A table the IRS prints every year
Each season the IRS sets the credit in its annual inflation revenue procedure. For taxable years beginning in 2026 the four columns print four earned income amounts, four maximum credits and four phase-out windows - and this page uses those printed figures rather than a remembered formula.
The credit grows with earnings to the maximum at the earned income amount, then holds at that maximum until the phase-out threshold. With one qualifying child the maximum of $4,427 is reached at $13,020 of earned income, with two ($7,316) and with three or more ($8,231) at $18,290, and with none (just $664) at $8,680. Those printed points are what the table prices exactly.
The column that matters for a household is the one that matches its children: the maxima are small with no qualifying child, and the window they apply over is different for every column, which is why the credit cannot be guessed from a single remembered rate.
Where the phase-out starts, and where it ends
Above the threshold the credit is reduced for every dollar of income until it disappears at the completed phase-out amount. For 2026 the threshold is $23,890 for one, two or three or more children and $10,860 for none - on a joint return those become $31,160 and $18,140.
The income this is measured against is the larger of adjusted gross income and earned income on the return. This page applies the same test: enter an AGI higher than your earned income and the phase-out is measured against that AGI, so investment income or other AGI-boosting income lowers the credit here exactly as it does on the form.
Investment income over the limit disallows the credit
For 2026 the credit is not allowed at all once investment income passes $12,200. Taxable interest, ordinary dividends and capital gain distributions are counted, which is what stops the credit for a household whose income comes from a portfolio rather than from work.
The limit is not a phase-out: it is a switch. A dollar below it the whole table applies, and a dollar above it the credit is zero however much was earned from work, so the phase-out arithmetic is not even shown when the switch has toggled.
What this page leaves to the form
The credit has tests this page cannot see: the child has to meet the relationship, age and residency tests and have a Social Security number issued before the return due date, and a married couple generally has to file a joint return to claim it.
An estimate, not a return, and not tax advice. The credit is refundable, so it can come back even when it is larger than the tax owed. The page handles the AGI-versus-earned-income comparison and the investment income limit; the child tests, the joint-return requirement and the rest of the return are left to the form.
The filing status the table refuses to split
Every figure on this page is printed twice: once for a single or head-of-household filer and once for a joint return. The joint column is not a doubled single column - its threshold moves to $31,160 rather than $23,890 - and that is the whole reason filing status gets a field of its own instead of a multiplier.
Married filing separately is the case the table does not serve. A married couple generally has to file a joint return to claim the earned income credit, so there is no separate-return column to print, and the page does not invent one. Two earners comparing a joint return with two separate returns are comparing something this arithmetic cannot price at all.
The counterexample worth holding onto: two earners on $20,000 each. On a joint return the phase-out is measured against $40,000, above the $31,160 threshold, while each income on its own sits below it. Filing separately would put two credits on paper and legally produce none, which is the trap the joint column exists to avoid.
Danfio