Can I Claim Head of Household If My Child Is in College?

The Head of Household filing status offers tax benefits, including a higher standard deduction and more favorable tax brackets compared to filing as single. For the 2024 tax year, the standard deduction for a Head of Household is $21,900, a notable increase over the $14,600 for single filers. This status is designed for unmarried individuals who support a qualifying person. Many parents are uncertain if they can continue to claim this status when their child leaves home to attend college, a question that depends on specific Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules.

General Requirements for Head of Household Status

To qualify for the Head of Household filing status, the IRS outlines three primary tests that a taxpayer must meet. These criteria establish the taxpayer’s personal and financial circumstances for the tax year.

First, you must be unmarried or “considered unmarried” on the last day of the tax year. This means you are divorced, legally separated, or have lived apart from your spouse for at least the last six months of the year. Your marital status and living situation on December 31st is what determines eligibility.

Next, you must have paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year. These costs are the expenses required to run the household, including rent or mortgage interest, property taxes, home insurance, utilities like electricity and gas, repairs, and food consumed within the home.

Finally, a qualifying person must have lived with you in the home for more than half the year. This individual is typically a child or another dependent relative. The IRS provides a specific exception for temporary absences, which is particularly relevant for parents of college students.

Applying the Qualifying Child Test to a College Student

For a college student to be your “Qualifying Child” for Head of Household purposes, they must meet four distinct tests established by the IRS that address relationship, age, residency, and financial dependency.

The relationship test is straightforward; the student must be your son, daughter, stepchild, eligible foster child, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, stepbrother, stepsister, or a descendant of any of them. The age test requires the student to be under the age of 24 at the end of the tax year and enrolled as a full-time student for at least part of five calendar months during that year. A “full-time student” is defined by the school’s standards for a full course load.

The residency test is where the rules for college students become specific. A child is required to live with you for more than half the year, but the IRS allows for “temporary absences,” including time away for education. This means a student living in a dormitory or an off-campus apartment while attending university is still treated as living in the parent’s home, assuming they intend to return.

The final criterion is the support test. To be a qualifying child, the student cannot have provided more than half of their own financial support for the year. This calculation is distinct from the requirement of paying for the home and involves a detailed look at all sources of funding for the student’s expenses.

Calculating Financial Support for Your College Student

Determining whether your child provided more than half of their own support involves a calculation that considers all their living expenses for the year. This is based on the actual amount spent on support, not just the income the student earned. The total support figure includes costs for tuition and fees, lodging, food, clothing, medical care, transportation, and recreation.

To perform the calculation, you must compare the amount of support the student provided for themselves against the total support they received from all sources. Parental contributions count as support provided by you. Any money the student uses from their own earnings or personal savings is considered support they provided for themselves.

The treatment of educational funding is an important part of this analysis. Tax-free scholarships and grants that your child uses for support expenses do not count as support provided by the student. Conversely, funds from student loans taken out in the student’s name are considered support provided by the student, as they are legally responsible for the debt.

Imagine the total cost to support a student for a year is $30,000. If you paid $16,000, the student received a $5,000 tax-free scholarship, and the student took out $9,000 in their own name as a student loan. The student’s self-support is $9,000 from the loan. Since $9,000 is less than half of the $30,000 total support, the student did not provide more than half of their own support.

Documentation to Substantiate Your Claim

Should the IRS question your Head of Household filing status, maintaining thorough documentation is necessary. To prove you paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home, you should retain copies of documents that verify these expenses. This includes mortgage interest statements (Form 1098), property tax records, bank statements for rent payments, and utility bills.

You will need to document your child’s standing as a full-time student. Keep records from the university, such as an official transcript or a letter from the registrar’s office, that verify their full-time enrollment for at least five months of the calendar year.

Finally, you must have records to back up the support calculation. This includes receipts for tuition payments, bank statements showing financial transfers to your student, and records of major purchases made on their behalf. It is also wise to keep copies of your child’s W-2 form if they worked, along with award letters for any scholarships and documentation for any student loans they obtained.