Child Tax Credit 2026: amounts, refundability and income limits

$2,200 per qualifying child under age 17. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, P.L. 119-21) permanently raised the credit from $2,000 to $2,200 starting with tax year 2025, and made it inflation-adjusted going forward. For 2026 the inflation adjustment did not move the figure — the credit stays at $2,200 because the statutory rounding rule only bumps it in $100 increments once cumulative inflation clears the next one. Dependents who don't qualify as a "qualifying child" — for example a child aged 17 or older, or an elderly parent — can instead get the $500 nonrefundable Credit for Other Dependents (ODC).

Partly. Up to $1,700 per child is refundable as the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) — you can receive it even if you owe no federal income tax. The refundable amount is the smaller of three limits: the $1,700-per-child cap, 15% of earned income above $2,500, and whatever credit is left after your nonrefundable tax liability is offset. A filer with no earned income gets $0 of ACTC regardless of how many qualifying children they have.

The full credit phases out above $200,000 of AGI for single, head of household, married filing separately, and qualifying surviving spouse filers, and above $400,000 for married filing jointly. Above the threshold, the combined credit for all children is reduced by $50 for every $1,000 (or fraction of it) of AGI over the limit — not per child. A married couple with two children fully loses the $4,400 credit once AGI reaches $488,000.

Yes — for both the child and the taxpayer. OBBBA §70104(b) rewrote IRC §24(h)(7): no credit is allowed unless the return includes the qualifying child's Social Security number AND the taxpayer's own Social Security number (or, on a joint return, at least one spouse's). Both SSNs must be valid for employment and issued before the return's due date. A child with only an ITIN does not qualify for the Child Tax Credit, though they may still qualify a taxpayer for the $500 Credit for Other Dependents.

$500 per dependent who doesn't meet the Child Tax Credit's age/SSN tests — a child 17 or older, a college-age dependent, an elderly parent, or an ITIN-only child. It is entirely nonrefundable (it can reduce tax to zero but never generates a refund on its own) and shares the same $200,000 / $400,000 phase-out thresholds as the CTC.

No. Both years pay $2,200 per child with a $1,700 refundable cap — the 2026 inflation adjustment under IRC §24(i)(2) rounds to the next-lowest $100, and cumulative inflation since the 2025 base year hasn't been enough to clear that next $100 step yet. The phase-out thresholds ($200,000 / $400,000) and the $50-per-$1,000 phase-out rate are fixed dollar amounts set by statute, not indexed, so they never move on their own.

$2,000 per child with a $1,700 refundable cap for 2024, the last year of the pre-OBBBA Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) regime. TCJA's $2,000 credit and $200,000/$400,000 phase-out thresholds were scheduled to expire after 2025 and revert to the pre-2018 $1,000 credit with much lower phase-out thresholds. OBBBA §70104 instead made the higher structure permanent and raised the maximum to $2,200 starting in 2025.