Why did I only get 400 and something back for my child tax credit instead of the full amount? My child is only two and my gross income was only 3,214.

[Hal_Al]

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 & 2022) 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 $1500 per child (not $2000).

The more generous, covid era, CTC/ACTC, is no longer effective. 2022 is back to the “old rules”.

$3214 - 2500 = 714.  714 x 15% = $107 ACTC

[Critter-3]

The balance of the refund is probably EIC ... please look at the form 1040 to see what your refund consists of.

On another note ... if you made less than $4400  then you and the child could be dependents of another person so if you live with someone else who is supporting you and the child (and are related to you and/or the child)  maybe they should be claiming at least the child if not both of you to make better use of the CTC.