Earned Income Tax Credit calculator

The credit is a hill, not a staircase

The Earned Income Tax Credit rises with what you earn, plateaus, and then falls away. That shape is deliberate: it is designed to reward work at low incomes rather than to top up income generally, and it is why the credit behaves so differently at $12,000 of earnings than at $40,000.

For a single filer with two children the peak is $7,316, reached at $18,290 of earned income. Below that, every extra dollar earned increases the credit — the phase-in rate is about 40.00%, so a dollar of work is worth substantially more than the dollar itself.

Above the plateau it phases out, ending at $58,629 for that family. At $40,000 the same household receives $3,923 rather than the full $7,316, and each further dollar earned reduces it — which raises the effective marginal rate on that income well above the bracket, and is the honest answer to why work does not always pay what it appears to.

Family size changes the whole curve, not just the maximum. No children: up to $664; 1 child: up to $4,427; 2 children: up to $7,316; 3 or more children: up to $8,231. A fourth child does not increase it — three is the top tier.

Filing jointly shifts the phase-out upward by several thousand dollars, which is one of the few places in the code with a clear marriage bonus at low incomes rather than a penalty.

It pays out even when you owe nothing

Most tax relief reduces a bill and stops at zero. The EITC is refundable: if the credit exceeds your tax, the difference is paid to you. A household owing no income tax at all can receive the full $7,316, which is not a rebate of anything they paid.

That is why filing matters even when no return is required. Someone whose income was low enough that filing was optional may be leaving four figures unclaimed, and the IRS estimates roughly a fifth of eligible households do not claim it. It is the most under-claimed major credit in the system, and the reason is almost always that people did not know a return was worth filing.

You can claim it retroactively. Amended returns are generally available for three years from the original due date, so a household that missed it in past years can still recover them — one claim at a time, by hand, and slowly, but the money is recoverable.

The payment is delayed by statute rather than by workload. Returns claiming the EITC or the additional child tax credit cannot be paid before mid-February whatever the filing date, an anti-fraud provision that applies to the whole return and not just the credit portion.

And it stacks with the Child Tax Credit rather than competing with it. A household with children at these income levels frequently receives both, and the combined amount is often larger than any tax that was withheld all year.

Who qualifies, and the rules people fall foul of

You need earned income — wages or self-employment profit. Investment income, unemployment benefits, alimony and retirement distributions are not earned income and do not qualify you, though they do count toward the phase-out through AGI.

A qualifying child must meet four tests: relationship, age, residency and joint return. The residency one causes the most trouble — the child must have lived with you in the United States for more than half the year, which is a factual test that separated parents routinely both believe they meet.

Investment income disqualifies entirely rather than reducing. Above $12,200 of interest, dividends, capital gains and rent, there is no credit at all regardless of how low the earned income was. It is a cliff, and it is the reason a household with a modest wage and one good year in a brokerage account can lose the whole thing.

Everyone on the return needs a valid Social Security number valid for employment, and filing separately while married generally disqualifies you — with a specific exception for separated spouses who meet defined conditions.

Childless workers can claim it too, though the amounts are far smaller: up to $664, with the phase-out complete by $19,540. There are age limits at both ends for the childless credit that do not apply when there are qualifying children.

Your state may run its own version

More than thirty states and the District of Columbia operate their own earned income credit, almost always as a straight percentage of the federal one. If you qualify federally you may qualify at state level automatically, with no separate calculation beyond applying the percentage.

The percentages vary widely, from a few percent to over forty, and several states have changed theirs recently. That volatility is exactly where compiled sources go stale — we found Oregon's published at 17% when the statute says 9%, a difference that doubles the stated benefit.

Some state versions are refundable and some are not, which changes who benefits. A non-refundable state credit is worth nothing to a household whose state tax is already zero — which is a substantial share of the people the federal credit is aimed at.

A few states also run a separate child tax credit, a child and dependent care credit, or a property tax circuit-breaker that refunds part of a property bill through the income tax return. Those are frequently unclaimed because nothing on the form prompts for them.

Every state page on this site carries its own credits with the document they were read from and the date they were checked — because a credit published at the wrong percentage is worse than one not published at all.

Five ways an EITC estimate goes wrong

Assuming the maximum applies. The peak of $7,316 for two children occurs only in a band around $18,290 of earnings. At $40,000 the same household gets $3,923.

Using AGI for the phase-in and earned income for the phase-out. It is the other way round: the phase-in is on earned income, and the phase-out uses the greater of earned income and AGI. Getting them backwards moves the answer in both directions.

Missing the investment income cliff. Above $12,200 there is no credit at all. It does not taper.

Counting a child who does not meet the residency test. More than half the year in the United States, with you. It is the test that most often fails on examination, and both separated parents claiming the same child is the commonest reason a return is questioned.

Not filing because no return was required. The credit is refundable, so a household owing no tax can still receive the full amount — and roughly a fifth of eligible households never claim it, almost always for this reason.

What the phase-out does to your effective marginal rate

Inside the phase-out range, each extra dollar earned reduces the credit as well as being taxed. The two combine into an effective marginal rate that is much higher than any bracket, and it applies precisely to households with the least room to absorb it.

For a single filer with two children, the credit falls from $7,316 to zero across the range from $23,890 to $58,629 — a taper of about 21.06% on every additional dollar. Add income tax and payroll tax on the same dollar and the combined effect can exceed the rate paid by someone earning five times as much.

This is the honest answer to why extra hours sometimes do not feel worth it, and it is not a misperception. It is the arithmetic of overlapping phase-outs, and the EITC is only one of several — childcare subsidies, health insurance premium credits and housing assistance frequently taper across the same income range.

What it does not mean is that earning more leaves you worse off in absolute terms. The credit tapers at less than one dollar per dollar, so more work still produces more money. The rate of improvement simply slows, sharply, across a specific band.

The lever that exists is AGI rather than earnings. A traditional retirement contribution or an HSA contribution reduces AGI, and because the phase-out uses the greater of earned income and AGI, it helps only where AGI is the higher of the two — which is a narrower case than most advice suggests, and worth checking rather than assuming.

Why EITC returns are examined more than others

The EITC has one of the highest improper payment rates of any major credit, and as a result returns claiming it are examined more often than returns of comparable size that do not. That is worth knowing not as a warning against claiming it, but as a reason to document.

Most errors are not fraud. The commonest by far is a qualifying child claimed by the wrong person — usually two separated parents each genuinely believing the residency test points to them, or a grandparent and a parent both claiming a child who lived with both during the year.

The second most common is income reporting: self-employment income overstated to reach the peak of the credit, or understated to stay inside the phase-out. Both are examined, and the phase-in range creates a genuine incentive to overstate that examiners are well aware of.

What protects a legitimate claim is contemporaneous evidence of residency: school records, medical records, lease documents showing the address, and anything else establishing where the child actually lived. Assembled at the time it takes an hour; reconstructed two years later it is very difficult.

A disallowed claim also carries a consequence beyond the year: where the credit is denied for reckless disregard of the rules, you can be barred from claiming it for two years, and for ten in cases of fraud. Getting a marginal claim right matters more here than the single-year amount suggests.

The credit when your income is self-employed

Self-employment profit is earned income and counts fully for the EITC, which surprises people who assume the credit is for wage earners. A profitable freelancer at a modest income can qualify exactly as an employee would.

The figure that counts is net profit after business expenses — the same number self-employment tax is computed on. That creates a tension people should be aware of rather than act on: deducting a legitimate expense reduces profit, which reduces self-employment tax, but on the phase-in side of the curve it can also reduce the credit.

The correct response is to claim every legitimate expense and no others. Inflating profit to increase a credit is exactly the pattern examiners look for, and the phase-in incentive is well documented. Deducting properly and receiving a smaller credit is the right outcome.

Self-employment also brings the investment income limit into sharper focus. Business income is not investment income, but interest earned in a business account, rental income and capital gains on equipment sold can all count toward the $12,200 ceiling that disqualifies the credit outright.

And the record-keeping requirement is higher, because there is no W-2 to corroborate the figure. Bank records, invoices and a contemporaneous expense log are what support a self-employed EITC claim, and they are the first thing requested when one is examined.

The version for workers without children

The childless EITC exists and is routinely overlooked, partly because the amounts are so much smaller: up to $664, peaking at $8,680 of earned income and gone by $19,540 for a single filer.

It also carries age limits that the version with children does not — a minimum and a maximum age at the end of the year — which is why a young worker or an older one can be excluded from a credit their earnings would otherwise qualify them for.

The phase-out is very steep because the whole curve is compressed into a narrow income range. A few thousand dollars of additional earnings can take the credit from most of its maximum to nothing, which makes it unusually sensitive to a small change in hours.

Its practical significance is less the amount than the reason to file. Someone whose income was low enough that no return was required may still be owed a few hundred dollars, and the only way to receive it is to file a return that nobody required.

Several states with their own earned income credit apply it to the childless version too, which can multiply a modest federal amount into something more worth the paperwork. Each state page here carries its own percentage.

How to claim it, and how to recover missed years

The credit is claimed on the return itself, with a schedule for the qualifying children. No separate application exists, and nothing prompts you if you were eligible and did not claim — which is why roughly a fifth of eligible households receive nothing.

Free preparation is widely available for the incomes the credit is aimed at, through IRS-sponsored volunteer programmes staffed by trained preparers. For a household whose return is a W-2 and some children, that is usually the fastest correct route and it costs nothing.

Paid preparation is worth scrutinising at these income levels specifically, because a fee taken as a percentage of a refund can consume a substantial share of a credit designed to supplement low earnings. So can a refund advance product priced into the preparation fee.

Missed years are recoverable for three years from each original due date, by filing an amended or original return for each year separately. Amended returns are processed by hand and take months, but the amounts are frequently in the thousands per year — which makes the wait worthwhile.

Bring what documents the residency test depends on: school or medical records showing the child's address, and anything establishing that the child lived with you. Assembling them when claiming is far easier than producing them if the claim is later examined.

Where the Earned Income Tax Credit figures come from

Everything computed here rests on IRC § 32, 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 earned income amounts, the maximum credits, the phase-out thresholds, the investment income limit — 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.

Statutory figures that are not indexed do not change with inflation, which makes them easy to publish correctly and easy to misread as recently updated when they were set decades ago.

What this page does not model is stated in full under the calculator rather than buried here: it computes the credit from earned income, filing status and the number of children, and does not test the qualifying-child rules, the age limits on the childless credit, or the residency and identification requirements. 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

What is the maximum EITC for 2026?

$664 with no children, $4,427 with 1 child, $7,316 with 2 children, $8,231 with 3 or more children. Those are peaks reached at a specific band of earned income, not amounts everyone below a threshold receives.

Do I get the EITC if I owe no tax?

Yes. It is fully refundable, so it pays out even when your tax is zero — which is why filing is worth it even when no return is required. Roughly a fifth of eligible households never claim it, almost always because they assumed there was no point in filing.

What disqualifies me from the EITC?

Investment income above $12,200 disqualifies you entirely regardless of earnings. So does filing separately while married, outside a narrow exception for separated spouses, and lacking a Social Security number valid for employment for anyone on the return. Having no earned income at all also disqualifies you — the credit rewards work specifically.

When will my refund arrive if I claim the EITC?

Not before mid-February, whatever date you filed. It is a statutory anti-fraud provision applying to returns claiming the EITC or the additional child tax credit, it holds the whole refund and not just the credit portion, and filing earlier does not move it.

Can I claim the EITC for previous years?

Generally yes, for three years from the original due date, by filing an amended return for each year separately. It is slow — amended returns are processed by hand and take months — but the money is recoverable, and for a household that missed several years it can run to five figures.

Does my state have an EITC too?

More than thirty states and DC do, usually as a percentage of the federal credit. The percentages vary widely and change often, and some state versions are non-refundable — which means they are worth nothing to a household whose state tax is already zero. Each state page here carries its own figure with the source and date.