What this line means
A yes-or-no question: was the child under age 24 at the end of the tax year, a full-time student for at least five months during the year, AND younger than you (or your spouse, if filing jointly)? All three conditions must be true. A full-time student is someone enrolled for the number of hours or courses the school considers full-time attendance.
Does this apply to you?
- You have a child aged 19 through 23 who attended college, university, or trade school full-time
- You have a child who was enrolled full-time at a secondary school (high school) and is 19 or older
- You are claiming a younger sibling or niece/nephew who is a full-time student under 24
- You have a child who took a gap semester but was still enrolled full-time for at least five months total
Easy to overlook
Five months do not need to be consecutive The five-month enrollment requirement counts any five calendar months during the tax year, not five consecutive months. A student who was full-time from January through March (three months) and again from September through November (three months) has six qualifying months — well over the five-month minimum. Filers whose children took a semester off sometimes assume the student test fails because of the gap. 1 IRS Publication 596 — Full-time student definition for EIC
Trade schools and vocational programs count Full-time enrollment is not limited to four-year colleges. Trade schools, technical institutes, and vocational programs qualify if the institution considers the student full-time. On-the-job training programs do not count. The school determines what “full-time” means — if the school says 12 credit hours is full-time, a student taking 12 hours qualifies. 2 IRS Schedule EIC instructions — Line 4b
Watch out for this
Checking “Yes” for a child who was enrolled full-time but turned 24 before December 31. The age test is based on the child’s age on the last day of the tax year. A child who was 23 and a full-time student all year but turned 24 on December 15 does not pass line 4b. If the child is permanently and totally disabled, line 4c applies regardless of age.
Footnotes
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IRS Publication 596, Earned Income Credit (EIC), Full-Time Student Test. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p596.pdf ↩
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IRS Schedule EIC (Form 1040) Instructions, Line 4b. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040seic ↩