born in American Samoa or in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.)
6) Residence test - The child must live with you for more than half of the tax year for which you claim the credit. There are important exceptions, however:
- A child who was born (or died) during the tax year is considered to have lived with you for the entire year.
- Temporary absences by you or the child for special circumstances, such as school, vacation, business, medical care, military services or detention in a juvenile facility, are counted as time the child lived with you.
- There are also some exceptions to the residency test for children of divorced or separated parents. For details, see the instructions for Form 1040.
7) Family income test - The Child Tax Credit is reduced if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is above certain amounts, which are determined by your tax-filing status. The phaseout of the credit begins with $200,000 of MAGI ($400,000 for Married Filing Jointly).
8) Social Security number test - The person claiming the credit (at least one person if filing a joint tax return) and the child are required to have Social Security numbers that make them eligible for work in the United States.
TurboTax Tip:
"If the IRS previously reduced or denied your claim for the Child Tax Credit or Additional Child Tax Credit, you may have to file Form 8862 with your tax return to claim the credit." – Rocky Mengle, Attorney
What is the Other Dependent Tax Credit?
If you have a dependent who doesn't meet the requirements of the Child Tax Credit, you might be able to claim them as a dependent and qualify for the Other Dependent Tax Credit.
The Other Dependent Tax Credit is an alternative credit that can be claimed for dependents. Some of the requirements include that the dependent:
- is a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or U.S. resident alien
- can’t be claimed on the Child Tax Credit or Additional Child Tax Credit
- will be claimed on your tax return
- has a Social Security number or Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN)
One thing to note for this credit is that dependents can be any age. The maximum for this credit is $500 per dependent.
When will I get my tax refund with the Child Tax Credit?
Typically, it takes 21 days or less for the IRS to issue a refund for taxpayers who filed electronically and chose to receive their refund via direct deposit.
However, the IRS can take a little longer to issue refunds that have certain credits such as the Child Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit in an effort to reduce tax return fraud.
To check the status of your refund, you can use our tool to track your refund.
How has the Child Tax Credit changed over the years?
The Child Tax Credit has seen many forms from its introduction with the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA). The original version provided for a nonrefundable $500 credit for households with up to $110,000 in income. An alternative formula was provided for families with three or more qualifying children that made a portion of the credit refundable.
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) brought about some substantial changes to the Child Tax Credit, including doubling the size of the maximum credit to $1,000. This change also included an expansion of the refundability of the credit. This meant that families with more than $10,000 in earned income could claim up to 15% of their earnings greater than this amount as a refund, up to the maximum credit amount.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) brought about the next significant change to the Child Tax Credit. The Act was a stimulus response to the Great Recession. With the ARRA, the earnings threshold for the refundable credit was reduced from earnings of $10,000 to $3,000.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) increased the credit to $2,000 per child and the phase-out threshold to $200,000 of MAGI ($400,000 for joint filers). It also required an eligible child to have a Social Security number, lowered the earned income requirement for the Additional Child Tax Credit from $3,000 to $2,500, and created the Other Dependent Tax Credit. However, changes made by the TCJA were only temporary. They were set to expire at the end of 2025 (but see "One Big Beautiful Bill" below).
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), which was designed to help the U.S. recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, enhanced the Child Tax Credit in a number of ways. However, the changes only applied for the 2021 tax year. ARPA changes for the 2021 Child Tax Credit included:
- raising the maximum age for an eligible child from 16 to 17
- increasing the maximum credit to $3,600 for children under six years old, or $3,000 for children six to 17 years old (the increased amounts were reduced for higher-income taxpayers)
- making the entire credit refundable
- authorizing advance payments of the credit taxpayers were entitled to receive (so you didn’t have to wait until you filed your 2021 tax return to benefit from the credit)
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), which was enacted in 2025, increased the Child Tax Credit to $2,200 per child beginning with the 2025 tax year. This amount will also be adjusted annually for inflation starting in 2026. The OBBB also made the $200,000 phase-out threshold ($400,000 for joint returns), $2,500 earned income requirement for the Additional Child Tax Credit, and Other Dependent Tax Credit permanent (these changes were originally enacted by the TCJA). In addition, the OBBB expanded the Social Security number requirement to include the person claiming the credit (or at least one spouse on a joint return) and specify that the Social Security number must be valid for employment.
How can you double-check that you qualify for the Child Tax Credit?
If anything about the above is unclear, or you still have some questions, getting assistance from a tax expert can help you determine whether you qualify.
With TurboTax Expert Full Service, a local expert matched to your unique situation will do your taxes for you start to finish. Or, get unlimited help and advice from tax experts while you do your taxes with TurboTax Expert Assist.
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