If you claimed the child tax credit on the return you just filed this spring, you saw the new number: $2,200 per child, up from the $2,000 it sat at for years. Now that tax season is behind us, the practical question is what the credit looks like for 2026 — the tax year you’re living in right now, the one that will show up on the return you file in early 2027. The short answer: same $2,200, same income limits, and a few rules worth planning around before December instead of discovering in April.

Here’s the whole picture in plain English.

The 2026 amount: $2,200 per child

For tax year 2026, the child tax credit is worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child, according to the IRS’s annual inflation adjustments for tax year 2026. The 2025 tax law made the credit permanent at that level and tied it to inflation going forward, so the amount can tick up in future years — but for 2026 it stays at $2,200.

A credit is not a deduction, and the difference is money: a deduction shrinks the income you’re taxed on, while a credit comes straight off your tax bill, dollar for dollar. Two qualifying kids can mean up to $4,400 less tax owed.

Who counts as a qualifying child

The IRS applies a checklist, and every box has to be checked. Per the IRS child tax credit page, the child must be under 17 at the end of the tax year; be your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, sibling, half-sibling, step-sibling, or a descendant of one of those (a grandchild, niece, or nephew counts); provide no more than half of their own support; live with you for more than half the year; be claimed as your dependent; and be a U.S. citizen, national, or resident alien.

Two Social Security number rules matter here. The child must have an SSN that’s valid for employment, issued before the return’s due date — an ITIN won’t do for this credit. And under the 2025 law, the parent claiming the credit must also have a work-eligible SSN (on a joint return, at least one spouse).

One more timing note that trips up families: the “under 17” test is measured at year-end. A child who turns 17 anytime in 2026 — even on December 31 — doesn’t qualify for the 2026 credit. Other dependents, including 17- and 18-year-olds and college students under 24, can still get the separate $500 credit for other dependents.

The income limits, and how the phase-out actually works

The credit starts shrinking once your modified adjusted gross income passes $200,000 for single filers and heads of household, or $400,000 for married couples filing jointly. Those thresholds are fixed in the law and are not adjusted for inflation.

The mechanics are simple: the credit drops by $50 for every $1,000 (or fraction of $1,000) that your income exceeds the threshold. A married couple earning $410,000 with one child loses $500 of the $2,200, leaving $1,700. Because the cut is $50 per child-independent $1,000 of income — not per child — a family with three kids has three credits’ worth of cushion and phases out over a much wider income range.

The overwhelming majority of families never touch the phase-out. If you’re anywhere near those lines, though, remember that pre-tax moves you control — 401(k) contributions, HSA contributions — lower the income the phase-out is measured against.

The refundable piece: up to $1,700

Here’s the part that matters most for lower- and moderate-income households. The child tax credit can only wipe out tax you owe — unless you qualify for the refundable portion, called the additional child tax credit, which the IRS can send you even if your tax bill is already zero. For 2026, that refundable portion is capped at $1,700 per child.

The refundable amount is generally calculated as 15 percent of your earned income above $2,500, up to the cap, and it’s claimed on Schedule 8812, the same form that handles the whole credit. Practical translation: a parent needs earned income — wages or self-employment — to unlock the refundable piece, and it phases in as earnings rise. A family with very low earnings may qualify for part of the $1,700 rather than all of it.

Note the gap: the full credit is $2,200, but only $1,700 of it can come back as a refund. A family that owes no income tax gets at most $1,700 per child, not $2,200. That $500 difference is a quirk of how Congress wrote the law, and it’s the number behind a lot of confused kitchen-table math every spring.

What to do about it in 2026, not next April

If your household added a child this year, expect the credit on your 2026 return — a baby born in December 2026 with an SSN qualifies for the full year’s credit. If your income jumped near the phase-out lines, or you switched from two incomes to one, it’s worth rerunning your withholding now; the IRS’s withholding estimator on IRS.gov accounts for the credit and can keep you from over- or under-paying all year.

And if a divorce or shared-custody arrangement is in the picture, settle who claims the child before filing season. Only one taxpayer can claim a given child in a given year, the residency test usually decides it, and the IRS will bounce the second return that tries. That conversation is a lot cheaper in June than in April.

This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.