A Child Tax Credit worth up to $2,200 for each qualifying child was claimed on more than 40 million families’ tax returns, the Treasury Department told Congress, putting a household count on a credit that Treasury describes as permanently doubled and expanded under the tax law President Trump signed. The figure came in the same written statement that reported a separate count of tax cuts aimed at tipped and hourly workers, but the child credit’s 40 million families stands on its own as a measure of how widely a family tax break is actually reaching filers rather than sitting unclaimed on a return.
A Credit Worth Up to $2,200 Per Child
The IRS’s Child Tax Credit page currently states the credit “is worth up to $2,200 per qualifying child,” available for a child who is “under 17 at the end of the tax year.” That figure is itself an increase: a separate IRS page on 2025 tax-law changes says “the maximum child tax credit has increased to $2,200 (up from $2,000) per eligible child,” effective starting with tax year 2025. The full $2,200 applies to filers with annual income “not more than $200,000 ($400,000 if filing a joint return),” and up to $1,700 of the credit per child can come back as a refund even for a family that owes little or no tax, provided the filer has “earned income of at least $2,500,” the IRS says. Every qualifying child also needs a Social Security number valid for employment, issued before the return’s due date. None of those thresholds are new for this filing season, but Treasury’s September 15 statement is the first time the agency has put a household count — rather than a total dollar amount — on how many returns actually used the credit.
What a refund with a child credit attached actually goes through: Treasury’s count shows the credit itself landed on more than 40 million returns, but a return that adds a refundable child-credit amount is also the kind of return that can trigger extra identity or income verification before the refund moves. See the notice decoder in The IRS Refund Recovery Kit.
Grandparents and Other Relatives Who Qualify
The credit is not limited to a filer’s own son or daughter. The IRS defines a qualifying child by relationship to the filer: “son, daughter, stepchild, eligible foster child, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, half-brother, half-sister, or a descendant of one of these (for example, a grandchild, niece or nephew),” according to the same IRS page. That relationship test means a grandparent, aunt, uncle or older sibling raising a child can claim the credit under the same rules as a parent, provided the child clears the IRS’s other tests: living with the filer “for more than half the tax year,” not providing “more than half of his or her own support,” being “claimed as a dependent” on that return, and not filing “a joint return for the year” of their own except to recover withheld tax. The child also has to be a “U.S. citizen, U.S. National or a U.S. resident alien.” Treasury’s 40 million figure does not break out how many of those returns came from a relative other than a parent, but the credit’s own eligibility rules do not exclude them.
Why the Full $2,200 Doesn’t Always Come Back as Cash
The credit works in two layers, and the difference matters for a family whose tax bill is already small. The first layer reduces whatever federal income tax a family owes, dollar for dollar, up to the full $2,200 per child; a family that owes less than that in tax does not get the unused portion refunded automatically. The second layer, the refundable Additional Child Tax Credit the IRS caps at “up to $1,700 per qualifying child,” exists specifically to get money back to a family with too little tax liability to use the full nonrefundable credit — but only once that family has “earned income of at least $2,500,” under the IRS’s own threshold. A retired grandparent claiming a grandchild on Social Security income alone, with no earned wages, would not clear that $2,500 earned-income floor for the refundable portion, even while still qualifying for the nonrefundable share of the credit against any tax owed.
Forty Million Families, Treasury’s Count
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave the family count in a statement submitted to the House Committee on Financial Services on September 15, 2026, writing that “more than 40 million families have claimed the permanently doubled and expanded Child Tax Credit.” The word “permanently” is doing real work in that sentence: unlike the enhanced deduction for seniors that Treasury reported in the same statement, which the IRS says runs only “effective 2025 through 2028,” Bessent’s statement does not attach an expiration to the $2,200 child credit, and the IRS’s own withholding-update page describes the $2,200 amount as a change effective from tax year 2025 forward rather than a temporary one. The same statement reports that “over 64 million tax returns claimed at least one” of four other tax provisions, a separate total that does not include the child credit figure. Treasury has not published a state-by-state or income-tier breakdown of the 40 million families, leaving the September 15 testimony as the only current source for the number.
What Happens After a Child Credit Return Is Filed
Treasury’s tally puts the child credit on tens of millions of returns this filing season, and a refundable share of that credit can come back as part of a refund even for a family with a small tax bill. That count stops at the claim; it says nothing about how long a refund carrying that credit takes to arrive once a return is filed, or what a “Where’s My Refund?” status message means when it stalls.
The IRS Refund Recovery Kit decodes those status messages and IRS notices, walks through the refund-trace steps under Form 3911 when a refund shows sent but never arrives, and tracks the three-year deadline for claiming a refund at all.
See the refund-trace steps in The IRS Refund Recovery Kit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
