I pay rent to live with my mom and her boyfriend does that count as supporting myself

[DavidS127]

It depends on who paid your other support costs.  But, the rent you pay goes toward the support test, i.e., whether you paid for more than half your support during the year.  

Your total support consists of the fair market value of your lodging (rent), your food, your utilities, your clothing, your education, your medical and dental not covered by insurance, your travel and recreation expenses, and your other expenses.  If you paid for more than half of the total of all that, you cannot be claimed as a dependent by another person.

[Carl]

Additionally, all that support you may claim to have provided yourself can only be paid for "BY YOU" two possible ways.

 - You had a W-2 job or were self-employed and *YOU* earned more than half of your support costs for the entire tax year.

 - You were the "PRIMARY" borrower on a *qualified* student loan and a sufficient amount from that loan was distributed to you to support any claims to providing more than half of your support.

Income from "any" "other" "source" is considered third party income and does not count for you providing your own support. This includes scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, money from parents, gifts from Aunt Mary, etc.

So if you are a college student with a job and lets say you earned $10K during the tax year. There is no possible way on this green earth that you provided more than half of your own support.