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Care of a Qualifying Person: Child and Dependent Care Tax Benefits (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Care of a Qualifying Person” within child and dependent care tax benefits. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 503 (2025), Child and Dependent Care Expenses, published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Context for these rules

Child and dependent care expenses must be work related to qualify for the credit. Expenses are considered work related only if both of the following are true.

  • They allow you (or your spouse if filing jointly) to work or look for work.

  • They are for a qualifying person's care.

Care of a Qualifying Person

To be work related, your expenses must be to provide care for a qualifying person.

You don't have to choose the least expensive way of providing the care. The cost of a paid care provider may be an expense for the care of a qualifying person even if another care provider is available at no cost.

Expenses are for the care of a qualifying person only if their main purpose is the person's well-being and protection.

Expenses for household services qualify if part of the services is for the care of qualifying persons. See Household Services, later.

Expenses not for care.

Expenses for care don't include amounts you pay for food, lodging, clothing, education, and entertainment. However, you can include small amounts paid for these items if they are incidental to and can't be separated from the cost of caring for the qualifying person. Otherwise, see the discussion under Expenses partly work related, later.

Child support payments aren't for care and don't qualify for the credit.

Education.

Expenses for a child in nursery school, preschool, or similar programs for children below the level of kindergarten are expenses for care.

Expenses to attend kindergarten or a higher grade aren't expenses for care. Don't use these expenses to figure your credit.

However, expenses for before- or after-school care of a child in kindergarten or a higher grade may be expenses for care.

Summer school and tutoring programs aren't for care.

Example 1.

You send your 3-year-old child to a nursery school while you work. The nursery school provides lunch and a few educational activities as part of its preschool childcare service. The lunch and educational activities are incidental to the childcare, and their cost can't be separated from the cost of care. You can count the total cost when you figure the credit.

Example 2.

You are a member of the Armed Forces, and you are ordered to a combat zone. To be able to comply with the order, you place your 10-year-old child in a boarding school. Only the part of the boarding school expense that is for the care of your child is a work-related expense. You can count that part of the expense in figuring your credit if it can be separated from the cost of education. You can't count any part of the amount you pay the school for your child's education.

Care outside your home.

You can count the cost of care provided outside your home if the care is for your dependent under age 13 or any other qualifying person who regularly spends at least 8 hours each day in your home.

Dependent care center.

You can count care provided outside your home by a dependent care center only if the center complies with all state and local regulations that apply to these centers.

A dependent care center is a place that provides care for more than six persons (other than persons who live there) and receives a fee, payment, or grant for providing services for any of those persons, even if the center isn't run for profit.

Camp.

The cost of sending your child to an overnight camp isn't considered a work-related expense.

The cost of sending your child to a day camp may be a work-related expense, even if the camp specializes in a particular activity, such as computers or soccer.

Example 1.

You send your 9-year-old child to a summer day camp while you work. The camp offers computer activities and recreational activities such as swimming and arts and crafts. The full cost of the summer day camp may be for care and the costs may be a work-related expense.

Example 2.

You send your 10-year-old child to a math tutoring program for 2 hours per day during the summer while you work. The cost of the tutoring program isn't for care and the costs are not considered work-related expenses.

Transportation.

If a care provider takes a qualifying person to or from a place where care is provided, that transportation is for the care of the qualifying person. This includes transportation by bus, subway, taxi, or private car. However, transportation not provided by a care provider isn't for the care of a qualifying person. Also, if you pay the transportation cost for the care provider to come to your home, that expense isn't for care of a qualifying person.

Fees and deposits.

Fees you paid to an agency to get the services of a care provider, deposits you paid to an agency or preschool, application fees, and other indirect expenses are work-related expenses if you have to pay them to get care, even though they aren't directly for care. However, a forfeited deposit isn't for the care of a qualifying person if care isn't provided.

Example 1.

You paid a fee to an agency to get the services of the nanny who cares for your 2-year-old daughter while you work. The fee you paid is a work-related expense.

Example 2.

You placed a deposit with a preschool to reserve a place for your 3-year-old child. You later sent your child to a different preschool and forfeited the deposit. The forfeited deposit isn't for care and therefore not a work-related expense.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

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