There are three relevant tests — residency, support, and full-time student status.
It sounds like your daughter meets the full-time student requirement, if she was a full-time college student for at least one day in at least five different months of 2021. So if she was a student in the spring semester, from January through May, she qualifies as a full-time student to be claimed as a dependent.
For the support test, for you to claim her as a dependent, it must be true that she paid less than half her overall living expenses for the year. You have to consider her living expenses for the whole year and how much support she provided herself. Her living expenses include her last semester of tuition, room and board, travel, entertainment, medical expenses and insurance, and so on. If she lived with you rent free, then you are considered to have provided support in the form of room and board. If she took out student loans in her name, that that counts as support she provided herself, even though she will pay the loans back later. You need to add up her total living expenses and determine how much of her own living expenses she paid, if it is less than half, then she qualifies to be claimed as a dependent.
The residency test asks whether she lived in your home more than half the year. Being away at college is usually considered a temporary absence and the student is usually considered to live at home with their parents. But there are exceptions, such as if the student moves out of their parents house permanently and establishes their own apartment with a partner or other permanent living arrangement. You will have to determine for how many days of the year the student can be considered to “live with you.”
If the person is a full-time student, did not provide more than half their own support, and did live with you more than half the year, you can claim them as a dependent.
