Who Qualifies as a Dependent for Tax Purposes?

Although the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has suspended the deduction for personal and dependency exemptions for tax years 2018 through 2025, taxpayers can still become eligible for other tax benefits related to qualifying dependents. These tax benefits include the earned income credit, child and dependent care credits, the head of household filing status, the child and additional child tax credits, and credits for other dependents. For tax purposes, dependents are either qualifying children or qualifying relatives of the taxpayer such as stepchild, brother, sister, or parent. Spouses do not qualify as dependents.1

This is an image of a diverse group of children, representing just some of the people that can be claimed as dependents on a taxpayer's IRS tax return.

Initial Criteria for Dependents

Whether the dependent is a child or another relative, all dependents must first pass these three tests:

Dependent Taxpayer Test: Simply put, dependents cannot claim dependents.2

Joint Return Test: A married person who filed a joint return cannot be a dependent.3

Citizen or Resident Test: A dependent must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. resident alien, U.S. national, or resident of Mexico or Canada. Foreign exchange students do not count, but adopted children who are none of the above can qualify if they are members of the household and meet all other dependency tests.

If the person in question meets all three of the above tests, the person must now meet either the qualifying child or qualifying relative test. Start with the qualifying child test, which has four components: relationship, age, and support.

Qualifying Child Test–Relationship, Age, and Residency

What is the relationship between the dependent and taxpayer?
I. Relationship Test:

The child must be the taxpayer’s daughter, son, stepchild, foster child, or a descendent (e.g., grandchild) of any of those OR the taxpayer’s sister, brother, half-sibling, step-sibling, or a descendent (e.g., nephew or niece) of any of those.

What is the age of the dependent and the taxpayer?
II. Age Test:

The child must be under the age of 19 at the end of the tax year and younger than the taxpayer and taxpayer’s spouse if filing jointly, OR under the age of 24 at the end of the tax year and a fulltime student as determined by the school for at least five months of that year, OR any age if permanently and totally disabled4 at any time during the tax year.

This image shows students who can be claimed as dependents later in their lives.
Where did the dependent live?
III. The Residency:

The residency test is fairly straightforward: the child must have lived with the taxpayer for more than half of the tax year in question, wherever the taxpayer regularly lives including, for example, one or more homeless shelters. There are, however, exceptions to this test. The taxpayer can include time periods when either the child or the taxpayer is temporarily absent due to work, school, illness, military service, or the like. If a child is born or dies during the tax year, the child must have lived with the taxpayer for more than half of the time the child was alive that year. See below for parents who live apart or are divorced or separated.

  1. For more complete information and explanations, please visit IRS materials. ↩︎
  2. A person is not a dependent if the person was not required to file a return or if the person only filed the return to claim a refund of withheld or estimated taxes. ↩︎
  3. If the joint return was filed to claim a refund, then the married person can be a dependent, but if the spouse had a filing requirement, then the married person cannot be claimed as a dependent. ↩︎
  4. The person cannot engage in any substantial gainful activity due to physical or mental condition and a doctor has determined that the condition has lasted or will last for a least a year or can lead to death. ↩︎