Dependent: Medical Expense Deductions (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Dependent” within medical expense deductions. 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 502 (2025), Medical and Dental 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

You can generally include medical expenses you pay for yourself, as well as those you pay for someone who was your spouse or your dependent either when the services were provided or when you paid for them. There are different rules for decedents and for individuals who are the subject of multiple support agreements. See Support claimed under a multiple support agreement, later, under Qualifying Relative.

Dependent

You can include medical expenses you paid for your dependent. For you to include these expenses, the person must have been your dependent either at the time the medical services were provided or at the time you paid the expenses. A person generally qualifies as your dependent for purposes of the medical expense deduction if both of the following requirements are met.

1. The person was a qualifying child (defined later) or a qualifying relative (defined later).

2. The person was a U.S. citizen or national or a resident of the United States, Canada, or Mexico. If your qualifying child was adopted, see Exception for adopted child, later.

You can include medical expenses you paid for an individual that would have been your dependent except that:

1. The person received gross income of $5,200 or more in 2025;

2. The person filed a joint return for 2025; or

3. You or your spouse if filing jointly could be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s 2025 return.

Exception for adopted child.

If you are a U.S. citizen or national and your adopted child lived with you as a member of your household for 2025, that child doesn’t have to be a U.S. citizen or national or a resident of the United States, Canada, or Mexico.

Qualifying Child

A qualifying child is a child who:

1. Is your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, or a descendant of any of them (for example, your grandchild, niece, or nephew);

2. Was:

   1. Under age 19 at the end of 2025 and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly),

   2. Under age 24 at the end of 2025, a full-time student, and younger than you (or your spouse if filing jointly), or

   3. Any age and permanently and totally disabled;

3. Lived with you for more than half of 2025;

4. Didn’t provide over half of their own support for 2025; and

5. Didn’t file a joint return, other than to claim a refund.

Adopted child.

A legally adopted child is treated as your own child. This child includes a child lawfully placed with you for legal adoption.

You can include medical expenses that you paid for a child before adoption if the child qualified as your dependent when the medical services were provided or when the expenses were paid.

If you pay back an adoption agency or other persons for medical expenses they paid under an agreement with you, you are treated as having paid those expenses provided you clearly substantiate that the payment is directly attributable to the medical care of the child.

But if you pay the agency or other person for medical care that was provided and paid for before adoption negotiations began, you can’t include them as medical expenses.

Tip:

You may be able to take a credit for other expenses related to an adoption. See the Instructions for Form 8839, Qualified Adoption Expenses, for more information.

Child of divorced or separated parents.

For purposes of the medical and dental expenses deduction, a child of divorced or separated parents can be treated as a dependent of both parents. Each parent can include the medical expenses they pay for the child if:

1. The child is in the custody of one or both parents for more than half the year;

2. The child receives over half of the child’s support during the year from the parents; and

3. The child’s parents:

   1. Are divorced or legally separated under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance,

   2. Are separated under a written separation agreement, or

   3. Live apart at all times during the last 6 months of the year.

This doesn’t apply if the child’s dependency is being claimed under a multiple support agreement (discussed later).

Qualifying Relative

A qualifying relative is a person:

1. Who is your:

   1. Son, daughter, stepchild, or foster child, or a descendant of any of them (for example, your grandchild),

   2. Brother, sister, half brother, half sister, or a son or daughter of any of them,

   3. Father, mother, or an ancestor or sibling of either of them (for example, your grandmother, grandfather, aunt, or uncle),

   4. Stepbrother, stepsister, stepfather, stepmother, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law, or

   5. Any other person (other than your spouse) who lived with you all year as a member of your household if your relationship didn’t violate local law,

2. Who wasn’t a qualifying child (see Qualifying Child, earlier) of any taxpayer for 2025, and

3. For whom you provided over half of their support in 2025. But see Child of divorced or separated parents, earlier, Support claimed under a multiple support agreement next, and Kidnapped child under Qualifying Relative in Pub. 501.

Support claimed under a multiple support agreement.

If you are considered to have provided more than half of a qualifying relative’s support under a multiple support agreement, you can include medical expenses you pay for that person. A multiple support agreement is used when two or more people provide more than half of a person’s support, but no one alone provides more than half.

Any medical expenses paid by others who joined you in the agreement can’t be included as medical expenses by anyone. However, you can include the entire unreimbursed amount you paid for medical expenses.

Example.

You and your three siblings each provide one-fourth of your parent’s total support. Under a multiple support agreement, you treat your parent as your dependent. You paid all of your parent’s medical expenses. Your siblings repaid you for three-fourths of these expenses. In figuring your medical expense deduction, you can include only one-fourth of your parent’s medical expenses. Your siblings can’t include any part of the expenses. However, if you and your siblings share the nonmedical support items and you separately pay all of your parent’s medical expenses, you can include the unreimbursed amount you paid for your parent’s medical expenses in your medical expenses.

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

• Publication 502 (2025), Medical and Dental Expenses: Whose Medical Expenses Can You Include? — Dependent — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

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.