I have two qualifying dependent children and spent more than six thousand dollars on child care and related taxes. Why do I only have $1000 of eligible expenses?

[MinhT1]

Your child care expenses are limited to your earned income, or if you are filing jointly with your spouse, they are limited to the earned income of the lowest earner.

[Texas Roger]

Without knowing details about your tax situation, it is not possible to specifically answer your question. Look at this TurboTax article to see if it helps: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/family/the-ins-and-outs-of-the-child-and-dependent-care-tax-cre...

Make sure you have entered both children and the care providers information with the total amount paid to the care provider.  As you can see from the article, the percentage of total amount paid varies with your income amount. 

[Opus 17 · Accepted solution]

Did you have a dependent care FSA at work to pay for expenses pre-tax?  That would be listed on your W-2 in box 10.  If you had a $5000 FSA, that uses up your eligibility to also claim the dependent care credit.  Since the maximum expenses for the credit are $6000 with two or more children, a $5000 FSA would leave you with $1000 of leftover expenses to count toward the credit.