topic why aren't my biological children who've lived with me 100% of the year being classified as my dependents? in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

why aren't my biological children who've lived with me 100% of the year being classified as my dependents?

dayoung — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:09:20 GMT

This is the first time I've ever entered my children in turbotax where none of them are being counted as my dependents. Is this a known bug, or something else?

Re: why aren't my biological children who've lived with me 100% of the year being classified as m...

KrisD15 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:12:58 GMT

No, not a bug, but people seem to get tripped up with the question

"Did the child supply half their own support?"

You need to answer "No" if the child did not pay for more than half their own support.

I think people read it as asking if the parent supplied the support.

But it is asking if the CHILD paid for themselves.

Please select EDIT for the dependents and go back through that interview carefully.

Re: why aren't my biological children who've lived with me 100% of the year being classified as my dependents?

VolvoGirl — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:13:18 GMT

Did any turn 17 last year? Then you lose the Child Tax Credit and only get the credit for Other Dependent.

There are a couple questions you could have answered wrong under My Info. Click on My Info then click Edit by Dependents, then click Edit by their name and go though all the screens again.

First of all check their date of birth. Also you need to enter a ssn for them. And say their ssn is valid for employment.

If your child was away at college, count the number of months away as having lived with you. The correct answer to claim the person is to say "the whole year". This will indicate you supported the person the whole year, thus it will be entered on your return correctly showing up as a dependent.

Or if your child was born during the year they are considered to have lived with you the whole year so be sure to answer All Year (pick the top box for the Whole Year).

Or the one that says did your CHILD pay more than half of their support. It's not asking if you did.

If you can't get it to change then try completely deleting them and re-entering them. Sometimes that helps to clear something out.