Money & Benefits · Explainer
Child tax credit 2026: $2,200 per child
The 2025 tax law made the larger credit permanent and set it at $2,200. What that means on a 2026 return, who qualifies, and why part of it arrives in late February.
For eight years the child tax credit came with an expiry date. The larger credit created in 2017 was written to fall back to $1,000 per child after 2025, and every tax season carried a footnote about what would happen next. The 2025 tax law removed the footnote. It made the expanded credit permanent, set the amount at $2,200, and told the IRS to adjust it for inflation from 2026 onward.
The 2026 figure
The IRS's inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 state the amount directly: for taxable years beginning in 2026, the maximum credit under section 24(a) is $2,200 per qualifying child. The same document explains where the figure came from. Section 70104 of the 2025 law amended the credit to make the 2018-to-2025 expansion permanent and fixed the maximum at $2,200 for 2025, with inflation indexing after that. The first indexed year produced no change: the adjustment rounds to the nearest $100, and prices had not moved enough to lift it.
Tax year 2026 is the return you will file in early 2027. On the return filed in 2026, for tax year 2025, the credit was also $2,200, because the law applied its new figure to 2025 as well.
How much comes back as a refund
The credit first reduces the tax you owe. If it is larger than your tax, part of the difference can be paid to you as a refund; that part is called the additional child tax credit. For 2026 the refundable amount is capped at $1,700 per child, another figure set out in the same revenue procedure. The refundable portion is also limited by earned income: it is calculated as a percentage of what you earned above a floor, so a family with very little earned income may not receive the full $1,700 even though the child qualifies.
The distinction matters for timing. Any refund that includes the additional child tax credit is held by law until mid-February, as explained in Where's My Refund, explained. The IRS's refund timing page puts the point at which most early filers see an updated status at around February 21.
Who qualifies
A qualifying child for the credit must be under 17 at the end of the tax year, must be your dependent, and must have a Social Security number that is valid for employment. The child must generally have lived with you for more than half the year. Older dependents, and children without a Social Security number, do not qualify for the $2,200 credit but may qualify for the smaller credit for other dependents, which the 2025 law also made permanent at $500.
The credit begins to phase out when modified adjusted gross income passes $200,000, or $400,000 on a joint return. Those thresholds are part of the 2017 expansion that the 2025 law made permanent, and they are not indexed, so over time more households will meet them.
What did not change
The credit is still claimed on the return, with the child's Social Security number, and the IRS still matches that number against its records. There are no advance monthly payments of the kind paid in 2021; that was a one-year program and the 2025 law did not revive it. And the earned-income floor for the refundable portion remains, which is why two families with the same number of children can receive different amounts back.
Checking the figures for yourself
Every number on this page is in the revenue procedure or on the IRS's page describing the 2025 law's provisions. The tax figures tracker carries the credit alongside the brackets, the standard deduction and the earned income credit for 2026, and will carry the 2027 figures when the IRS publishes them in the fall.
What to do
- Check the 2026 figure and the other inflation-adjusted amounts on the tax figures tracker. Official link
- If most of your credit will come back as a refund, plan for late February rather than the week you file. Official link
- Use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator if the credit changed your position from owing to refund; it reflects the new law. Official link
Questions readers ask
- How much is the child tax credit for 2026?
- $2,200 per qualifying child under 17 for tax year 2026, from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32. Part of it can be refunded as the additional child tax credit even if you owe no tax.
- Who counts as a qualifying child?
- A child under 17 at the end of the year with a valid Social Security number, who is your dependent, lived with you for more than half the year and did not provide more than half of their own support. The IRS instructions set out each test.
- Why is my refund with the child tax credit held until mid-February?
- Federal law bars the IRS from issuing refunds that include the additional child tax credit or the earned income credit before mid-February, so that it can check the claims. Most of those refunds show a status by the third week of February.
Filed under: Tax brackets and retirement limits, 2026
Mentioned:Internal Revenue Service
How we reported this
Built from 3 primary documents linked in the Source Card. Every number was copied from the document, not from another outlet.
Written by Mirza Seraj Baig · Reviewed by Akbar Ali, Chartered Accountant (ICAI); reviewer, Money & Benefits desk on September 4, 2026 · Checked against the documents in the source card (editorial standards).