Child Tax Credit calculator

A credit is worth far more than a deduction of the same size

A $2,000 deduction reduces the income you are taxed on, so it saves you your marginal rate — $440 at 22.00%. A $2,000 credit reduces the tax itself, so it saves $2,000. The Child Tax Credit is the second kind, which is why it is worth several times what a deduction of the same headline size would be.

For 2026 it is $2,200 per qualifying child under 17, of which up to $1,700 per child can be paid out as a refund if the credit exceeds your tax. On a household with two children and $65,000 of income, the credit here is $4,400.

There is a second, smaller credit of $500 for dependants who do not qualify as children — a 17-year-old, a college student, a parent you support. It is not refundable, so it reduces tax to zero and stops there.

The age test is unforgiving and catches families every year: the child must be under 17 at the end of the tax year. A child who turns 17 in December moves from $2,200 to $500 for that whole year — a $1,700 change that nothing warns you about in advance.

Every qualifying child needs a Social Security number valid for employment, issued before the return's due date. A number obtained later does not retroactively qualify the child for that year, which is worth knowing in a year with an adoption or an immigration status change.

How much of it you actually receive when you owe little tax

The credit works in two parts. First it reduces your tax, down to zero. Anything left over may then be refundable — but only up to $1,700 per child, and only to the extent of 15.00% of your earned income above $2,500.

That earnings formula is what limits low-income families most. A household earning $20,000 with two children receives $2,625 of refundable credit — not the $3,400 the per-child cap would allow, because 15.00% of $17,500 is the binding constraint.

The consequence is that the full credit is worth least to the households with the least income, which is the opposite of how people generally assume a child benefit works. A family with no earned income at all receives nothing from it, however many children they have.

Between roughly $30,000 and the phase-out threshold, most families receive the whole thing, part as a reduction in tax and part as a refund. Which part is which does not change the total — it changes whether the money arrives as a smaller bill or as a payment.

The refundable portion is also what triggers the statutory delay: returns claiming it cannot be paid before mid-February, whenever they were filed, and the hold applies to the entire refund rather than only to the credit.

Where it starts to disappear

The credit reduces by $50 for every $1,000 of income above $200,000 single or $400,000 joint — and the reduction applies to each $1,000 or part of one, so being $200 over costs the full $50.

Those thresholds are not indexed. They do not move with inflation, which means each year a slightly higher proportion of families crosses them without any change in real income — the same quiet drift that affects the Social Security taxation thresholds and the net investment income tax.

The phase-out is gradual enough that it rarely produces a cliff, but it does raise your effective marginal rate through the range: each extra $1,000 earned costs $50 of credit on top of the tax on it. With two children the credit is fully gone about $88,000 above the threshold.

Because the threshold is on modified AGI, contributions that reduce AGI can preserve the credit — a traditional 401(k), an HSA, or a deductible IRA contribution. For a household just over the line, a contribution can be worth more than its own tax saving, since it also recovers credit.

The joint threshold is exactly double the single one here, which makes this one of the few provisions in the code without a marriage penalty built into the thresholds themselves.

The other credits families miss

The Child and Dependent Care Credit is separate and frequently unclaimed: a percentage of what you paid for care that allowed you to work, for children under 13 or a dependant unable to care for themselves. It is non-refundable, and it requires the provider's identifying number — which is the practical reason many people abandon it.

A dependent care flexible spending account through an employer is often better than the credit for the same expenses, because it avoids FICA as well as income tax. You cannot use both on the same dollars, so the choice is worth running rather than defaulting.

Education credits reach older children the Child Tax Credit no longer covers. The American Opportunity Credit is partly refundable for the first four years of undergraduate study; the Lifetime Learning Credit is not refundable but has no year limit. They cannot both be claimed for the same student in the same year.

The Earned Income Tax Credit runs alongside all of these at lower incomes, and a household with children frequently qualifies for both it and the Child Tax Credit. Together they routinely exceed anything that was withheld all year, which is what makes filing worthwhile at income levels where no return is required.

And several states run their own child credit on top of the federal one, some refundable and some not. Each state page here carries what that state offers, with the source it was read from.

Five ways a Child Tax Credit estimate goes wrong

Assuming $2,200 per child arrives as cash. Only up to $1,700 per child is refundable, and only to the extent of 15.00% of earnings above $2,500. The rest reduces tax you owed.

Claiming a 17-year-old as a qualifying child. Under 17 at the end of the year. A child who turned 17 in December drops to the $500 credit for other dependants for the entire year.

Forgetting the phase-out rounds up. Being $200 over the threshold costs the full $50, because the reduction applies per $1,000 or part thereof.

Treating it as a deduction. It reduces tax, not taxable income, which makes it worth roughly four times a deduction of the same size at a 22.00% marginal rate.

Both parents claiming the same child. Only one return can claim a given child, and a duplicate claim stops both returns for manual review. Where parents are separated, the tie-breaker rules decide it, and agreeing in advance is considerably faster than finding out afterwards.

The seven tests a qualifying child has to meet

Relationship: your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, half or step sibling, or a descendant of any of them. A grandchild, a niece and a nephew all qualify; an unrelated child you support does not, though they may qualify for the credit for other dependants.

Age: under 17 at the end of the tax year. There is no exception for a full-time student and no exception for a disabled child — both of which exist for other provisions, which is exactly why people assume they exist here.

Residency: the child lived with you for more than half the year. Temporary absences for school, illness or military service count as time at home. This is the test that most often decides which of two separated parents may claim, and it is factual rather than negotiable.

Support: the child did not provide more than half of their own support. Scholarships received by a student child do not count as support they provided, which is a distinction that changes the answer for many families with older children.

And three administrative ones that fail returns rather than lose arguments: the child cannot file a joint return except to claim a refund, must be a US citizen, national or resident alien, and must have a Social Security number valid for employment issued before the return's due date.

Why the amount keeps changing, and what that means for planning

The Child Tax Credit has been altered repeatedly over the past decade — in size, in how much of it is refundable, in where the phase-out begins, and for one year in whether it was paid monthly in advance rather than at filing.

That volatility has a practical consequence beyond the amount: guidance goes out of date faster here than almost anywhere else in the code. An article written two years ago describing the credit accurately is very likely describing something that no longer exists, and search results do not sort by whether the law has since changed.

The advance-payment year is the one that still causes confusion. Households that received monthly payments had to reconcile them at filing, and those who received more than they were entitled to had to repay the difference — which turned an expected refund into a bill for a substantial number of families.

The thresholds have a different problem: they are not indexed. Unlike brackets and the standard deduction, which move every January, the phase-out start has been fixed in nominal terms, so a slightly larger share of families crosses it each year purely through wage growth.

For planning purposes, that means treating any figure you find as needing a date attached. The amounts on this page are 2026 figures read off the IRS revenue procedure, and the page says when they were checked — which is the only way to know whether what you are reading has been overtaken.

Claiming it on the W-4 rather than waiting

Step 3 of the W-4 exists to put the credit into your paychecks rather than into a refund. Entering the credit amount there reduces withholding across the year by the same total, which for a family with two children is a meaningful change to monthly cash flow.

The arithmetic is straightforward: the amount entered reduces the annual withholding by that amount, spread across your pay periods. A household entering $4,400 for two children sees roughly $169 more in each fortnightly paycheck than they otherwise would.

The caution is not to enter it twice. In a two-earner household where both complete Step 3, both employers reduce withholding by the full amount and the household is under-withheld by the whole credit — which turns an expected refund into an April bill. The instruction is to claim it on one W-4 only, usually the higher-paying job's.

It is also worth revisiting the year a child turns 17, because withholding will continue reflecting a credit that no longer applies. That is a $1,700 swing per child, arriving as a surprise at filing rather than as a change in pay.

And whether to do any of this is a genuine preference. Some households want the credit through the year; others want the lump sum at filing and treat the withholding as a savings mechanism. Neither is wrong — the error is not knowing which one you have chosen.

Which parent claims the child, and how to settle it in advance

Only one return can claim a given child for the Child Tax Credit. Where parents are separated, the default is the custodial parent — the one with whom the child lived for the greater number of nights during the year.

The non-custodial parent can claim the credit if the custodial parent releases it, on a signed form attached to the return. This is a formal document rather than an informal agreement, and a divorce decree stating who claims the child does not by itself substitute for it in recent years.

A duplicate claim stops both returns. Neither refund is issued while the matter is examined, both parties are contacted, and resolution takes months — which is a poor outcome even for the parent who was entitled. Agreeing in advance, in writing, costs nothing.

Alternating years is common and workable, and works best when it is written down with the release form completed at the same time rather than remembered each January. Where several children are involved, splitting them can suit both parties better than alternating.

Note also that the tests differ between provisions. The parent claiming the Child Tax Credit is not automatically the one who claims the Earned Income Tax Credit or head of household status — those follow their own rules and cannot be released the same way, which produces outcomes that surprise people who assumed one decision covered everything.

When the money actually arrives

The credit is claimed on the return and settled with it, so the timing is the refund's timing. Where the refundable portion is claimed, the whole refund is held by statute until mid-February regardless of when the return was filed.

That hold applies to the entire refund and not just the credit, which catches households expecting the non-credit portion earlier. Filing in late January does not move it, and neither does filing electronically — the delay is statutory rather than operational.

Beyond that, electronic filing with direct deposit is the fast path and most straightforward returns are processed within a few weeks. Paper returns and paper cheques move in months rather than weeks, and a paper return claiming a refundable credit is the slowest combination available.

A mismatch stalls it. A child's name or Social Security number that does not match records, a duplicate claim, or income that does not reconcile with what employers reported all move a return to manual handling — which for a household counting on the refund is worth avoiding by checking the details rather than by filing fast.

And for households that would rather have the money through the year than in a lump, Step 3 of the W-4 does that instead. It is the same total either way; the choice is only about when.

Where the Child Tax Credit figures come from

Everything computed here rests on IRC § 24, read off the law and the IRS revenue procedure rather than off a summary of either. Where a figure is indexed to inflation it comes from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, the same document that sets the brackets used across this site.

The indexed figures on this page are the credit amount per child, the refundable portion per child — all published for 2026 and all checked on 2 September 2026. Each carries that date because a tax figure without one is unverifiable, and the commonest error in this category is a correct figure from the wrong year.

The phase-out thresholds and the $2,500 earned income floor are fixed in the statute and are not indexed. Thresholds that are not indexed are the ones compiled sources most often present as though they were current when they have simply never moved — which is a different kind of staleness and harder to spot.

What this page does not model is stated in full under the calculator rather than buried here: it applies the amounts and the phase-out but does not test the qualifying-child rules — relationship, age, residency, support and identification — which decide eligibility before any arithmetic happens. Where a case falls outside what the engine handles, we would rather say so than return a confident number for a situation we did not compute.

The arithmetic itself is deterministic — rates in, result out, with no model deciding anything. The AI explanation available on this site describes figures it was given and never produces one, which is the only arrangement in which a language model belongs anywhere near a tax calculation.

Questions

How much is the Child Tax Credit for 2026?

$2,200 per qualifying child under 17, of which up to $1,700 per child can be refunded if it exceeds your tax. There is also a $500 non-refundable credit for other dependants — older children, students, supported parents.

At what income does it phase out?

It reduces by $50 for every $1,000 of modified AGI above $200,000 single or $400,000 joint — and per part of $1,000, so being slightly over costs the whole $50. Those thresholds are not indexed to inflation.

Do I get the credit if I owe no tax?

Partly. Up to $1,700 per child is refundable, but limited to 15.00% of your earned income above $2,500. A household with no earned income receives nothing from it, and a low-earning household receives less than the per-child cap.

My child turns 17 this year — do I still get it?

No. The test is under 17 at the end of the tax year, so a child who turns 17 in December moves to the $500 credit for other dependants for that whole year. It is a $1,700 change and nothing warns you in advance.

Which parent claims the child after a separation?

Only one return can claim a given child. Generally it is the parent the child lived with for more nights during the year, with tie-breaker rules where that is equal. A duplicate claim halts both returns for manual review, so agreeing in advance is much faster than resolving it afterwards.

Why is my refund held until February?

Returns claiming the refundable child tax credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit cannot be paid before mid-February by statute, whenever they were filed. It is an anti-fraud provision, it holds the entire refund rather than just the credit, and filing earlier does not move the date.