Earned Income Credit Calculator
The Earned Income Tax Credit is the largest refundable credit for working families, worth up to $8,046 for 2025 and $8,231 for 2026 for families with three or more children, yet one in five eligible workers misses it. This calculator estimates your federal EITC for tax year 2025 or 2026 from your filing status, qualifying children, and earnings, using the IRS phase-in and phase-out formulas, and it flags the investment-income limit that disqualifies people silently. New in this rebuild: an optional adjusted gross income field, because the IRS phases the credit out on the greater of AGI and earned income, and the old tool used earned income for both.
Estimate only: the IRS uses the greater of AGI and earned income and publishes the credit in income bands, so the official EITC table may differ by a few dollars. See IRS Publication 596 and the IRS EITC Assistant for the filing figure.
Quick Answer
For tax year 2025, a single filer with two qualifying children and $30,000 of earned income is past the $17,880 plateau, so the credit phases down from the $7,152 maximum: $7,152 minus 21.06 percent of the $6,650 above the $23,350 threshold equals $5,752. Investment income of $500 is safely under the $11,950 cap. The same filer in 2026, with the same income, would get $7,316 minus 21.06 percent of $6,110 above the $23,890 threshold, which is $6,029, because every 2026 parameter moved up under Revenue Procedure 2025-32.
Key takeaways
- It is refundable. The EITC can push your refund above what you paid in withholding, which is why it lifts millions of families above the poverty line each year.
- Three zones, one formula. The credit phases in with earnings, plateaus at the maximum, then phases out. Your zone decides whether earning more raises or lowers the credit.
- Investment income is a cliff. One dollar over the cap ($11,950 for 2025, $12,200 for 2026) disqualifies you entirely, regardless of wages.
- AGI can shrink the credit even when wages do not. The IRS phases out on the greater of AGI and earned income, so a low-wage year with a large capital gain can cut the credit. The optional AGI field in this tool models exactly that.
- Married filing separately is out. With a narrow exception for certain separated spouses, that status cannot claim the EITC at all.
How the EITC formula actually works
The IRS builds the credit in three zones. In the phase-in zone, each earned dollar adds a fixed percentage (7.65 percent with no children, up to 45 percent with three or more) until earnings hit the plateau amount. The credit then holds at the maximum across a band of incomes. Past the phase-out threshold, it shrinks by the phase-out rate until it hits zero at the income limit.
One subtlety the formula hides: the IRS applies phase-out to the greater of your AGI and your earned income, so a low-wage year with a big capital gain can shrink the credit. The old version of this tool used earned income for both, like most estimators, and stated that limit up front. This rebuild keeps the honesty and fixes the gap: leave the AGI field blank and it behaves as before, but enter a higher AGI and the phase-out uses the AGI. A concrete case: a single filer with two children, $20,000 of earned income, and $40,000 of AGI would sit in the plateau on earnings alone and expect $7,152 for 2025, but on the greater income the credit is $7,152 minus 21.06 percent of $16,650 above $23,350, which is $3,646. That $3,506 difference is exactly the trap the old tool could not show. The official IRS table works in income bands and may differ by a few dollars from this continuous formula, so treat every figure here as an estimate, not a filing figure.
2025 vs 2026: the maximum credits side by side
Inflation indexing moved every figure for 2026 under IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32. The structure is identical; the numbers are a few percent higher. All 2026 figures below were re-verified against that revenue procedure before drafting, and they match the live tool parameters exactly, which is why the tool parameters are retained unchanged.
| Qualifying children | 2025 max credit | 2026 max credit | 2026 single income limit | 2026 joint income limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | $649 | $664 | $19,540 | $26,820 |
| 1 | $4,328 | $4,427 | $51,593 | $58,863 |
| 2 | $7,152 | $7,316 | $58,629 | $65,899 |
| 3 or more | $8,046 | $8,231 | $62,974 | $70,244 |
The full parameter sets the tool uses, including phase-in rates and plateau amounts, are: for 2025, earned income amounts $8,490, $12,730, $17,880, and $17,880 for zero, one, two, and three or more children, with phase-out thresholds for single filers of $10,620, $23,350, $23,350, and $23,350, and for joint filers of $17,730, $30,470, $30,470, and $30,470; for 2026, earned income amounts $8,680, $13,020, $18,290, and $18,290, with single thresholds $10,860, $23,890, $23,890, and $23,890, and joint thresholds $18,140, $31,160, $31,160, and $31,160. Phase-out rates are 7.65 percent, 15.98 percent, 21.06 percent, and 21.06 percent in both years. The childless credit stays small and comes with extra rules: age 25 to 64, United States residence over half the year, and not anyone else dependent. To see how the credit changes your overall tax picture, the tax rate calculator estimates your effective rate, and to place your earnings in context the annual earned income calculator totals income from pay rates.
The three disqualifiers nobody warns you about
Beyond those three, the classic traps are claiming a child who does not meet the relationship, age, residency, and joint-return tests (the tiebreaker rules decide when two filers claim the same child), and copying the Child Tax Credit child count, which uses a different under-17 age cutoff. A further trap is timing: refunds that include the EITC cannot be released before mid-February under the PATH Act, so an early filing does not mean an early refund. And a prior disallowance can require Form 8862 before the credit can be claimed again, which no estimator can clear for you. If any of those apply, the estimate on this page is the starting point, not the filing answer, and the adoption credit calculator is the separate tool for adoption expenses, which follow different rules and must not be mixed into the EITC child count.
What EITC calculators get wrong
Weak estimators hard-code one tax year and go stale, or they ask for AGI without explaining that the IRS tests the higher of AGI and earnings. Many never mention the investment income cliff, which is the single most common silent disqualifier for self-employed filers and small landlords. Several competitors reviewed for this rebuild carry only a single year, omit the investment cap as a hard cutoff, or bury the AGI rule in prose without modelling it. This calculator carries both the 2025 and 2026 IRS parameter sets, enforces the investment cap as a hard disqualifier, and now models the greater-of-AGI-and-earnings phase-out directly through the optional AGI field, which is the gap the old version disclosed but could not compute. It also states the estimate limits up front: the IRS table works in income bands, so the filing figure may differ by a few dollars, and the childless age and residency tests are flagged rather than silently assumed away.
Frequently asked questions
A refundable federal tax credit for low- to moderate-income workers. For 2025 it is worth up to $8,046 for families with three or more children, and even childless workers can get up to $649.
Up to $8,231 with three or more children, $7,316 with two, $4,427 with one, and $664 with none, under IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32.
You need earned income, a valid Social Security number, and income under the limit for your filing status and family size. You cannot file married filing separately (with narrow exceptions for certain separated spouses), and investment income must stay under the cap.
Because the IRS phases the credit out on the greater of AGI and earned income. Enter your AGI in the optional field and the tool phases out on the higher figure, which is how a capital gain in a low-wage year can shrink the credit.
You lose the entire credit. The cap is a cliff, not a phase-out: $11,950 for 2025 and $12,200 for 2026, regardless of how low your wages are.
The IRS EITC table works in income bands, while this tool uses the continuous formula, so the filing figure may differ by a few dollars. Use Publication 596 and the IRS EITC Assistant for the figure you file.
Only one person can claim a given child for the EITC. The qualifying-child and tiebreaker rules decide who, and claiming a child who fails the relationship, age, residency, or joint-return tests is one of the most common reasons claims are denied.
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References
- IRS Publication 596: Earned Income Credit (EIC)
- IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32: Annual Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026, Section 4.06 (Earned Income Credit parameters)
- New York State Department of Taxation and Finance: Earned Income Tax Credit Parameters (federal 2025 and 2026 tables reproduced)
- IRS EITC Assistant and EIC Table (Form 1040 instructions): official filing figure in income bands