 TITLE: Who Qualifies as a Dependent for Taxes? CONTENT: The Two Types of Qualifying Tax Dependents\n------------------------------------------\nChildren and relatives can qualify as tax dependents—but their definitions are broader than you may suspect.\nIn addition to your birth child or an adopted child, your foster child, siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings (along with all the siblings' descendants) can be qualifying children. And your son-in-law, mother-in-law, parents, grandparents and in-laws could all be qualifying relatives.\nA person doesn't even need to be a relative to count as a qualifying relative. A girlfriend, boyfriend or roommate could be your dependent as long as the person is a member of your household for the entire year and meets all the other requirements.\nThe IRS' Publication 17, chapter 3, has a complete list of which relationships can qualify someone as a child or relative for dependent purposes.\nIn addition to the relationship requirement, the qualifying child or qualifying relative has to pass a series of \"tests.\"\n### Qualifying Children\nThere are four tests for qualifying children:\n1.  The child must be 19 or younger at the end of the tax year and younger than you (and your spouse if you file a joint return). Qualifying children can be up to 24 years old if they're also full-time students for at least five months of the year, or they can be any age if they're permanently and totally disabled.\n2.  The child has to live with you for at least half the year. There are exceptions for temporary absences, such as when you or the child are away from home for school, business, vacation or military service.\n3.  The child can't provide more than half of his or her own support during the year (scholarships don't count as support).\n4.  The child can't file a joint tax return unless the only reason for filing is to get back the taxes that were withheld from his or her pay or were part of estimated tax payments.\nThe rules for who can claim a qualifying child can get fairly complex when both parents can claim the child as a dependent but they aren't married, or they file their tax returns using the married filing separately status.\nSome parents switch off, letting one person claim the child one year and the other parent claim the child the next. The IRS also has an official series of tiebreaker rules (see page 30 of Publication 17) to determine who can claim the child if you can't come to an amicable agreement.\n### Qualifying Relatives\nThere are three additional tests for your qualifying relatives:\n1.  The person can't be anyone's qualifying child.\n2.  The person's gross income must be below $4,150. Income could include money, property, goods or services they received, and it may include Social Security benefits. However, there are exceptions for people with disabilities who received income from certain tax-exempt schools.\n3.  You have to provide more than half of the person's support for the year.\nIf working through all the tests sound like too much work, you could also try the IRS' interactive tool, which can help you determine if you can claim someone as a dependent. END