Why did I only receive additional child tax credit for my second child instead of full child tax credit?

[Vanderjake]

When both my children fully qualified under the 7 requirements?

[DawnC]

Are you talking about the stimulus payment or your 2019 tax return?   How old were your two children on December 31, 2019?

[Hal_Al · Accepted solution]

Your income is too low.  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 18b of form 1040 (2019 version) instead of line 13a (lines 17 and 12 in 2018).   The  ACTC is calculated on form 8812 and  is basically 15% of your earned income over $2500. The ACTC is a maximum of $1400 per child (not $2000).