Child Tax Credit 2026: Why Both Parent and Child Now Need a Social Security Number

The Child Tax Credit is worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child for the 2026 tax year, with up to $1,700 of that refundable even if a family owes no federal income tax. But a 2025 law change — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) — tightened who can claim it in a way that matters for a lot of families, especially mixed-status households.

Under the current rules, both the taxpayer claiming the credit and the qualifying child must have a valid Social Security number that is valid for employment. This applies whether the family files jointly or separately, and it is a firmer requirement than it may have been under earlier versions of the credit, which is why it is worth double-checking even if a family has claimed the CTC in past years without issue.

This is a meaningfully different rule than the Earned Income Tax Credit's requirements. The federal EITC also requires an SSN, but several states extend their own state-level EITC to ITIN filers (people who file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number instead of an SSN, common among immigrants without work authorization) — California, Colorado, DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington all do this for their state credit, even though the federal EITC and federal CTC do not extend to ITIN filers.

In practice, this means a mixed-status family — for example, parents filing with ITINs and a child who has a Social Security number, or vice versa — needs to check both sides of the requirement carefully. Having a valid SSN for the child but not the taxpayer does not qualify for the federal CTC, and having one for the taxpayer but not the child does not either. Both are required.

The nonrefundable "Credit for Other Dependents" — a smaller $500 credit for dependents who do not qualify for the full CTC, such as a child over 17 or certain other relatives — was made permanent under the same law and has its own, separate eligibility rules. It is worth checking as a fallback if a family does not qualify for the full Child Tax Credit.