Eligibility, filing rules, and kiddie tax

A dependent may be either a qualifying child or qualifying relative. Both types have unique rules, but some requirements are the same for both.

Tests for dependents

Only the citizenship, joint return, and dependent taxpayer tests apply to every dependent; the relationship or household, gross income, and support tests differ for qualifying children and qualifying relatives.

• Citizenship
• Relationship or member of household
• Joint return
• Gross income
• Support

Citizenship or resident: The claimed dependent must be a U.S. citizen, a U.S. resident alien, a U.S. national, a resident of Mexico or Canada, or a child adopted by (or lawfully placed for adoption with) a taxpayer who is a U.S. citizen or national, if the child lived with the taxpayer as a member of the household for the entire year (or, for a child placed for adoption during the year, for the rest of the year after placement).

Tests for qualifying children

A qualifying child must meet five tests: relationship, age, residency (the member of household test), support, and joint return.

Relationship: Son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them (for example, a grandchild, niece, or nephew; an adopted child counts as your child).

Age: The child must be under 19 at the end of the tax year or under 24 at the end of the tax year if a full-time student, and in either case younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), or any age if permanently and totally disabled at any time during the year.

Member of household: A qualifying child must have lived with you for more than half the tax year. A qualifying relative must either live with you all year as a member of your household or be related to you in one of the ways that does not require living with you. Your home is any home where they regularly live; it does not have to be a “traditional” home. Note: A child who was born or died during the tax year is treated as having lived with you more than half the year if your home was the child’s home for more than half the time he/she was alive during the year.

Joint return test: A dependent cannot be married and file a joint return, unless the couple files jointly only to claim a refund of income tax withheld or estimated tax paid.

Example:

A married couple lives with one of the spouses’ parents. The parents pay practically all of the expenses of keeping up the home. Together the spouses earned $2,000 in wages from part-time jobs and had tax withheld. Neither is required to file, so if they file a joint return only to get a refund of the withheld tax, the parents can still claim them as dependents if all the other tests are met.

Support test: A qualifying child must not have provided more than half of his or her own support for the year. (For a qualifying relative, the taxpayer must have provided more than half of the person’s total support for the year.) Support includes food, shelter, and clothing. Benefits provided by the state (welfare, SNAP food benefits, housing) count toward the person’s total support but are generally treated as support provided by the state, not by you; TANF payments you receive and spend on another person count as support you provided. The support test considers all income, taxable and nontaxable. If the potential dependent has earnings but does not spend them on his or her own support (example: puts the earnings in a savings or other investment account), that money does not count as support; only funds actually spent for support count.

Other dependents

As a qualifying child, a child, grandchild, stepchild, niece, or nephew must have lived in your home for more than half the tax year; as a qualifying relative, a relative of this kind does not have to live with you at all. Cousins and unrelated individuals must have lived with you in your home for the entire year to qualify as your dependent if they meet the other tests; in-laws (son-, daughter-, father-, mother-, brother-, and sister-in-law) do not have to live with you. Parents do not have to meet the member of household test to qualify as your dependent. Your home is any home where they regularly live; it does not have to be a “traditional” home. There are special rules for dependents who receive support from multiple sources and for children of divorced or separated parents. See Form 2120 (multiple support declaration) and Form 8332 (custodial parent’s release of the claim to a child) for more details.

Gross income: The gross income test applies only to qualifying relatives, not qualifying children. A qualifying relative’s gross income must be less than the exemption amount ($5,200 for 2025, indexed for inflation each year; $5,300 for 2026). Gross income counts only income that isn’t exempt from tax, so it includes taxable social security benefits but not nontaxable ones. A qualifying child has no gross income limit, as long as the child doesn’t provide more than half of their own support.

Returns of dependents

Someone who can be claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer has a standard deduction of the larger of a) $1,350 or b) his or her earned income plus $450, but not more than the regular standard deduction ($15,750 for a single filer in 2025). Any amount above that the taxpayer will be taxable income.

A dependent child with both earned and unearned income must file a 2025 tax return if any one of the following conditions applies:

• Earned income is higher than $15,750
• Unearned income is higher than $1,350
• Earned income plus unearned income is more than the greater of $1,350 or earned income (up to $15,300) plus $450 (the $15,300 cap is the $15,750 standard deduction less $450)

Example:

Lorrie, a dependent child, has $3,700 earned income and $500 unearned income. Lorrie’s total income is $4,200. Lorrie must file an income tax return because her total income ($4,200) is greater than her earned income plus $450 ($4,150).

Reporting a child’s investment on a parent’s tax return

Form 8814 is used by parents to report a child’s investment income on their tax return. In contrast, Form 8615 is required, with the child’s own return, when a child’s unearned income is more than $2,700 (2025) and the child is subject to the kiddie tax. Form 8615 calculates and reports the tax due on the child’s investment income.

Kiddie tax

For 2025, a dependent child under age 18 at year-end (or age 18, or a full-time student age 19 through 23, whose earned income was not more than half of their own support) owes no tax on the first $1,350 of unearned income (offset by the standard deduction), pays tax at the child’s own rate on the next $1,350 (unearned income from $1,350 up to $2,700), and pays tax at the parent’s marginal rate on unearned income above $2,700. The kiddie tax applies whether or not the child is anyone’s dependent, as long as the child is required to file a return, at least one parent is alive at the end of the year, and the child doesn’t file a joint return. These threshold amounts are indexed for inflation each year. Refer to Form 8615 and the instructions for Form 8615 for more details.

Parents can instead elect, using Form 8814, to report their child’s interest and dividends directly on their own return rather than filing a separate return for the child. This election is related to, but distinct from, the kiddie tax above, which applies to most unearned income but not to a child’s salary or wages. The election is available only if the child’s only income was interest and dividends (including capital gain distributions and Alaska Permanent Fund dividends) and the child’s gross income was less than $13,500 (2025). See Form 8814 and the instructions for Form 8814 for more details.