If you meet the qualifications below, you can be Head of Household. If you are the custodial parent (see below), you do not need an agreement that entitles you to claim the children.
You may be able to file as head of household if you meet all the following requirements.
- You are unmarried or considered unmarried on the last day of the year. See Marital Status , earlier, and Considered Unmarried , later.
- You paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year.
- A qualifying person lived with you in the home for more than half the year (except for temporary absences, such as school). However, if the qualifying person is your dependent parent, he or she doesn't have to live with you. See Special rule for parent , later, under Qualifying Person.
Qualifying Person
See Table 4 to see who is a qualifying person. Any person not described in Table 4 isn't a qualifying person.
Custodial parent and noncustodial parent. The custodial parent is the parent with whom the child lived for the greater number of nights during the year. The other parent is the noncustodial parent.
If the parents divorced or separated during the year and the child lived with both parents before the separation, the custodial parent is the one with whom the child lived for the greater number of nights during the rest of the year.
A child is treated as living with a parent for a night if the child sleeps:
- At that parent's home, whether or not the parent is present, or
- In the company of the parent, when the child doesn't sleep at a parent's home (for example, the parent and child are on vacation together).
Equal number of nights. If the child lived with each parent for an equal number of nights during the year, the custodial parent is the parent with the higher adjusted gross income (AGI).
