If you were eligible to receive the additional child tax credit, it was automatically added to line 28 of your Form 1040, and has been included in your refund.
Make sure you have entered your child as a dependent in My Info, and that you have entered the child's Social Security number. Careful— do not say that your child’s SSN is not valid for employment. If your child was born in 2024 make sure you said he lived with you the whole year. There is an oddly worded question that asks if the child paid over half their own support. Say NO to that question.
Have you entered income from working in 2024? If not, you will not receive an income tax refund based on having dependent children.
The maximum amount of the child tax credit is now $2000 per child; the refundable “additional child tax credit” amount is $1700. In order to get that credit, you have to have income from working.
Take the amount you earned from working. Subtract $2500. Multiply the rest by 15%. That is the additional child tax credit per child that you can get—- up to the maximum of $1700 per child. If the amount you earned from working was low, you will not get the full $1700 per child.
If your child is older than 16 at the end of 2024, you do not get the CTC. But you may still get the non-refundable $500 credit for other dependents instead.
Look at your 2024 Form 1040 to see the child-related credits you received
PREVIEW 1040
Child Tax Credit line 19
Credit for Other Dependents line 19
Earned Income Credit line 27
Additional Child Tax Credit line 28
You only get the "Additional" Child Tax Credit (ACTC) if you did not qualify for the full $2000 regular Child Tax Credit (CTC). For example, a filer, with one child, who's tax liability was $600 (less than $2000) might be eligible for $1400 ACTC. But, if his tax liability was $2000 or more, he would not be eligible for any ACTC and would not fill out form 8812.
The child tax credit (CTC) is limited to your tax liability. The CTC is a non-refundable credit and can only reduce your income tax to 0, It can not help you beyond eliminating your tax liability. But, if you have more than $2500 of earned income, some or all of it is usually given back to you thru the "Additional Child tax credit". That is, part of the CTC may be on line 28 of form 1040 (2021- 2024) instead of line 19. The ACTC is calculated on form 8812 and is basically 15% of your earned income over $2500. The ACTC is a maximum of $1700 (2024) ($1600 for 2023, $1500 for 2022) per child, not $2000.