Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Estimator 2025

Estimate your 2025 Earned Income Tax Credit and check whether you likely qualify, based on earned income, AGI, filing status, and qualifying children.

The Earned Income Tax Credit estimator is built for working people on low and moderate incomes who may be leaving money on the table. Each year a large share of eligible workers — especially those without children, people who recently started or stopped working, and those filing for the first time — never claim the EITC because they assume they do not qualify. This tool is for anyone with wages or self-employment income who wants to see, in plain terms, whether their earnings and family size put them in range, and roughly how large the credit could be. It is particularly useful for single workers aged 25 to 64 with no children, who are often surprised they qualify at all, and for parents comparing how an extra child or a change in hours affects the credit.

The EITC is unusual because it rises with income before it falls. As you earn your first dollars, the credit phases in at a fixed rate per dollar of earned income: about 7.65% with no children, 34% with one child, 40% with two, and 45% with three or more. It climbs to a maximum — $649, $4,328, $7,152, or $8,046 in 2025 depending on the number of qualifying children — and holds at that plateau across a band of income. Above a threshold, it phases out at a set rate against the greater of your earned income or adjusted gross income, falling to zero at the published limit for your family size and filing status. The calculator runs all three stages and also enforces the hard rule that investment income above $11,950 disqualifies you entirely.

Take a single parent with one child, $15,000 of earned income and the same adjusted gross income, and no investment income. The phase-in rate of 34% on $15,000 would give about $5,100, but the credit is capped at the one-child maximum of $4,328, so the plateau applies and the estimate is $4,328. Because $15,000 is below the point where the one-child credit begins to taper, there is no reduction. If that same parent earned $40,000 instead, they would be into the phase-out band, and the credit would be reduced from $4,328 at roughly 15.98 cents per dollar above the threshold, leaving a smaller but still meaningful amount.

The federal EITC applies nationwide, but more than thirty states plus the District of Columbia offer their own earned income credits, usually calculated as a percentage of the federal amount — anywhere from around 3% to over 40%. A handful are refundable and a few are not. This estimator covers the federal credit only. If your state has its own EITC, you can often add a sizeable percentage on top, so it is worth checking your state's tax website once you know your federal figure.

• Believing you must have children to qualify. Workers aged 25 to 64 with no children can claim a smaller EITC.
• Stopping at gross wages. Self-employment income counts as earned income, but business losses and certain other items change the picture.
• Ignoring the investment-income limit. More than $11,950 of investment income in 2025 eliminates the credit entirely, regardless of earnings.
• Assuming more income is always better. Past the plateau, extra income reduces the credit, so a raise can slightly lower the EITC even as take-home rises.
• Forgetting that everyone on the return generally needs a valid Social Security number.

The EITC is claimed on your annual federal return; for 2025 that means filing in early 2026. By law the IRS cannot issue EITC refunds before mid-February, so even an early filer waits a little longer for that portion. If you qualified in a past year but never claimed it, you can usually file or amend within three years to recover it.

• EITC tables - IRS (retrieved 2026-06-09)